Читать книгу Mudras of Indian Dance - Revital Carroll - Страница 4

How to Use This Deck

The hands in their basic resting form—open and relaxed—represent the realm of pure potential. This potential is neutral. You can select what you want to manifest by performing any number of mudras after taking a moment of stillness with the hands in their natural position.

Since performing mudras is like a yoga session for your hands, it is good idea to take a little time to warm up the fingers and wrists before beginning to work with the mudras.

Warming Up

Take a deep breath in and hold your breath. Clap the hands together firmly three times, hard enough so that they sting a little bit. Exhale slowly through the mouth and resume natural breathing. Then, rub the hands together vigorously for about one minute, or until they feel very warm. Make sure to rub the palms and tops of the hands and fingers, warming the hands on all sides, even between the fingers. This easy warm-up will improve blood circulation to the hands and fingers, make the joints feel more supple and strong, and increase your sensitivity to the energy generated through your mudra practice.

Wrist Rotations

Hold your hands comfortably in front of your chest and rotate the wrists 16 or more times in one direction and 16 or more times in the opposite direction. This will lubricate your wrist joints and open the flow of energy to the hands and fingers, facilitating ease of articulation.

Tips for Practicing Dance Mudras

1.Awareness: Use your mind to send energy into your hands. Become aware of each finger and part of your hands, wrists, and your entire body. Activating the energy in your hands will in turn activate the corresponding energy in your body and will make your entire being feel more alive and awake.

2.Form: While practicing the various hand gestures, articulate the precise form as described to the best of your ability. Bear in mind that we all have slightly different body proportions, and our anatomical differences will reflect in the unique variations of our hand gestures.

3.Essence: You will notice each mudra has a single word attributed to it on the front of the card. This is a playful and intuitive way of connecting with a primary quality of each mudra. You can select a card based on its single word essence and then use the corresponding mudra to activate that quality.

4.Application: Some mudras have many more meanings and usages than others. These are traditional ways a mudra is used in Indian dance according to the ancient texts: the Natya Shastra, Abhinaya Darpana, Sri Hasta Muktavali, and others. Keep in mind, dance is a living tradition, and the various styles of Indian dance might interpret the mudras differently. Use the given applications as a starting point and allow your own creativity to guide you in applying the mudras in the ways that touch you and are relevant to your intention.

5.Placement: Dance hand gestures are usually held at least a hand’s distance away from your body in order to facilitate connectedness in movement and grace in posture. Often, the dance gestures are held at a right angle to the arm, with the elbows lifted, arms parallel to the ground, and wrists bent. Holding the hand gestures in this manner is pleasing to the eye and arouses an unobstructed flow of creative energy to the hands and fingers. While using a mudra to convey a specific meaning, the placement of a gesture in relation to your body is critical.

6.Origin: To provide context and greater understanding of the relationship between mudras and the larger sphere of Indian spiritual culture, we included mythological, spiritual, or energetic background information about each mudra.