Part 1B: Written Overview of the Loop
1. What are the easy-to-remember ingredients of your loop? (this could be movements/actions/images)
I found that the most accessibly-remembered elements of my loop were the four positions and levels – standing, the half-straddle, the table-top/kneeling/sort-of-upward dog, and the reverse table-top.
I found it much more difficult to effectively recall the transitional components, which is why they look scrambled and uncouth despite the 50+ takes my long-suffering wife had to take!
2. Describe your process. How did you choose the parts? How was your experience leading up to filming this? What did you need to do to get in the right state of body/mind/spirit to Flow?
a) Initially, I selected the elements based on my recovery from a range of relatively severe illnesses and injuries over the past 8 months. During the training itself, I had been injured in a fairly intense car accident, and I was committed to finding ways to persist in my participation. One of the most buoying experiences was discovering new ways of navigating daily tasks – clothing myself, tending the garden, cooking, scaling the ladder-stairs to our bedroom – from prompts in the course. I found particularly helpful the encouragement to creatively explore approaches to shift from standing, to sitting, to kneeling, and back to bipedal again. I felt that was an important component of my relationship with the Floor Flow training, and I wanted to include that standing-floorward exploration-standing cycle in the loop.
The primary position, a relatively wide-legged stance with a swaying/rocking/wobbling, is one to which I often revert. It feels very sturdy, very safe. While I feel I represented the transition to the floor incredibly poorly in the videoing, I did find it interesting to transition to a half-straddle in a way I never would in a yoga class – after so many years of offering yoga, it was with smirking merriment that I allowed myself a less aesthetic, less definitive descent into an imperfect rendition of a half-straddle position.
I also had a desire to connect with the quadrupedal/table-toppish position in a yoga-deviant, asymmetry-embracing manner. I wanted to allow myself some exploratory imperfection (which was fun to do during the unfilmed components, though looks quite abysmal and was not at all embodied during the filmed portion).
I chose the reverse table-top position because it posed a challenge; both of my wrists and hands were injured in the aforementioned accident, and they are still in the process of gaining anything comparable to their previous strength. I have been tending and testing them over recent months, and this project felt like an invitation to include some moments of relative-wrist-reliance. The return to standing from a little swirly-twisty thing out of that position was a nervous little nod to the many times I experimented with rising from the floor with altered capacity.
b) I have infinite respect for all folk who so comfortably and confidently capture their movement on film and free it to social media to be viewed by all. I was truly, wholly wracked with panic surrounding the filming process – it is with hand-to-heart honesty that I say we took over 50 takes over a few days. The result is mediocre, and I think it offers an accurate representation of my shuddering hesitation to be filmed. Prior to filming, and even between takes, I would find myself moving with relative freedom and comfort, with curiosity and a level of acceptance when elements were forgotten, messy, or rushed, but as soon as I knew the camera was there, my whole being would transmute into unsynchronous fragments of dry, scraping, jittery, jolting, stilted discomfort. In the end, I let my wife choose whichever take she felt was adequate – I found it far too uncomfortable to watch myself represent my efforts so poorly, and no matter how many takes I did, the result did not seem to markedly alter for the better.
c) Although I don’t think I was ever able to genuinely access a state of ease/flow for the filming, the way in which I prepared myself enough to even allow the camera to be on me was by keeping my little eyes as firmly closed as I could, turning the music loud, and selecting tracks that felt as forgiving as possible. Prior to filming, my breath and visualisations aided the process, but giving focus to my interior once the camera was active was simply too overwhelming!
3. What felt good ( or provided a healthy challenge) in this loop video experience?
The healthy challenge was certainly the use of my wrists to provide a stable base in the reverse table-top position. It doesn’t look pretty, but the feeling was affirming and relieving.
4. If there is ONE thing that you would do differently, what is it?
I would have spent triple/quadruple the time practicing and got a whole lot better acquainted with all of those transitional movements… While I slowed down and gave space to them, they definitely didn’t feel fluid in the filmed portions, and no matter how much time I allowed, they always felt rushed.
5. What did you learn from this experience that you will apply to your own training or teaching?
Whilst I would say that I usually feel very comforted by movement and deeply at home in the capacities and limitations of my body, filming provided a profound encounter with the intensity of discomfort I have sensed – but previously not understood – in some new-to-movement humans over the years. I genuinely believe that this level of empathy is one I lacked, and one that will hopefully be a valued guide in relating to both those who come to my classes and my psychotherapy clients.
I also feel that over the years, I’ve let my valuing of transitions wane – this process reinforced the need to slowly, attentively relate to the seemingly-liminal with the same care as the (often similarly fleeting) postural destinations.