“I used to think truth was eternal, that once I knew, once I saw, it would be with me forever, a constant by which everything else could be measured. I know now that this isn't so, that most truths are inherently unretainable, that we have to work hard all our lives to remember the most basic things. Society is no help. It tells us again and again that we can most be ourselves by acting and looking like someone else...”

― Lucy Grealy, Autobiography of a Face

it's to sing up the earth

never play to the gallery

friday cartoon

"Frank Forencich of Exuberant Animal was one of the really early influential thinkers on applying the evolutionary paleo perspective to movement practice, one of the first great play advocates and great author."

-- Rafe Kelly (who also has a brilliant perspective on human movement) 

interview

Interview by Adrian Sampson

Do you typewrite?

Reminds me a little of re-shaping sequences for teaching, especially when I'm trying to incorporate new movement skills or ways of working.

(From The Paris Review Interviews with Eudora Welty)

Judith Hanson Lasater

Just listened to this interview with Eva Norlyk Smith of YogaUOnline.com and Judith Hanson Lasater (find via yogadork) and Judith had some very interesting points. I recommend having a look/listen. She talks about why yoga is not so much about poses as it’s about exploration and experience, and some of the challenges yoga teachers face.
One of my favourite bits...

"...People don’t have to touch their palms on the floor, they don’t have to get their knees down to the floor in Baddha Konasana.
As yoga practitioners, that’s not what we need to aim for, and as teachers, it’s not our job to make them do these things! Our job to create a space in which they can explore being present, a space that allows them to evoke the best parts of themselves. And as teachers, that is reflected and expressed through our words and our touch and our demeanor, and the spirit and context that we create within the class.
When I, as a teacher, can create an environment in which people are choosing, out of their own power and volition, to move in the direction of wholeness and health, then I’ve succeeded. When we help students choose to move in the direction of health, that is a victory.
We’re all here to make mistakes—to screw things up and to figure it out. We make mistakes on all kinds of levels, and then we try to clean up the mess, try to learn from it. We’re here to explore the things we can’t do, as well as the things we can—with love and attention. And that’s practice, that’s yoga."

  --Judith Hanson Lasater