Personal Diary / Journal - art, addiction and a whole lotta love

2020 Apr 25 Saturday

I'm going through something again. One of my former co-workers in the dance department sent me some videos with a guy dancing and an interview with the same bloke. It's inspired me to want to dance, and i danced for a bit, even added a new parameter to my mind/body practice. But now i want to dance some more and something is stopping me. It's like there's a blockage, a shield somehow that my body is putting up against my willpower to move. I don't know what it is, but it feels a bit like paralysis again from two weeks ago. I really wonder what it is. I feel like i'm not in the mood, like my body is rebelling. Baby Love says i should force myself to do it, maybe that's the trick. Force myself to start at least, after that let the process take over. I wonder why though. I see all these people in the videos and they move so freely, it's like i'm in a straight-jacket or cuffed up or something, or on some kind of drug or medicine. Damn..

[..] i figured it out. It's not that i have to force myself, it's that i have to find the right leverage to pull on. The right tension. I did an exercise i used to do when i was in some dance project as a music player, but i danced a lot and i came up with this exercise. It involves laying on the floor and trying to stand up without forcing my body to move from a mind place, but moving from a body place. It entails lots of tension in the muscles and waiting in tense positions to reach the next available movement. Very satisfying to get up this way, you feel like a winner. A lot of falling back down as well, until you finally manage to pull yourself up. I'm going to try it again.

[..] this time it was easier. Maybe i'm just warmed up or something. It's fascinating to me, this exercise, because some movements feel wrong, forced, artificial, rash, coming from the mind telling that part of the body to move, and i have to be very careful to stop a motion before it feels wrong, or if i start something and it's wrong, i put that hand or foot or whatever back the way it was and then it's right again. I can continue the exercise after i stood up and it's equally satisfying from the body point of view, like i'm one with my body and we move together. It's always a bit of a contrast when i break away from the concentration. Ideally i would like to live all of my life in that state, whatever i do and wherever i go. Bit difficult to write with the same speed though. Still manageable apparently. Only it's more efficient, i use more fingers and my hand moves less. Maybe it is possible, i would really like it. Perhaps this is the pinnacle of my mind/body practice, this state and way of moving. .. Then the hands just stop writing. Much patience is required. It really feels like stillness, like every muscle is satisfied, no protest, even if it's in tension. The protest of being a slave to the mind. Now i want to smoke but the question is if i'm patient enough to do it in this way, it might take a while. First some coffee. But no, apparently my body doesn't want to move where and when i want it to. Should i slave it around like i've been doing since forever or should i just wait and search? Part of me wants to turn off the screen of the phone so i can wait without worrying about the battery, apparently there's work to be done for this too.

[..] god it's so much work. The work lies in the patience required to complete simple tasks. The moment from when i want something until it gets done. And the mental effort spent to figure out how to do it. Truth is, i can forego all that effort and just keep wanting the ting, then the body makes it happen. Feels almost like someone else is doing it while i do it, or like i'm sitting put, but still, it's a lot. I have to get used to not trying to figure out a way, or calculate my trajectory, and just let my body take over when it wants to. I can influence my breath without it feeling too wrong, but it somehow feels like cheating. The breath conduces movement, if i breathe in deeply, my body makes a move. Or i can just wait around until it happens on it's own, just keep wanting the thing. I guess this will be the effort once i resolve the mental effort of calculating ways to get there, once i get rid of that, the effort and decision will be if i should continue to want the thing. Because let me tell you, i don't get it right away. Still much to discover in this path. It's really letting go, i feel this path represents. I have to let go of lots of luxury and the pampering of deciding something and it immediately materializing, and i have to have much patience and wait respectfully until my body goes by itself into the perfect chord for the movement, the perfect leverage to extend and get the thing. And i'm talking about little things too, like getting water or lighting a cigarette. Not even trying to go to where i would actually have to leave the house and go somewhere. I guess in time we'll get there. Writing is easy apparently, it's the getting up from the couch and positioning the keyboard that take time and patience and the letting go of the luxury that the body just does it, no questions asked. And i can forget about optimizing too, optimizing is strictly a body thing in this manner. If i intervene it feels wrong. I guess it's a way to work together with the body, almost be as one. More to come. (Even writing, i discover that my hands tend to stop just before correcting a mistake, and gather momentum so that correcting the last bit of mistake carries with it the rest of the word or the other words that i want to type.)

My hands are dry and smell of soap.

[..] it's still going on. I wrote on the focus board "obligating the body / allowing" under parameters. I guess it pretty much sums up this mode of mind/body practice. My Baby Love is making pizza. I plan on keeping it up, so i'm curious how the pizza-eating will go down. Will i eat everything with so much gusto, or leave some for later? Will i enter the scene like a wolf and swallow without chewing, like usual? I've been wanting to smoke for some time, so we'll see.

I don't know if "obligating" is the right word for this, or if this is just another part of my practice or if it's the culmination for everything i've put together so far. But this feels great. I remember these past few halves of hours with very much pleasure, like i was one with the universe or something.

Baby Love seems to appreciate it as well, she's lovely as always but i think i can tell. She responds. In the word of the postman from "After Life", result! Time for a smoke, but i will just take my time.