— please stroll down for Turkish—
Notes by Emilia Swadowska & Defne Erdur
Workshop for Beginners with Defne Erdur – 30.11.2014
We are laying down on the floor and practicing letting go and following our breathing as we scan our body. We are breathing in to feel the boundaries of our skin. Imagining, that we are expanding like balloons.
As the weight sinks in the floor we roll to our side (like water bottle rolling on the floor) and without effort we come to sitting and slowly stand up. Arms are relaxed. We move up and down to lay down, sit, on fours, stand again and again keeping the balloon image – 360 degrees filling our bodies with breath.
As we are moving we are being aware of the balloons around us and we arrange ourselves in the empty spaces. We fill up the space, being aware of the holes in it.
After a while, as we are moving we try to feel the answers of Defne’s questions in our bodies:
– Where do your arms start from? Check it from the place and position you are currently in. Shoulders? Back of your torso? Do they start somewhere deep in the floor? Or maybe in the far away space? Where do the end in the space?
– Where do your legs start, where is your hip joint start? What happens to your hips while moving? What is their relation with your knees and ankles?
– Feel your limbs as you move them. Where have you left them in the space?
Come to stillness and feel the ground. Pelvis loose. Sitzbones parallel to the floor, tailbone relaxed. Remember the rabbit ears that are inviting you to go up towards the sky from the back of you neck and straighten your spine. Remember the 5 diaphragms – arch of the foot, pelvic floor, diaphragm below ribs, your palate and the top of your head. Try to feel the alignment of these arches and allow their mobility as you try to keep them parallel to the floor as you are shifting your weight from one foot to the other, from heels to toes…
Gradually start walking around the room, try to keep your eyes at the horizon.
– Find a partner and stand face to face. One of you put your hand and forearm under the forearm of your partner. The one with the hand under the forearm starts a gentle move, inviting down the skin & flesh of the partner’s arm. Carrying all its weight. The one on top tries to find the answer to: What does it mean to release, to let go, to surrender? How heavy is my arm?
The one who carries the arm can check if the partner is controlling/holding by taking away unexpectedly the arm under (but the aim is not to trick the partner, not to manipulate) but to invite the partner to let go. Then we change roles.
Separate from your partner and allow your whole body weight fall down to the floor. Rabbit ears can be helpful again as you go up and down -to remind the freedom of the head and the extention of the spine. Let go, fall down. Its ok, all organs are in their places still.
Open your focus to the space and start walking again. As you are walking be aware of the others around you. Along the way find a partner and get under one of his/her arms. Walking with a forearm: As you walk together lead him/her in the space by supporting his forearm. Walk a bit together, inviting him/her to let go of the weight and later let go and change with others in the space. You can be carried or can carry. After several rounds we meet in a circle.
Forearm Wave in the Circle: Connect with your neighbors by placing your right hand under your neighbor’s left hand and your left hand carrying your left neighbor’s right arm. Close the circle like that, close your eyes, facilitator takes her right hand down, it goes like domino all around the circle – unexpected weight fall. Be. Feel. Let go. Be Ready. Respond. Set the impulse free in the circle.
Back to Back Contact: In CI one of the principle is to find only one point of connection but in this exercise connect with your all back with your partner. Try to go down and up together. Can you find compromise without talking? What can be helpful? Rabbit ears? Breath? Hands up? Hands in front? Where do you take your power and orientation from? Legs? Center? Breath is the always there to help.
Now everybody meet next to the wall. Backs to the wall, go down and stand up. Active center, active legs, leaning back! And see what works for you to slide down the wall.
Open your focus to the space and start walking again. Let go of all the information to tried to retrieve and walk freely and relaxed. If you find a partner on your way standing, place your back on their back and make a collective decision to go down to lower levels. You can also choose to stand still as an invitation for partners to come and join you. Discover new ways of finding pathways to go down and up with your new partners. Feel the horizontal weight you share with leaning to your partners.
Come face to face with a partner for other ways of sharing horizontal weight:
- facing each other and staying in one place we try to “push” each other thru our hands. We try to keep the form of the body and try not to bend arm joints.
- facing each other we hold each others arms and we lean back – without bending arms. We try to keep the same form and use our center to carry ourselves and the extra weight from our partner.
- facing each other we hold each others arms and we squat down together and come up again trying to keep the same level and trying not to carry each other. Emphasis in all these exercises is on the center, not the arms.
Open your focus to the space, start walking again and then start moving & dancing freely. Once in a while you can go under an arm of a partner and have a small dance with them. or can come to back to back and go down and up, can hold both arms and do the exercises in a more free fashion. After a while allow these exercises to melt into a dance with one partner. And don’t forget to have fun!
Along the way don’t force yourself to lift your partner. Let the dance bring you to other levels. Then you will lift or will be lifted organically.
Türkçe notlar Sedef Gökçe tarafından tercüme edilmektedir. Biraz sabır lütfen…