The warming

In this short video, I explain how I start a class through a series of routines, including a warm-up, and I share with you some of the strategies that work for me.
When students arrive in the classroom for the movement session, it’s very important that they have already established a set of routines so that everyone knows what to do when the class begins, helping them feel more secure. This sense of security is essential when working with the body, as we express ourselves and reveal a part of ourselves through it. To be fully present, we need a safe and trusting environment, and routines and habits are very helpful in this regard.
Entering the classroom, taking off our shoes and going to sit in our place to warm up, a place that is not random but responds to the order we occupy in the classroom taking into account the moment in which we have come into life, the day on which we were born and that makes us unique and unrepeatable people.
I understand the warm-up as a “moving meditation,” whose objective is to prepare the body for the session, but also to cultivate active listening to one’s own body and breath, to become aware of posture, and above all, to give oneself a few minutes to be with oneself. We begin seated on the floor, feeling the sit bones and aligning the back with the pelvis; we rub our bodies, make movements to feel the different joints, coordinate breathing with movements, do stretches… It is a series of movements that are repeated session after session so that participants become familiar with them and can be more attentive to their bodies than to the movements the instructor proposes.
In this short video, I also explain some strategies I use when we start the class and some students have difficulty following the initial guidelines. I also show you in a practical way the series of movements I use, which can serve as a guide. However, I suggest you create your own series of movements, in which you feel comfortable, whether sitting on the floor, in a chair, or standing.
I have applied these contents for 20 years within the framework of a unique center project, linked to dance and movement, in a public school of early childhood and primary education in Vallès Occidental, more specifically in Sabadell.