I was walking around Ruth's neighborhood in San Francisco today (which happens to be very near Zuni Cafe, one of my favorite restaurants here) and I was doing what I tend to do mostly all the time these days - trying to be conscious of my body. Today I was working on lengthening the spine by lengthening the muscles in the front of my neck, relaxing the muscles in my lower back and hips, and trying to get my legs to track correctly.
At one point, as I relaxed my beck and hips, I felt something deep in my pelvis engage and my spine lengthened upwards with internal support. I think this was my pelvic floor - that elusive muscle people always talk about. The idea, as I understand it, is that the muscles on the outside of our body should be used to move but not to support our body. Mostly I use my abs and back when I'm trying to align my pelvis, but the pelvic floor is the muscle that should be supporting this position.
I can't seem to find it again, but it should come back.
In other news, after reading more Tony Robbins, I'm changing the language that I use to refer to the patches of tension through my body. "Tension, shit, blocks..." All these words have negative connotations to them. Using these words puts me in a state where I am judging my body instead of feeling compassion for it. I was experimenting with different words, images, and mantras, but my favorite is to call that tension "armor." I think this is a good word, because I developed all that tension from the issues of my life, because I didn't know how else to deal with everything. Now it's time for me to shed it and move lightly through this world. The metaphor continues to make sense, because I think that the perfect defense is not made of obstructions. The perfect defense is permeable and harmonizes with an attack. This way, the attack is neutralized and conquered before the attacker knows what has happened. The perfect defense conquers before any attack; it succeeds by its nature. To create obstructions is to invite attack. Likewise, calling my tension a word with a negative connotation makes me want to attack and destroy it. This only serves to increase tension. So now I'm thinking of shedding my armor - armor put on for good reason, but no longer needed, as I'm developing a much stronger defense.
Friday, June 18, 2010
San Francisco.
The sun is shining down on me as I prep for class tonight with Ruth. In the meantime, I've been juicing some of the crate of oranges I bought in Southern CA.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Driving north
After a great few days in LA with monica, I'm headed north up the 101 and 1 to San Francisco. Off to Stanford tomorrow where I will attempt to continue resting while attending dance camp...
In other news, I had the best strawberries of my life this weekend, and some tangerines that would make you all so happy.
In other news, I had the best strawberries of my life this weekend, and some tangerines that would make you all so happy.
Friday, June 11, 2010
two videos of me and Drew
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdIneayVUdI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijQ4ITFs4Bo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijQ4ITFs4Bo
all the greats
All the greats have told me to take the world as my teacher. O-sensei said to never sit in front of a flowing stream and not let it teach you something. I'm on a little stopover in Ashland, OR on my way to Los Angeles, and I walked into their town park and sat at a river for a while.
My notes:
The river is constantly moving. If we consider the river to be water, then the banks are a container. Not unimportant, but certainly not the main attraction. The river (unless we're in Santa Fe) must be defined by the movement of the water. It is this continuous flow of water - simultaneously homogeneous and varied that defines and shapes the banks. That which is solid (the bank) has an inertia to it. It will not change instantly, but it is in a continual process of change. The energy of the water turns it into what it will be. It is the energy of the flow that shapes the course of the river. Similarly, I must view my body this way. My physical body is analogous to the bank of the river. I can feel this when I walk with awareness or when exercising on Pilates equipment. I can shape the flow of the energy in my body, and slowly, alter the shape of my body. When I talk about a blockage in my left side - that stitch - it feels like a dam in the river. The energy stops and is diverted down my right leg instead of my left.
Like the river, my body and life have a certain momentum. I have gifts, opportunities, inherent setbacks and struggles, but the flow of my energy continues to shape my life. It must flow around certain things, but it can cut right through others. To think that this energy is harnessable is an exciting thought. If I could truly use and direct it for what I wanted (and this is certainly what O-sensei taught), I would find my true power. My confusion arises from the fact that all the greats also speak about a place of stillness and silence. But where is the stillness in the river? How can something be both still and moving?
I may remember this anecdote incorrectly, and I may even have written it before... but when O-sensei was asked why no one could push him over, he responded with a laugh, "How can one move the whole world?"
My notes:
The river is constantly moving. If we consider the river to be water, then the banks are a container. Not unimportant, but certainly not the main attraction. The river (unless we're in Santa Fe) must be defined by the movement of the water. It is this continuous flow of water - simultaneously homogeneous and varied that defines and shapes the banks. That which is solid (the bank) has an inertia to it. It will not change instantly, but it is in a continual process of change. The energy of the water turns it into what it will be. It is the energy of the flow that shapes the course of the river. Similarly, I must view my body this way. My physical body is analogous to the bank of the river. I can feel this when I walk with awareness or when exercising on Pilates equipment. I can shape the flow of the energy in my body, and slowly, alter the shape of my body. When I talk about a blockage in my left side - that stitch - it feels like a dam in the river. The energy stops and is diverted down my right leg instead of my left.
Like the river, my body and life have a certain momentum. I have gifts, opportunities, inherent setbacks and struggles, but the flow of my energy continues to shape my life. It must flow around certain things, but it can cut right through others. To think that this energy is harnessable is an exciting thought. If I could truly use and direct it for what I wanted (and this is certainly what O-sensei taught), I would find my true power. My confusion arises from the fact that all the greats also speak about a place of stillness and silence. But where is the stillness in the river? How can something be both still and moving?
I may remember this anecdote incorrectly, and I may even have written it before... but when O-sensei was asked why no one could push him over, he responded with a laugh, "How can one move the whole world?"
Thursday, June 10, 2010
But why is food so expensive?
The question we really need to answer is why is conventionally produced food so CHEAP?
Quoting again:
"A common complaint about organic and local foods is that they're more expensive than "conventional" (industrially grown) foods. Most consumers don't realize how much we're already paying for the conventional foods, before we even get to the supermarket. Our tax dollars subsidize the petroleum used in growing, processing, and shipping these products. We also pay direct subsidies to the large-scale, chemical-dependent brand of farming. And we're being forced to pay more each year for the environmental and health costs of that method of food production.
Here's an exercise: add up the portion of agricultural fuel use that is paid for with our taxes ($22 Billion), direct Farm Bill subsidies for corn and wheat ($3 billion), treatment of food-related illnesses ($10 billion), agricultural chemical cleanup costs ($17 billion), collateral costs of pesticide use ($8 billion), and costs of nutrients lost to erosion ($20 billion). At minimum, that's a national subsidy of at least $80 billion, about $725 per household each year..."
I suppose someone might begin to read my blog and wonder what all this has to do with dancing. Maybe they would understand after reading the entirety of the blog, but maybe not. My path right now has led me to fine tune my bodily intake. As I said earlier, I want to drive a Ferrari, not a Honda, so I need some high octane fuel. It's simple to reduce this down to nutrients, but I don't think that will ever cover the whole story. I think that even if science were able to reduce every particle of nutrients in fresh broccoli and put it into a supplement, we would still not receive the same sustenance from the pills that we would shopping locally and cooking for ourselves. This is because there is energy in food. The care with which we grow, buy, and cook our food reverberates throughout us. In the book Midnight's Children, there is an ongoing theme about cooking emotion into food - love, hate, etc. The author describes it as though it were as real as a spice. I actually believe in this. I can feel the difference in my dancing after a carefully prepared meal that I sat down to eat with friends. This is why food is important. There is something more to it than nutrients. I am out to figure out what it is.
And by the way, I'm looking for books to explain the global agricultural economy in terms of subsidies, WTO and World Bank loans, etc. I want to know what a free market would look like. Any suggestions?
Quoting again:
"A common complaint about organic and local foods is that they're more expensive than "conventional" (industrially grown) foods. Most consumers don't realize how much we're already paying for the conventional foods, before we even get to the supermarket. Our tax dollars subsidize the petroleum used in growing, processing, and shipping these products. We also pay direct subsidies to the large-scale, chemical-dependent brand of farming. And we're being forced to pay more each year for the environmental and health costs of that method of food production.
Here's an exercise: add up the portion of agricultural fuel use that is paid for with our taxes ($22 Billion), direct Farm Bill subsidies for corn and wheat ($3 billion), treatment of food-related illnesses ($10 billion), agricultural chemical cleanup costs ($17 billion), collateral costs of pesticide use ($8 billion), and costs of nutrients lost to erosion ($20 billion). At minimum, that's a national subsidy of at least $80 billion, about $725 per household each year..."
I suppose someone might begin to read my blog and wonder what all this has to do with dancing. Maybe they would understand after reading the entirety of the blog, but maybe not. My path right now has led me to fine tune my bodily intake. As I said earlier, I want to drive a Ferrari, not a Honda, so I need some high octane fuel. It's simple to reduce this down to nutrients, but I don't think that will ever cover the whole story. I think that even if science were able to reduce every particle of nutrients in fresh broccoli and put it into a supplement, we would still not receive the same sustenance from the pills that we would shopping locally and cooking for ourselves. This is because there is energy in food. The care with which we grow, buy, and cook our food reverberates throughout us. In the book Midnight's Children, there is an ongoing theme about cooking emotion into food - love, hate, etc. The author describes it as though it were as real as a spice. I actually believe in this. I can feel the difference in my dancing after a carefully prepared meal that I sat down to eat with friends. This is why food is important. There is something more to it than nutrients. I am out to figure out what it is.
And by the way, I'm looking for books to explain the global agricultural economy in terms of subsidies, WTO and World Bank loans, etc. I want to know what a free market would look like. Any suggestions?
quoting Kingsolver on the price of food
How delusional are we, exactly? Insisting to farmers that our food has to be cheap is like commanding a ten-year-old to choose a profession and move out of the house now. It violates the spirit of the enterprise. It guarantees bad results. The economy of the arrangement will come around to haunt you. Anyone with a working knowledge of children would see the flaw in that parenting strategy. Similarly, it takes a farmer to understand the analogous truth about food production - that time and care yield quality that matters - and explain that to the rest of us. Industry will not, but individual market growers can communicate concern that they're growing food in a way that's healthy and safe, for people and a place. They can educate consumers about a supply chain that's as healthy or unhealthy as we choose to make it.
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