Sunday Class Report

This Sunday was a pretty cool day of class. We started off doing a bit of side to side. My question had to do with some new feelings I was getting in my inguinal creases where instead of feeling like I was pulling something apart, it was more of an opening feeling. One of the senior school brothers pointed out something about how I was using focus, how I was really focusing into one area. The movement looked pretty stiff to him, but when I slackened up on the specific focus to talk to another of my senior brothers, he noticed that things started to flow a little more.

Isn't that interesting. Distortion, Deletion and Generalization are the three things are brains are capable of, says NLP. Senior Brother #1 said that I was using Distortion in the way I was focusing so heavily on the inguinal crease. My focus had warped the experience of the exercise like a fun-house mirror warps a reflection, then I added, I was deleting out much of the rest of the sensory information coming in from my body to focus intently on the creases. What is the bigger question? He asked, and I replied that it was to find more connected full body movement.

I was losing the bigger question when I focused down so specifically, but by playing with the specific focus within the bigger intention, (always keeping the bigger intention in mind) I still got to explore the creases intensely, but also allowed myself to notice other connections throughout my body (how my chest was contributing to the inguinal crease) and looking more from a one-part-moves-all-parts-move perspective.

Allowing was something I asked a question about later in the class, and feeling like I was forcing things in my life and in my practice. After a bit of psychological stuff, I noticed that my conception of being an adult had a lot to do with being in control. Being an adult means being in control of everything all of the time. Really? Well, that's a thought that's in my head. We have a saying that is "you are where you are and that's where you start". There was also this word "begrudgingly" that came up in our discussion of allowing vs. control, and how I "begrudgingly" accept things, which is different from just accepting. Begrudging has more judgment to it.

On further exploration, begrudging is like the parent that looks at the angry or crying child from across the room with folded arms shaking her head, and accepting is like the parent that goes over to the child and is with them and hugs them because angry or sad or whatever, it's okay.

In stance today, I worked with that kind of a feeling, the "it's okay" of a mother holding a child. It was a very different feeling than trying to get everything in the right place. Maybe my stance didn't look as pretty, but the FEELING that was there during stance has lasted up until now, along with a feeling of more ease, and more equilibrium, more connection. The middle triangle really likes acceptance and it's okay, I notice.

Last part of class had to do with some dancing practice. We tied up some sticks to the ceiling of the back porch, rested our hands on them and did a little Wujifa dancing practice. Letting my arms rest into the sticks and letting the resting connect down to the rest of my body gave me a really cool hint into down force, and when I danced with that feeling without the sticks, my ESB (Elder School Brother) noticed that it was looking pretty good. Also working with some more twisting of the spine while dancing.