Revisiting the Body

I am not facilitating.

Konnektiv is being reborn once again.

We have a new facilitator - at least for now.  One of the regular members, Merv.

Thanks Merv.  I'm off the hook.  And you are on it.  Ha!

We have a new place - Doxey Hub.  This has been a huge part of the last few months of proceedings, and partly why I haven't been blogging.

We have lost our website.  We have lost a committee member, two drama group members, gained some friends, some collaborators, and now we are rebirthing ourselves, as a new and returning to our core values, at the same time.

Wednesday is drama technique night.  We learned about breathing into our tummy's, relaxing through tensing the body, and feeling the contrast when releasing the tension.

We played with moving different parts of the body, using simple movements, but very concentrated, so that every little millimeter of the move was deliberate and held tension.  Like the old Japanese actors, focussing the intensity.  It felt nice.  Difficult when moving fast.  It's nice to really think about a movement.  Moving becomes a pleasing experience, not just bumbling around thoughtlessly.  And to really think about breathing.

I find myself remembering to appreciate the incredibleness of life, and the miracle of breath and movement.  I don't know how I do these things.  It makes me feel a little bit crazy if I think about it too much, but I do like to be reminded, so life doesn't become too humdrum, and I start taking things for granted.

Part of the holding tension game involved balance.  We couldn't swing, jump or hop, in that sense, weight is fixed to the floor, and must shift through the bodily movement very deliberately.  That was a bit tough to get back into at first.  Then as I worked with a simple sideways leg movement, raising and lowering in turn, repeatedly, it became smoother and more fluid.  The rest of my body learned to stay focussed and still.  Then it became more like fun.  Like a child learning a new trick.  As I got better at it, I started to feel quite proud of myself, in a small way.

Later, walking around the room, we experimented with having 2 different levels of tension in our bodies, apparently this is what Charlie Chaplin did.  I held my lower body tense and upper body more relaxed, it was interesting,  forcing a very strange walk indeed.  I held my torso stiff and tense, and allowed my legs and arms to be fluid, flapping my arms and bending my legs.  This was great, it made me laugh.  

Later still, we played invisible tennis.  We are starting to get the hang of this now.  It is better, we found, to quite rigidly stick to the rule of turn taking.  One person does a move, the other 'returns it', then has it returned back to them, this carries on for some time.  Everyone has their own style of movement and response, sometimes one person will lead for some time, the other tending to react to them, then the second person will decide to do something different, to change the story.  Two people together have a different style of movmement again.  So each pairing developed their own unique characters and story.

All of these games and activities are designed for two purposes - to increase body awareness and control, and to increase inter person sensitivity within the group.