I am constantly baffled by the question of how to begin. How with a group of people we can begin to develop a collective body of knowledge. How we say hello to each others bodies and choices, and slowly begin to recognize, trust, and anticipate what will come next. How do we become excited about something that is unknown? This is a piece of writing that I used to open the first day. Just thoughts coming from a night I spent trying to tune back into that deep place of connecting to the earth, to gravity, to myself.
START
A body connection warmup. Freeing the tension, connecting to the earth that supports us as the first and foremost relationship that you have. They say a person dies alone - that all the people and objects you have encountered along your life, fade away, unable to accompany you past death. But the earth, the ground below you will be there past everything else. Supporting you. Listening to your bones as they sink and surrender. Resolved to lay down and accept the gravitational pillow. The bed of solid endings.
Finishing on the ground relaxing. Feeling that support. Letting all the outside thoughts and feelings fade away.
Letting impulses take over. The impulse to keep still, to twitch, to stretch, to be smooth or to suddenly find your body leaping and running, caught up in some massively energetic joy. Follow those - and now direct your impulses concentrating on the specific body parts of the upper body - moving through them all to the lower - each time concentrating on how the earth supports the body. The class can concentrate on the concept of support. The earth below us. Our bodies exploring how gravity and support can affect our movement choices in the upper free world - away from this base, this womb. Moving into how another body can support. The concept of someones choice of supporting your own rather than trying to defy it or redirect it. Everything existing as a conscious yes. And the way we receive someone else's choices. Accepting the decision that person has made to gift us their contribution. That they have consciously produced an action for our intellectual and physical pleasure. Finding a time to move as if you had roots extending far into the floor. Your origin is at the center of the planet. Your legs extending up into torso, your roots. The spine. Placing your spine in relation to others - placing your bones, placing your muscles, placing your organs, your skin. Possible to add in walking. A group finding a rhythm together. But what exactly is the development there? What is the lesson past feeling a collectively gathered pace and tempo and energy? The making of choices that affects a group, that affects a community. Falling out, getting picked up. Placing. Place holding. Holding down the pattern, staying true, NOT falling out, supporting for the good of the group tactic. THE GOAL. THE SUPPORT.
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