Saturday Cartoon

"Imperfect moments linked together to a less imperfect flow. Thats the nature of flow - it makes us a bit better." - Ido Portal

The Art of Improvisation

When it comes to my own movement practice, be it yoga asana, climbing, dance, making things or going out for a run, the holy grail is improvisation. Ido Portal is a big advocate of this and it's his 'Three I's' that have inspired me here....I've added the first I...

Intention

What do you need from your practice right now?

Regardless of what you actually do, if your practice is an expression of what is alive in you now, that practice will help you stay present during your time on the mat. That experience can serve as a model for practicing presence all day long. It will also satisfy you and thus help give you the impetus to practice again tomorrow. If you force yourself to practice because you think you should, because you didn't yesterday, or for any other more external reason, even the most technically polished poses will not answer your inner need for ease and wholeness. 

Isolation

Break down the patterns that make up the shape you are working towards, or the area of practice strength/flexibility/ease of movement that you want to work on.

Isolating the basic movement patterns and practicing them with care is like taking a daily shower. These movements will always be useful and will keep your system open and mobile.

Integration

Start to combine those basic actions by creating simple sequences that helps you address your movement patterns or the components of the particular posture you are working towards.

Improvisation

Uneducated improvisation is disconcerting: beginner dancers attacking an irish jig, your housemates experimental cocktail you are still trying to forget...Good improvisation is usually (there can be exceptions) grounded in strict theory that becomes plient when mixed with a little creativity. You have to know the technique behind what you are trying to do, then depart from it.

Once you learn how the big patterned movements work together in your body and where your limitations are you can start to improvise with sequences. What this means to you depends on the movement qualities you have developed and what you are working on now. It’s a personal thing. Everyone moves differently.

Work on finding that connection with the parts of you that meet the ground. When well grounded we may be still but the slightest impulse can initiate movement and breathing can adjust appropriately. Any unhelpful tension will stiffen us, fix the breath and take away the potential for free movement away.
Keep yourself in motion, keep working—this practice won’t give up anything easily, but it will reward your work and your curiosity and your commitment.

Take inspiration and instruction from class, ofcourse, but balance that with some healthy questioning of what you are told. You have as much intuition, self-awareness and self-knowledge as the next person. Use it. Trust your self! You are looking for freedom, not someone else’s idea of how your body should move. 

Kintsugi

Kintsukuroi.
(n.) (v.phr.) "to repair with gold"

I like Kintsugi's simple lesson, that it's possible to start over.

where does it hurt?

later that night
i held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?

it answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere.

 ― Warsan Shire

Anthem

The birds they sang
At the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don't dwell on what
Has passed away
Or what is yet to be.
Ah the wars they will
Be fought again
The holy dove
She will be caught again
Bought and sold
And bought again
The dove is never free.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

We asked for signs
The signs were sent
The birth betrayed
The marriage spent
Yeah the widowhood
Of every government
Signs for all to see.

I can't run no more
With that lawless crowd
While the killers in high places
Say their prayers out loud.
But they've summoned, they've summoned up
A thundercloud
And they're going to hear from me.

Ring the bells that still can ring

You can add up the parts
But you won't have the sum
You can strike up the march,
There is no drum
Every heart, every heart
To love will come
But like a refugee.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.

(Found here)

Glorious imperfection.

I like this article: How to stop needing how to-do lists. by Daniel Goldsmith at Recovering Yogi
I think you should read it, you might like it to!

"The wisdom to know when something needs to change must be balanced with the compassionate embrace that things are all right just as they are."

-- Daniel Goldsmith

Natural Judgement

"When you go out into the woods, and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. And you look at the tree and you allow it. You see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn't get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don't get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree. The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying 'You are too this, or I'm too this.' That judgment mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are." 

-- Ram Dass.

(Photographs by Nicolò Minerbi)

imperfection (ˌɪmpəˈfɛkʃən)

n

1. the condition or quality of being imperfect

2. a fault or defect

 

 

permission

“Suffering must be like love — look at that guy!”

The man on the cross leads me to wonder about the front of the room. Who do we put at the front of the room? Is it the one with all the muscles, the very smartest, the one with the smoothest pitch? Yoga teachers are embodied ideals. The British psychoanalyst Adam Phillips reminds us that ideals in our culture are often used to punish ourselves. “I’ll never be that smart. I’ll never be that flexible. I’ll never be able to speak those beautiful sentences.” Most of the time, that very traditional view of ideals has been at play in the asana classes I’ve been to. Though there are exceptions. For instance: Christi-an Slomka’s work at Kula Annex. She’s doing something different at the front of the room that allows me to do something different on my mat. She’s modeling her uncertainty and mistakes. It’s become important for her to project those less-than-perfect qualities. Her decision to put something short of ideal at the front of the room is a political decision. “Wait, wait, is that my teacher expressing doubt, inability, even failure? Wow. That gives me permission to fail. That makes my failings ok.” Instead of only giving me permission to succeed, which is just another form of punishment. Because what if you don’t succeed? Oh, then you can play those old self-punishment tapes again, the ones that never sit on the shelf long enough to collect dust.

Only showing our strongest, shiniest face at the front of the room, at the front of a yoga room for instance, seems directly related to over-striving and injury. When I’m given permission to stop practicing right at the edge of my abilities, to stop pushing to the max every instant, to take child’s pose because that supports the whole group, it means that I can respond to patterns of sensation in a new way. I don’t have to push away or push through the pain. I can make a space for softness and inability, and say yes to that. I think this leads to greater embodiment and less injury, but I’m only speaking for myself."

-- Mike Hoolboom from Matthew Remski's ongoing WAWADIA project.

Keep track of this discussion, it's incredibly valuable, thought provoking, interesting stuff!

and now that you don’t have to be perfect. you can be good.

- john steinbeck

Imperfectly perfect.

A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness:
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbands to flow confusedly
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility
Do more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in every part.

Robert  Herrick (1591 - 1674)