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Monday 23 February 2015

New Websites!

Click HERE if you want to know all about happy movement shindigs...
Click HERE for if you would like to see my art offerings... 
Click HERE if you would like to take part in an epic movement survey. It is still in it's infancy, but with your help I think it could be something very special. Take a look around and watch this space for more information.   

Now, I was feeling very pleased with my website building self, until I read this: Web sites are obsolete. Hmmmm, so if you click through I guess your mere presence on may page will render you a technological dinosaur. It’s okay. I’m one, too. This man is not.

New Websites!

Click HERE if you want to know all about happy movement shindigs...
Click HERE for if you would like to see my art offerings...    
Click HERE if you would like to take part in an epic movement survey. It is still in it's infancy, but with your help I think it could be something very special. Take a look around and watch this space for more information.    

Now, I was feeling very pleased with my website building self, until I read this: Web sites are obsolete. Hmmmm, so if you click through I guess your mere presence on may page will render you a technological dinosaur. It’s okay. I’m one, too. This man is not.

 

Saturday 21 February 2015

Friday 20 February 2015

Le Weekend!


Enjoy! (gif found here)

listen


Illustration by Yumi Sakugawa

learn your details with pride


Whoever first said "The Devil is in the details" must not have liked details. And I doubt that he was an economic botanist. Because when it comes to edible wild plants, the miracle is in the details. It is the details that give one the power not only to identify plants, but also to select the best specimens among them...So do not shy away from the details: an don't resent Nature for being so replete with complexity. That is its glory, not its downfall. We owe our very intelligence to this miraculous complexity. It is not the burden of the naturalist to learn this complexity: it is the awesome reality. More then anything else, which of these attitudes you chose will determine your success. So learn your details with pride and experience them with gratitude. Let the details excite you - for there are enough of them to excite you for the rest of your life.
-- Samuel Thayer: Nature's Garden: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild plants

This applies to every application of biological principle...i.e. your movement practice too!

single leg squat progression

Love these preparations and progressions.

Thursday 19 February 2015

The Epic Everest

"investigated in all directions"

During the preparation stage, the problem is “investigated in all directions” as the thinker readies the mental soil for the sowing of the seeds. It’s the accumulation of intellectual resources out of which to construct the new ideas. It is fully conscious and entails part research, part planning, part entering the right frame of mind and attention. Wallas writes:
"The educated man has, again, learnt, and can, in the Preparation stage, voluntarily or habitually follow out, rules as to the order in which he shall direct his attention to successive elements."

-- Graham Wallas on the Four Stages of Creativity, 1926, via brainpickings.
(the other three are Incubation,  Illumination, Verification)

Preparations

Aaron Hegert






Aaron Hegert

Wednesday 18 February 2015

Art is, for me, the process of trying to wake up the soul. Because we live in an industrialized, fast-paced world that prefers that the soul remain asleep.

- Bill Viola
“Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. I have only begun to learn content and peace of mind since I have resolved at all risks to do this.”

― Thomas Henry Huxley, Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley 

(found here)

wrist preparation

Wrist preparations.
 These are golden!

Tuesday 17 February 2015

Viviane Sassen













All works part of Pikin Slee by Viviane Sassen, currently on show at The ICA.

Recommended Read: A Guide to Better Movement

I'm currently working my way through A Guide to Better Movement by Todd Hargrove, and even though I'm not done yet I highly recommend it! Todd presents recent work in neuroscience, and his extensive background in a variety of sports and movement practices, to guide an understanding of the psychological and physiological whys behind movement patterns and habits. Once your brain has finished digesting there are lots of practical puzzles and 'exercises' to try out for yourself, which I have personally found very usesfull when teaching my students how to map basic movement patterns. 

If you want to know more then check out Todd's Better Movement Blog (which the book consolidates) and have a listen to this interview over at Liberated Bodies

Happy learning!


preparation...


“Give me 6 hours to cut down a tree and I'll spend the first 4 hours sharpening the axe.” 

--Abraham Lincoln

Saturday 14 February 2015

Saturday Poem

Skin Stealer 

This evening I unzipped my skin
And carefully unscrewed my head,
Exactly as I always do
When I prepare myself for bed.
And while I slept a coo-coo came
As naked as could be
And put on the skin
And screwed on the head
That once belonged to me.
 Now wearing my feet
He runs through the street
In a most disgraceful way.
Doin' things and sayin' things I'd never do or say,
Ticklin' the children
And kickin' the men
And Dancin' the ladies away.
So if he makes your bright eyes cry
Or makes your poor head spin,
That scoundrel you see Is not really me
He's the coo-coo
Who's wearing my skin.

-- Shel Silverstein

Saturday Cartoon


Measuring the movement of the skin from Govert Flint on Vimeo.

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!


“It is not so incomprehensible as you pretend, sweet pea. Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard. It can be light as the hug we give a friend or heavy as the sacrifices we make for our children. It can be romantic, platonic, familial, fleeting, everlasting, conditional, unconditional, imbued with sorrow, stoked by sex, sullied by abuse, amplified by kindness, twisted by betrayal, deepened by time, darkened by difficulty, leavened by generosity, nourished by humor and “loaded with promises and commitments” that we may or may not want or keep.
The best thing you can possibly do with your life is to tackle the motherfucking shit out of it.”
Cheryl Strayed

(print by Adrian Henry)

Love is...




Love is...

Love is feeling cold in the back of vans

Love is a fanclub with only two fans

Love is walking holding paintstained hands

Love is.

Love is fish and chips on winter nights

Love is blankets full of strange delights

Love is when you don't put out the light

Love is

Love is the presents in Christmas shops

Love is when you're feeling Top of the Pops

Love is what happens when the music stops

Love is

Love is white panties lying all forlorn

Love is pink nightdresses still slightly warm

Love is when you have to leave at dawn

Love is

Love is you and love is me

Love is prison and love is free

Love's what's there when you are away from me

Love is...

Friday 13 February 2015

Nadav Kandar



Nadav Kandar
"What makes the photograph possible ... is that in the photo it is a question of the body: it is the body that grasps, and it is the body that is grasped and released. It is the body, its thin surface that is detached and removed by the film. This is the physics and the chemistry of the instant, the force of gravity of the click, this curvature, space and this impalpable lightness of a vision that precipitates and coagulates into a thickness of skin, a density of touch."

-- Jean-Luc Nancy

Thursday 12 February 2015

the solace of soaking


I love baths. Unfortunately I don't have one, so I like to make time to search out heat, steam and icy cold plunge pools every once in a while. Luckily, there is plenty to chose from in London. 

They say time heals all wounds, but time is a luxury and sometimes afflictions need a faster balm. The subtle indulgence of soaking, plunging, steaming and melting purges tired bones and minds of ailing aches, enlivens the senses, opens the pores and soothes beyond the surface of the skin. 

I highly recommend searching out the weightlessness of water and giving yourself time, every now and then, to just be. 

(Image by Nadav Kander)

Recipe: stuffed salt and vinegar potato skins


This is sooooooooooo tasty (and simple!) check out the recipe over at Kinfolk.com.

Kiki Smith



Kiki Smith, Untitled (Skin), 1992, cast aluminum
"I think I chose the body 
as a subject, not
consciously, but because it
is the one form that we
all share; it's something that
everybody has their own
authentic experience with."
 
-- Kiki Smith