Saturday’s practice had a different feel. This morning, not unlike many or even most of the classes and practices I lead and share, held
My classes and practices, much like my kitchen, are laboratories, teeming with curiosity and possibility. I’m never completely certain how the process will turn out.
My personal practice yesterday focused on sensation through emotion and how emotion shapes the way I move and in turn how sensation shapes the way I move.
This morning was a continuation. The stimulation was touch. With a variety of objects, we moved like the squishy pig, like the poky bouncy ball, we differentiated between moving like a string of Mikimoto pearls and a string of Michael’s (craft store) clearance bin pearls. I discovered that a string of 2-inch wood dowels are more mobile and flexible than I imagined from looking at them.
I noticed how moving with squishy pig changed the relationship between my bones in a way unlike moving with a squishy weighted 5-inch ball. Then moving with a small “school yard” ball changed the relationship between my joints and the music in yet another way from the squishy weighted ball.
And in this, how was my mind and mental energy in relationship? To my body? To the music? To the objects? To the concept of practice as laboratory? How, where and when did my attitudes and beliefs join the party and what was their contribution? How did – how do my attitudes and beliefs arrive and dance in relationship to my desire?
Moving what I see can be a vastly different experience than moving what I feel through touch. I find that my movement can be directly affected by what I touch. I am a highly tactile human (as the guard at the Phoenix Museum of Art will attest to!) and I spend a significant amount of time present to what comes under my fingers. I’m drawn by texture. Not so much to get a closer look but to experience it more deeply. My visual sense isn’t enough, I want to “see” it with more of me and in texture there is movement. Give me texture, I’ll give you movement. Inversely all movement has texture.
When we went down to the floor (or deck as the case was), the Five Sensations showed up…
for tomorrow’s post.
Movement Alchemy 