Feet

Feet
 
 I have started to think and work with my feet during the Movement Studies class with Katye Coe in November. The very first notice of it was thinking about softness, finding soft surfaces of the foot by massaging it, also thinking about wrinkles; noticing how do they move, moving toes, spreading it, pointing the foot, putting it on the floor and noticing how it feels like; coming up to standing, moving around by walking, running forwards, backwards, from one site to another, including jumping. Exploring all possible ways to move it finding softness was the most important thing I was looking for. After that particular class I started to work with my feet softness and articulation in order to find better movement quality, the best ways to find a support in movements and to avoid injuries. The other, but probably the most important reason why I pay so much attention to it was my parallel position, which I found not as correct as I'd like to, I found it slightly opened, especially trying to find it without looking. It made me concentrate on it and find ways to sort it out.
This is a picture from my Artist journal where I made some notes after that particular class:

During Anatomy classes I explored my feet more and more, worked with articulation of it and softness, and mostly with my parallel position. These photos are taken from my artist journal after anatomy class with Katye Coe, when we worked with our feet. We mostly were thinking about 3 places of printing foot, softness, keeping it warm and articulation. Then I noticed some results coming in my body - I found my standing slightly changing by getting used to clear parallel position. I also thought about how high heels can give bad influence for our feet and lower legs, that's why I draw it.

Later on, I researched some information about anatomy of the foot. The human foot and ankle is a strong and complex mechanical structure containing more than 26 bones, 33 joints (20 of which are actively articulated), and more than a hundred muscles, tendons, and ligaments - that was the very basic information that I found about the foot, but I didn't stop exploring it. I also researched about the important structures of the foot, which include bones and joints, ligaments and tendons, muscles, nerves. That gave me a better understanding of the image, structure and functions of it. I also found some really clear images to get a better understanding:

Helped by some people from my course, I took some videos of some exercises I was working on with my feet and "stamps" of my parallel position. I also asked them for a feedback, which I really respect and pay attention to.

1. This is how I imagine  that I am in parallel position without looking, only sensing.

 2.This is how my parallel position actually should look like.

Having all this information and experience I already can see my own development and knowledge. I find that I can change some habitats into a better way, talking about my paralele position, softness and articulation in my feet. However, I still have to improve it. Although, I can not forget the thing, that my paralele position will be correct only as long as I keep my hips, knees and toes in the straight line, and that anatomically feet are very slightly opened even standing in paralele, so I have to avoid overdoing and be very attentive in order to find that straight line and that very little opening at the same moment.
I found working in a group very useful, because people around help you to do things you couldn't do alone in order to explore more and see yourself development. Getting feedback is another good thing to keep going directly. A glance from side usually is useful to actual evaluation.

In addition, there are some pictures of feet and foot prints, that shows my thoughts about feet articulation and quality of movement and what is the relationship with a ground, the adaption of the foot to the floor; the support of the ground that feet take, the parts of the foot. I find it quite interesting, because reading about the foot structure in the Dance Kinesiology book (by Sally Sevey Fitt, Schirmer book's second edition) I found that the inside part of the foot actually takes more weight because of the big toe is the strongest one and takes about 25% of weight, other 50% goes towards heel and the other 25% split thru other toes and the rest part of the foot; standing on toes and giving more weight for the inside side of foot and giving more weight on the big toe helps to keep good alignment as good posture considering that in that way we get the straight line between hip,knee, ankle and toes; in other way we could get injured because weight goes on the ankle.