A Scary Incident and the Physics of Dance

I was thinking about the Physics of dance. One of the things I was thinking about was how the body manages to shift its center of mass such that complex moves like balancing on top of another may be accomplished. And if I can recall correctly, all without thinking about it all to deeply. Forgetting that I was scared half to death, I noticed one thing while I paused to reach over to turn off my PC. I nearly fell off my chair and maybe badly injured myself, but I noticed that my body corrected very quickly saved itself from a fall once I realized I was in motion. I willed to save myself, and almost subconsciously grabbed the side of the desk I was sitting at as well as the windowsill that my head and neck was about to hit. So I wonder, does one will something to happen and just kind of do it? What I am saying really is, the brain has to some pretty complex calculations to save itself, or even move. And in order to save myself from falling I had to know to grab the desk and the windowsill behind me in about ¾ of a second (or so it seemed). This is a lot of computing power. I am thinking along the line of center of mass, movement in x,y,z coordinates (or any coordinate system really, in short, 3 space). All I really thought, or so I thought I thought, was to grab something. I don’t understand dance, but I would presume dancers sort of imagine themselves doing the movement and do them. This is curious. To actually solve the equations to maintain balance and move in the desired way would be daunting.

Note: I was watching: Off the Rails on Youtube during this incident

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96eqQNSOnj4&feature=PlayList&p=751E997B9C51754A&index=33&playnext=2&playnext_from=PL