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Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Power

A wise woman told me many years ago that the foundations of yoga were:
  • strength,
  • balance, and
  • flexibility.

For many years those three served me well, and I focused on finding balance within the triangle they defined. And then I started studying martial arts. And two more concepts were added to my movement arts vocabulary:
  • speed, and
  • power.

Speed is easy enough to define. But it really took hiking the Appalachian Trail to grasp fully what was meant by power.

While hiking the trail, I had many dreams where I was given tips and tricks on how to make my hike more effective and enjoyable. I also was able to observe many deer and bears very close, in their natural states. To see a deer bound gracefully through the forest is one of the most beautiful movements I can ever imagine.

The message I got, from both dreams and nature, was to reduce my movements to their pure essences. That all extra wobbling, vibration, or sloppiness of movement is, in effect, wasted energy. And this is how I came to meditate on the concept of Power.

I started really examining my stride, and working on perfecting its form. Keeping my spine erect, my head level, and my heart forward. Moving my feet one step at a time with conscious intent, and firm footing.

Within the timeframe of one month, my quads had been tuned into highly efficient machines with cables of steel. I knew how to walk solidly with a heavy load on my back.

Upon my return to civilization, I knew I needed to continue exercising, since I had really enjoyed the benefits while on the trail (calmness, lower heart rate, ability to breath deeply and fully, general feeling of wellness, ability to eat as much as I wanted and still lose weight :). So I put together a basic exercise program that I've been doing 6 days a week ever since.

Just as with the trail, I started to really slow down the exercises, and to focus on perfecting the actual forms. I found that this was making my workouts harder and harder without increasing the reps. For instance, doing sit-ups without jerking the head and arms up at the start, keeping the heart forward and spine perfectly rigid for the whole movement. Or doing push-ups in extreme slow motion, being sure to keep the entire body rigid, and coming *all* the way down until nose and pelvis are barely touching the floor, then up slowly. But after a while, I wasn't sure that these slow motion exercises were helping me at all.

Then yesterday morning, I was in a bit of a rush, and decided to do all my normal exercises as fast as possible, with no cool down breaks. I was startled by how easy it was! And then I understood what had happened: by training in slow motion, I had built tremendous amounts of power, while at the same time training my muscle memory in perfect form.

So, then, the definition of power: being able to inject a maximum amount of energy and intention into a movement, so that when and if it comes into contact with something else, it will literally pass through it because its force is so strong.

What really brought this all together for me was learning the guitar. I've applied the same concepts. To work on chord progressions, I practice at like one tenth normal speed... and be sure to let the chords resonate for the maximum amount of time; then, when I speed up to normal speed, the strumming patterns fit right in, because my body already has the perfect timing nailed down for the transitions.

Friday, July 24, 2009

gravity?

Meditating on three activities: hiking the AT, acroyoga, and contact improv... their relative merits, relations to gravity and partners.

Hiking the AT: mostly male, often solo, extremely grounded, weighted down with 50 lb. pack, 8+ hours a day of direct work with gravity, placing one foot in front of the other. Points of contact: pack to shoulders / hips, feet to ground. Basic goal as I realised it: to move the pack North. because the pack has become your base. you can run ahead without the pack, but eventually you have to go back and get it. The distance only counts when the pack moves with you. Goal is very simple: move north. Improvisation is conversational, but often participants simply reduced to: move North.

core value: reduce & simplify, discipline
strength: 8
flexibility: 2
balance: 5
mobility: 10

AcroYoga: fair male/female balance, requires partners, alternating of extreme grounding (supporting complete weight and responsible for total safety of one other human) and complete aerial freedom (when flying). Base is rock solid, glued to ground, fixed position of core. Flyer is completely gravity-free, often inverted, often with no line of sight to any ground plane. Partner points of contact are primarily hands and feet, hips and back. Partners maintain arms length distance. Bone stacking. Truly superb balance can compensate for lower strength. With added energetic balance of thai massage: physical manifestation of gratitude to the base. Here, the base is your support. Improvisation only comes between advanced and trusting partners; generally working within fixed vocabulary of forms and sequences. Some verbal communication in sequence. Typical session lasts only 3 hours, twice or three times a week. Wonder if anyone does Acro 8 hours a day?

core values: freedom of flight, metta, boldness
strength: 7 (advanced)
flexibility: 5
balance: 9
mobility: 1

Contact Improv: mostly female, requires partners, fairly grounded, multiple points of contact with partner and ground. In fact, all possible points of contact between partners (including breaks and re-connects), most flexible of all forms in that regard. Often on all fours with ground, or even lying / rolling. Partners get truly intimately close. Often feel strong pull of gravity. Inversions, catches and carries dynamic, trust-building when successful. Complete improvisation and real-time. Very little if any verbal language... all in body and eye contact. Each participant responsible for their own safety, even when aerial. Typical session 2-3 hours. Free switching of partners.

core values: improvise, listen, move, act
strength: 7 (advanced)
flexibility: 5
balance: 6
mobility: 5



I'm having fun looking at these in their metaphorical aspects. In the future, will have to add rock climbing, martial arts, and fire dancing to the matrix... so stay tuned for part 2!

Thursday, July 23, 2009

at last!

At Burning Man this past year (2008), I got to make inroads into two communities near and dear to my heart: AcroYoga and Contact Improv. My entry into the world of Contact Improv was both spasdic and powerful; after multiple rejections using the naive and traditional technique of "tapping in" to a dance, I finally paired up with a fellow improver, a guy, closed my eyes, and we rolled, flipped, and flew powerfully through the core of center camp. After that, the kid who had rebuffed me earlier came up and gave me some pointers. Then a girl from Atlanta came up and said we just had to play like that back in the city.

I was so energized and charged up from this experience that I vowed that upon my return to Atlanta, I would facilitate and teach a contact improv jam at my favorite yoga studio, Jai Shanti. I immediately announced my intentions to Jeremy, and upon return home, contacted Bill about the possibility. He was enthused.

Somewhere along the line I googled Contact Improv, and found that there was a long standing group already in place at Emory University. I got on their email list and made plans to participate.

Fast forward 9 months.

I made the short drive to Emory, and arrived. Met a kind woman just outside who used her keycard to let us into the Dance Studio at the Schwarz Center. I was delighted to see that it was indeed a serious dance studio, replete with high ceilings, wall length mirror, and pro sound system.

The next three hours can only be described as being in complete flow... barely a verbal word was spoken, as we all let our bodies do the talking. I found the "care to dance?" language the most natural and intriguing of all... basically, just walk/crawl/dance/leap on up to your chosen partner, and connect by touching some part of your body to theirs... proceed with natural flow from there.

There were episodes of roleplaying, laughter, fear, strength, laziness, and everything else in between as we rolled and flowed through the space.

The only thing I can critique the general form for is a proclivity to be low to the ground... gravity is a real force, and often in the CI I've done, one or both partners are on all fours or rolling over one another in prone positions. This very different from my AcroYoga practice, where one partner is, by and large, completely aerial at all times.

I can imagine, however, that just as in acroyoga, as trust is built between partners, that more and more challenging aerials can be accomplished. To quote Louise Runyon, the local mother of CI:

Contact Improvisation is a dance form where two partners maintain contact of body surfaces - the shelves and ledges of the back, front, sides, hips, shoulders, and head. The giving and sharing of weight is essential to Contact, which often involves partners lifting and rolling over each other. In Contact Improvisation you entrust your full weight to another but are always ready to fall, to roll to the floor; the bottom line is that you have responsibility for your own weight and safety. The beauty of Contact is in the effortless conversation of two connected bodies in motion - more than anything else, it is about listening.


of note: "you have responsibility for your own weight and safety"... this is opposite from acroyoga, where the responsibility is primarily with the base, and secondarily with a spotter... the flyer is encouraged to make maximum risk poses in trust of those other two.