Monica was visiting me for the last week or so. This is why I haven't been blogging. We went camping at Crater Lake (maybe I'll upload some rock jumping videos) and lots of other things. Lots of good cooking was a necessity.
Today I'm back on my game, reading Eric Franklin and cooking summer squash. I went to the farmer's market yesterday, and there are so many new things coming out... I bought one of every squash I could find and just cooked them all up to eat with my spicy lamb shoulder (spice courtesy of Santa Monica's farmer's markets. We don't have hot peppers yet.) I just finished Franklin's book, Pelvic Power, and it's gotten me thinking about my pelvis completely differently. I realized that I have been clenching the muscles of my pelvic floor (imagine the muscles at the base of the sex and in between the Sit bones.) This is causing many problems, including tipping my pelvis too far forward. This is odd, because most people tip it too far back. I don't know if I just misapplied the notion of keeping your pelvis under you, or whether I always had this issue. Because my pelvis was tucked under, my lower back was stretched and strained. I now recall terrible back pain in my eighth grade year, and wonder what exactly was causing it...
Maybe this is all too much anatomical detail for a blog... Well, I returned Pelvic Power today, only to check out two more Franklin books - LIberate your neck and Shoulders and Dance Conditioning. Here is a passage from the former:
"It's a bit like a fairy tale. One day I was walking along a street and all of a sudden I felt a widening at the back of my pelvis. It just happened by itself, I didn't do anything. The small of my back widened, the tailbone (coccyx) lengthened, and a wonderful feeling of looseness spread throughout my lower back.
I could feel how the bones at the front of my pelvis were gently pushed together, which in turn took the weight off my back. My legs swung in perfect alignment back and forth as I walked. I could feel clearly how the heads of my thighbones lay deep in their sockets. And most surprisingly of all, both my ankle joints relaxed at the same time, and my feet became completely loose. Taking each step was a wonderful feeling, and I could have continued walking like that forever.
I continued to walk in a circle, even though I had arrived at my destination. I thought: "I don't care if other people are watching me, I want this feeling to get anchored deeply in my nervous system, so that it will become a permanent movement pattern."
That's how I spontaneously discovered truly relaxed walking, a free and upright posture, relaxed shoulders, and deep breathing. the experience showed that this new movement pattern was anchored deep in my being. Up until that moment all my exercises were only outer correction, and the tension already there was reproduced by my behavior again and again."
This is reminiscent of o-Sensei claiming that all of Aikido could be learned in 6 months... if only we were open to it. I danced tango last night, considering the advice from my last tango lesson - that I need to simply dance and enjoy dancing - to get out of my head. It was a fairly good night of dancing. I had some very nice interactions and dances, but still I can't fully get out of my head. I know that my end goal is not over-analysis or to get stuck in my head, but at the moment, it's difficult to get out. I think my teacher had good advice for me, and I need to try to learn to separate training from social dancing, but I really believe that one day I will have my Franklin-esque awakening. The day will come when these ideas and unformed notions about dance come true in my body. It is still an act of faith. Until then, I can do my best to dance, but there is such a burning desire to understand that it's difficult to simply dance. This is connected to the reason why I'm not ready to compete. I'm burning to manifest those things inside me.
