Sunday, 31 May 2015
Saturday, 30 May 2015
Thursday, 28 May 2015
what moves me
"My mother loved walking barefoot in the snow. And also having snowball fights with me, or building igloos. She also liked climbing trees. And she was tremendously frightened during thunderstorms. She would hide in the wardrobe behind the coats."-From a speech held by Pina Bausch on the occasion of the Kyoto Prize award ceremony in 2007.
You can read it in full here Published by courtesy of the Inamori Foundationu ... I really recommend that you do!
Wednesday, 27 May 2015
Glass Mountain
13. Everyone in the city knows about the glass mountain.
14. People who live here tell stories about it.
15. It is pointed out to visitors.
16. Touching the side of the mountain, one feels coolness.
17. Peering into the mountain, one sees sparkling blue-white depths.
From Glass Mountain by Donald Barthelme
Thursday, 21 May 2015
Stephen Jepson
"We no longer have to move to survive. We can go to our refrigerator to get food. Most of our lives are sedentary. We sit to drive, work, watch TV and movies, and play with our gadgets. By not moving, we become mentally and physically sluggish. Our creativity diminishes, and our bodies begin to die a little at a time through lack of use. Modern medicine works overtime to keep us healthy and negate the effects of inertia on the body and mind.
Puppies and kittens and children run around wildly chasing each other, tumbling, rolling, developing quick and agile movements. Children play jacks, hopscotch, jump rope, swing, slide, play running games and ballgames on their playgrounds, continually refining the speed and accuracy of hand and foot movements, stamina, and breathing - very important at any age in continuing the plasticity, growth and health of our brains as well.
Never Leave the Playground teaches the method of lifetime fitness through toys and play and games that can be played alone or with others of any age throughout our lives. By simply returning to the playground every day, your memory will improve, you will become more creative, and you will look forward to each new day with the excitement and vigor not experienced since you left the playground of your youth. It's time to go back to the playground and never leave it again."
-- Stephen Jepson // Never Leave The Playground
Wednesday, 20 May 2015
Calluses
“Did I say I was gathering
myself back in? Did I lie
and say these ragged, bitten
stub-fingers make me strong?
Did I pretend muscle
is marble, claim
blood-raw sin is as
glossy as a photograph?”
— From “Calluses," a poem in Instructions For Preparing Your Skin by Ariana Nadia Nash, reviewed here by Diego Báez.
hard skin
“The optimal way for getting super-regenerating skin would be to allow our foot to interact with natural surfaces outside of the shoe over a lifetime, prompting a slow adaptation in foot skin thickness over that lifetime, giving us a much better ability to cope with the sensations caused by walking barefoot.”– Katy Bowman, Every Woman’s Guide to Foot Pain Relief.
Want to know more about building a good skin foundation for upper body strength and barefoot living the READ THIS from Katy Bowman.
“The study of anatomy does bring us into a much deeper understanding of ourselves if we’ll let it."
“The thing is that anatomy is generally understood as this naming of things based on the cutting up of them. It generates a very abstract set of information and categories. I literally mean abstract meaning the levels of tissue have been drawn away from other levels of tissue. Abstraho literally means to draw away from, so we draw one thing away from another, and then we develop a mental conception of it. Every time you approach a body with an idea, and then execute that idea with a knife, you’re making up anatomy, because there is no such thing as a liver on a tray. There is no such thing as a skin unto itself, except through a process of dissection, and abstraction. Those aren’t realities. The reality is this whole flesh and blood pulsing experience that we’re all wandering around with.
Then we get our abstraction built, and then we say, “Oh, okay. There’s this muscle, rectus femoris, there this muscle adductor magnus, there’s this thing in our chest, the heart, and that’s a pump. The other one abducts and the other one adducts. We have all of these very abstract, conceptions. Then we approach with our techniques people, and we see them move, and we have that set of abstractions in our brain, and we say, “Well.” It’s like a math problem, and we add it up, and say, “Well, this should be doing that because of what they’re doing there. Then we apply our abstraction to the form, and try and make it emulate what our abstractions tell us it should be instead of taking in a given whole set of compensations and helping it to function better.
The actual functional person is always a gestalt of all the systems, and all of the hopes and dreams, and all of the life processes, and all of the trillions of cells streaming. In other words, that’s what’s happening in front of you, not, “Oh, we’re having difficulty abducting our x, y, z. Which would be cured by strengthening the a, b, c.” I don’t think we work that way.
I don’t think I’ve fallen too far from the Rolfian [Rolfing] tree in my aspirations along with you to transform culture. She was looking to cultivate a more mature human being, and I feel that I’m wanting to do the same, at least for my part. I feel that part of that maturity lies in an acceptance and learning from the body.”
-- Gil Hedley VIA Liberated Bodies
Tuesday, 19 May 2015
'this is me and this is my love'
“When the stories about you are not in your own words, and when those stories that you wish to tell about yourself are silenced, you cannot begin to put your own language to love. In order to see love in ourselves and in our lives we need to be able to speak it into reality. We need to be able to tell the truth about ourselves, to say ‘this is me and this is my love’ without censorship”
-- Tatenda Muranda. (Interrupt editor & HOLAAfrica member
Monday, 18 May 2015
Eduardo Chilliada
“Boundaries are actually the main factor in space, just as the present, another boundary, is the main factor in time.”
-- Eduardo Chilliada
Socks
THIS is one of the many reasons we should invest time in our movement skills. I want to beable to put my socks on, with ease, in my 90's.
Peter Jansen
Peter Jansen (1956-2011) pioneered digital sculpting of sequential human movement in space and time. He worked with 3D CG software to create overlapping frames of movement and then had the result made into physical form via the thee dimensional printing systems of rapid prototyping technology.
Function
"As a term functional movement has started to drift in the same direction as the term core stability which started out well and then became far distant from its original meaning. People have come to understand this as a specific kind of training with specific kinds of equipment. And if you use this equipment then it’s somehow functional.
People think that standing swinging something about is functional as compared to sitting on a machine. But this is a long way from what I would consider to be functional movement.
Functional movement is the movement that you need to perform the tasks and activities that you enjoy and want to do in your daily life.-- Joanne Elphinston via this wonderful podcast by Ariana Yoga
What is it you need to do in your job and for recreation? So it’s a much bigger umbrella. Instead of FM being a thing, AN exercise, it’s actually an overall concept. So what is functional for one person is not for another."
Sunday, 17 May 2015
Saturday, 16 May 2015
Saturday Poem
Grandfather’s Hands
-- Warsan Shire
Your grandfather’s hands were brown.
Your grandmother kissed each knuckle,
Circled an island into his palm
and told him which parts they would share
and which parts they would leave alone.
She wet a finger to draw where the ocean would be
on his wrist, kissed him there,
named oceans after herself.
… Your grandparents often found themselves
in dark rooms, mapping out
each other’s bodies,
claiming whole countries
with their mouths.
-- Warsan Shire
Thursday, 14 May 2015
Rewilding
George Monbiot imagines a wilder world in which humans work to restore
the complex, lost natural food chains that once surrounded us. If you like this the I highly recommend getting hold of a copy of his book Feral.
There are certainly links to be made with 'rewilding' and the way we move and experience our own bodies too...time to start learning from our mistakes.
There is always hope.
There are certainly links to be made with 'rewilding' and the way we move and experience our own bodies too...time to start learning from our mistakes.
There is always hope.
Wednesday, 13 May 2015
Evolution
Dr. Bigelow: What can I do for you?
Louie: Uh, well, I hurt my back today really bad. Uh. Can you help me with my back? I mean...
Dr. Bigelow: What's wrong with your back?
Louie: It hurts.
Dr. Bigelow: My professional diagnosis is your back hurts.
Louie: Well, what can I do about it?
Dr. Bigelow: Nothing.
Louie: Nothing?
Dr. Bigelow: The problem is you're using it wrong. The back isn't done evolving yet. You see, the spine is a row of vertebrae. It was designed to be horizontal. Then people came along and used it vertical. Wasn't meant for that. So the disks get all floppy, swollen. Pop out left, pop out right. It'll take another. I'd say 20,000 years to get straightened out. Till then, it's going to keep hurting.
Louie: So that's it?
Dr. Bigelow: It's an engineering design problem. It's a misallocation. We were given a clothesline and we're using it as a flagpole.
Louie: So what should I do?
Dr. Bigelow: Use your back as it was intended. Walk around on your hands and feet. Or accept the fact that your back is going to hurt sometimes. Be very grateful for the moments that it doesn't. Every second spent without back pain is a lucky second. String enough of those lucky seconds together, you have a lucky minute.
Louie: Okay.
Dr. Bigelow: Come see me when you have something fun like a blood disease. That's what I went to school for.
HA! Thanks Miss Rebecca Ketchum for finding this!
Louie: Uh, well, I hurt my back today really bad. Uh. Can you help me with my back? I mean...
Dr. Bigelow: What's wrong with your back?
Louie: It hurts.
Dr. Bigelow: My professional diagnosis is your back hurts.
Louie: Well, what can I do about it?
Dr. Bigelow: Nothing.
Louie: Nothing?
Dr. Bigelow: The problem is you're using it wrong. The back isn't done evolving yet. You see, the spine is a row of vertebrae. It was designed to be horizontal. Then people came along and used it vertical. Wasn't meant for that. So the disks get all floppy, swollen. Pop out left, pop out right. It'll take another. I'd say 20,000 years to get straightened out. Till then, it's going to keep hurting.
Louie: So that's it?
Dr. Bigelow: It's an engineering design problem. It's a misallocation. We were given a clothesline and we're using it as a flagpole.
Louie: So what should I do?
Dr. Bigelow: Use your back as it was intended. Walk around on your hands and feet. Or accept the fact that your back is going to hurt sometimes. Be very grateful for the moments that it doesn't. Every second spent without back pain is a lucky second. String enough of those lucky seconds together, you have a lucky minute.
Louie: Okay.
Dr. Bigelow: Come see me when you have something fun like a blood disease. That's what I went to school for.
HA! Thanks Miss Rebecca Ketchum for finding this!
Time
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted
a time to kill and a time to heal
a time to break down and a time to build up
a time to weep, and a time to laugh
a time to mourn, and a time to dance
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing
a time to seek, and a time to lose
a time to keep, and a time to cast away
a time to tear, and a time to sew
a time to keep silent, and a time to speak
a time to love, and a time to hate
a time for war, and a time for peace.
- Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
The Bright Side
NASA Earth Observatory just published a map that uses data collected between July 2002 and April 2015 to give an unparalleled view of the world’s cloudy (and sunny) spots.
Tuesday, 12 May 2015
Stephen Walter
Stephen Walter's highly detailed, hand-drawn plans of London record long forgotten histories and recent redevelopments with a native Londoner's critical eye. I first came across them a couple of years ago at The British library and got completely lost in them. Truely brilliant.
"My subject matter is all about human residues and traces that have taken a long time to settle in the geography." -- Stephen Walter.
Read more about the maps here and see more on Stephen's website here.
Backward T-shirt
"The slightly uncomfortable, ‘something-is-wrong-here’ feeling you
get when accidentally you put a sweater or t-shirt on backward. It takes
you a moment to realize the mistake although your body already feels
it. That’s how she felt whenever he was around and she never got over
it. In her head she nicknamed him BT for ‘backward t-shirt."
--Jonathan Carroll
Monday, 11 May 2015
Maps (and soles)
I draw in the lines of your foot. I paint in the lines of your mouth. I make watercolors in your hand. I sew images in your ear. I draw a map in your navel…
I was very impressed by the Carte du Tendre [Map of Tenderness] invented by a woman writer of 17th century France, Mlle de Scudery. For some time, I conceived of gardens of “tendre” which mix writing and photography with real spaces: the path of reconciliation, the tree of shame, the herbs of confidences, the turtle of longevity, the spider of scandal, the route of chance, the maple of dispute, the copse of indiscretion, the timber trees of hope, the oak of kisses, the poppies of confession, the rabbit of fortune, the branches of forgetfulness, the junction of uncertainties, the forest of hesitations, the lake of temptation, the plains of fatigue, the lime tree of rest, the mountain of assiduousness, the passageway of pain, the intersection of ambition, the ramble of emotion, the slope of forgetfulness, the mound of despair…
Annette Messager, quoted in an interview with Bernard Marcade in BOMB, Issue 26, Winter 1989.
In the interview, she calls herself 'a trainer of paper spiders'. I like that.
Friday, 8 May 2015
MOVE ME
Dear Good Looker,
Gosh. So much to tell, so little time. Let's cut to the chase....
I need your help, dearest reader, with a project I have been busy putting together. I cordially invite you, and your loved ones, to celebrate the space of otherness, difference and delight that your body occupies through THIS SURVEY all about movement.
Human beings are not built to float you see. They need an earthly anchor of meaning and care so they don't get left in confusion. This survey, with your help, is my contribution that anchor of meaning. The information gathered is being used on an ongoing blog and as research for an art project, both aim to express a riot of opinion and give a snapshot of the complexity of modern movement decisions with cultural influences; a portrait of the human body today revealing impulses that influence our daily ritual of being.
Anyone who has a body is invited to take part! I am also open to submissions about movement, like this wonderful story, from everyone and anyone.
Join me for this major shift in cultural thinking and be the laxative which lubricates the constipation of the way we contemplate movement (I'm so sorry about that sentence).
I need your help, dearest reader, with a project I have been busy putting together. I cordially invite you, and your loved ones, to celebrate the space of otherness, difference and delight that your body occupies through THIS SURVEY all about movement.
********
**** ABOUT MOVE ME ****
********
**** ABOUT MOVE ME ****
********
Move Me is
an ever evolving survey designed to prompt people to think more deeply
about their bodies in terms of movement choices, habits and patterns.
The project is about commonality: The one thing we all have in common is
that we have to move to live.
Researching the whys and ways of movement is a part of my job as a yoga teacher. I know there is a vast amount of information and advice about the way we 'should' move out there, but often lacking from this are the personal stories, from a variety of different backgrounds and experiences, that shape each of us in discrete and individual ways. Through eight years of teaching it is these stories that have come to help finesse what I do beyond the more 'evidence based' scientific discourse. This thread is a vital part of the map to understanding what it is we need to feel well.
Researching the whys and ways of movement is a part of my job as a yoga teacher. I know there is a vast amount of information and advice about the way we 'should' move out there, but often lacking from this are the personal stories, from a variety of different backgrounds and experiences, that shape each of us in discrete and individual ways. Through eight years of teaching it is these stories that have come to help finesse what I do beyond the more 'evidence based' scientific discourse. This thread is a vital part of the map to understanding what it is we need to feel well.
Human beings are not built to float you see. They need an earthly anchor of meaning and care so they don't get left in confusion. This survey, with your help, is my contribution that anchor of meaning. The information gathered is being used on an ongoing blog and as research for an art project, both aim to express a riot of opinion and give a snapshot of the complexity of modern movement decisions with cultural influences; a portrait of the human body today revealing impulses that influence our daily ritual of being.
Anyone who has a body is invited to take part! I am also open to submissions about movement, like this wonderful story, from everyone and anyone.
Join me for this major shift in cultural thinking and be the laxative which lubricates the constipation of the way we contemplate movement (I'm so sorry about that sentence).
CONVINCED? THEN MOVE TO THE SURVEY
(please note, you can answer anonymously and you DO NOT have to answer everything, just whatever takes your fancy.)
(please note, you can answer anonymously and you DO NOT have to answer everything, just whatever takes your fancy.)
********
**** FORWARD THIS POST ****
********
**** FORWARD THIS POST ****
********
The
revolution is now. Yay! However, I know finding people willing to give
up precious time to fill out a long winded survey is hard (I have no idea why). So, I urge you to forward this blog post to ALL PEOPLE WITH BODIES
that might be interested in taking part. Come to me with evidence of your benevolence, and I will send you something magic in the post.
You can be social and share in numerous ways, for example via twitter HERE, through facehooked HERE and via telepathy HERE.
And now I shall set you free.
Be there or, as they say, be somewhere else.
Yours in everything fidgety,
Rachel x
www.what-moves-me.com
Be there or, as they say, be somewhere else.
Yours in everything fidgety,
Rachel x
www.what-moves-me.com
Move Me
Dear Good Looker,
Gosh. So much to tell, so little time. Let's cut to the chase....
I need your help, dearest reader, with a project I have been busy putting together. I cordially invite you, and your loved ones, to celebrate the space of otherness, difference and delight that your body occupies through THIS SURVEY all about movement.
Human beings are not built to float you see. They need an earthly anchor of meaning and care so they don't get left in confusion. This survey, with your help, is my contribution that anchor of meaning. The information gathered is being used on an ongoing blog and as research for an art project, both aim to express a riot of opinion and give a snapshot of the complexity of modern movement decisions with cultural influences; a portrait of the human body today revealing impulses that influence our daily ritual of being.
Anyone who has a body is invited to take part and I am also open to submissions about movement, like this wonderful story, from everyone and anyone.
Join me for this major shift in cultural thinking and be the laxative which lubricates the constipation of the way we contemplate movement (I'm so sorry about that sentence).
I need your help, dearest reader, with a project I have been busy putting together. I cordially invite you, and your loved ones, to celebrate the space of otherness, difference and delight that your body occupies through THIS SURVEY all about movement.
********
**** ABOUT MOVE ME ****
********
**** ABOUT MOVE ME ****
********
Move Me is an ever evolving survey designed to prompt people to think more deeply about their bodies in terms of movement choices, habits and patterns. The project is about commonality: The one thing we all have in common is that we have to move to live.
Researching the whys and ways of movement is a part of my job as a yoga teacher. I know there is a vast amount of information and advice about the way we 'should' move out there, but often lacking from this are the personal stories, from a variety of different backgrounds and experiences, that shape each of us in discrete and individual ways. Through eight years of teaching it is these stories that have come to help finesse what I do beyond the more 'evidence based' scientific discourse. This thread is a vital part of the map to understanding what it is we need to feel well.
Researching the whys and ways of movement is a part of my job as a yoga teacher. I know there is a vast amount of information and advice about the way we 'should' move out there, but often lacking from this are the personal stories, from a variety of different backgrounds and experiences, that shape each of us in discrete and individual ways. Through eight years of teaching it is these stories that have come to help finesse what I do beyond the more 'evidence based' scientific discourse. This thread is a vital part of the map to understanding what it is we need to feel well.
Human beings are not built to float you see. They need an earthly anchor of meaning and care so they don't get left in confusion. This survey, with your help, is my contribution that anchor of meaning. The information gathered is being used on an ongoing blog and as research for an art project, both aim to express a riot of opinion and give a snapshot of the complexity of modern movement decisions with cultural influences; a portrait of the human body today revealing impulses that influence our daily ritual of being.
Anyone who has a body is invited to take part and I am also open to submissions about movement, like this wonderful story, from everyone and anyone.
Join me for this major shift in cultural thinking and be the laxative which lubricates the constipation of the way we contemplate movement (I'm so sorry about that sentence).
CONVINCED? THEN MOVE TO THE SURVEY
(please note, you can answer anonymously and you DO NOT have to answer everything, just whatever takes your fancy.)
(please note, you can answer anonymously and you DO NOT have to answer everything, just whatever takes your fancy.)
********
**** FORWARD THIS POST ****
********
**** FORWARD THIS POST ****
********
The revolution is now. Yay! However, I know finding people willing to give up precious time to fill out a long winded survey is hard (I have no idea why). So, I urge you to forward this blog post to ALL PEOPLE WITH BODIES that might be interested in taking part. Come to me with evidence of your benevolence, and I will send you something magic in the post.
You can be social and share in numerous ways, for example via twitter HERE, through facehooked HERE and via telepathy HERE.
And now I shall set you free.
Be there or, as they say, be somewhere else.
Yours in everything fidgety,
Rachel x
www.what-moves-me.com
Be there or, as they say, be somewhere else.
Yours in everything fidgety,
Rachel x
www.what-moves-me.com
