Perceptual confliction, our internal awareness vs our external awareness

I am on the final part of my data collection, where I take all of the feedback, reflection diaries and videos, reflect on the experience with student understanding, authenticity and physical thinking to develop a more authentic embodied understanding of a structured dance examination. 

Throughout this process, and I'm sure through analysis I will discover and reflect on varied meaning and interpretation, influenced by my perception, experience vs another individual's experience. It was very interesting to meet with my examiner, and receive feedback. Initially I was nervous for this as it is usually a judged process. You perform, they assess, they provide their opinion and judgement against the criteria given. But this process was very different, it allowed me to ask questions in a synchronic way, comparing our experiences, one of the dancer and one of the audience. 

Throughout the discussion, I realised I had more of a perceptive understanding of the style, that initially I had thought. The examiner would comment on my technique, performance and embodiment and for example when discussing the fluidity of movement and expression in specific exercises, I had felt quite a stagnant and rigid feeling when performing, but the examiner had seen something different. This has raised questions for me of how the our somatic understanding can influence our awareness of the situation. Can we perceive something differently internally to what is perceived from another perspective?

However, when performing in the exam, there was a lovely free and expressive jump phrase, focusing on ginner skips and flying skips. When performing this I felt I was jumping light, springing into the air. However, when we both watched it back, this was not the case. There were moments during the performance where there was a bound feeling. But what I experienced when I was reflecting on the exercise, showed heaviness and restrictive movement. With majority of my feedback focusing on the anatomical aspects, discussing the imagery of lengthening and lifting. I soon realised my pre conceived perception of technique had put me into an aesthetical perspective, with the focus on the technique of the exercise. Although I had worked hard to reexperience somatic feeling when moving, the nature of set exercises had forced me into the graded mindset. This has raised questions on what we perceive when moving, opposed to what we are cognitively aware. The nature of our mindset and how this affects our practical understanding is important. 

I have decided to now re-learn the exercises from a teacher perspective, moulding the way I deliver the exercises to support the purpose of the style. Myself and the examiner discussed the progressive nature of Classical Greek Dance, the more you dance the more you discover and learn about the purpose and intention of the syllabus. I have decided in true Ruby Ginner style, to experience the next part of data outdoors, to experience an authentic connections with nature, to promote expression and a real understanding of the mythology of the exercises, to achieve the same outcomes a graded examination would expect, but experiencing in a much more deeper and somatic way.