Our sense-itive skin.

DanielleEastman
7 days ago
4 min read

Updated: 6 days ago

Hello, beautiful dancer!

Thanks so much for a beautiful exploration into novelty & familiarity these past few weeks. I lovvvvved how our novelty week reminded me of excitement, possibility, and how incredibly free we really are. I loved how our routine week reminded me of the supportiveness of structure, and the mental spaciousness & ease that habits and familiarity provide. Ahhhhhh..... such good stuff!

This week, we're gonna dive into something totally different: sensing the world with your sense-itive skin.

Friend, I cannot wait to explore this with you! I don't think I've focused on sensing my skin in this way in quite some time.

The big question this week:

What happens when tune into our skin as a sensor?

For most of my life, I related to my skin simply as a border, a boundary. I thought of it as what keeps me in, and what keeps whatever's not me out. :) But although it is definitely protective in nature, our skin has another really important function too: sensory input.

Over the years, we've explored our skin in a variety of ways in class, and I'm so grateful. I love how our practice helps me to appreciate, respect, and befriend my body more and more, each and every dance.

This week as dance, we're going to tune into our skin's role as a sensor --a major way we sense (gather information about) and connect with the world around us.

Our amazingly sense-itive skin.

Researchers estimate that our skin contains millions of sensory receptors.There are 5 major types:

1. Mechanoreceptors - these sense touch, pressure, and vibration. We have roughly 200,000-300,000 spread throughout our body. Many are packed in areas like our hands, but they're also spread out throughout the rest of our body, and help us to feel things like a hug or the strength of the breeze.

2. Thermoreceptors - these sense temperature. We have 30,000-50,000 of these, spread out widely across the body (but also more densely in the face).

3. Nociceptors - these sense pain. We have roughly 1-2 million of these babies. They are incredibly dense, as pain is so critical for sensing in terms of survival. They sense pains from injuries such as cuts, burns, irritants, or chemicals.

4. Pruriceptors - these sense itch. They are a specialized type of nociceptor that specifically are on the hunt for itch. We don't have as many of these - somewhere in the tens of thousands.

5. Hair Follicle Receptors - sense air movement. These puppies help us feel things like a breeze on our arm, as well as notice when our hair stands up (i.e, those goosebumps --or truthbumps-- when a really moving part of song comes on; or when someone says something that resonates deeply). It's estimated that we have 100,000 or so of these receptors in our scalp, and another 100,000 or so spread throughout our body.

All together, we have somewhere between 1.5-3 million sensory receptors in our skin!

Isn't that amazing?

Sense-ational aliveness

That brings us back to our question: what happens if we really tune into these amazing little sensors in our skin?

According to cognitive science, our body processes: 11 million bits of information per second.

11 million.

Per second!

But, get this: we're only consciously aware of ~40-50 bits per second.

Isn't that wild?

Our body is taking in 11 million bits of information (via our many senses), but (on average) we're only conscious of 0.0004 percent of it.

This week, we're going to practice focusing more of our awareness toward sensing our skin.

As we dance, experiment, and explore, we can observe things like:

What all can you sense via your skin?
What does focusing on sensing your skin do for you?
How does it feel?
Is it helpful? Does it change anything?
Are there any skin sensations you'd prefer to ignore/not focus on?
What can sensing your skin help you to connect & be present with?

Focused sensitivity.

So... Why focus on sensing our skin? Well, in one way, this is what Aya is all about. Consciously paying attention to and sensing our body. Embodying our body. Being present in our body. Listening to what it is telling us. Being sense-itive.

Yesss. All of that.

But also - and just as important - it's a practice for developing our ability to direct our sensitivity.

Not just always sensing more more more. It's even more empowering than that.

Aya's also a practice for developing our ability to direct our focus. To consciously choose what we focus on sensing. To purposefully orient our attention in ways that enhance our life.