Nine joyful lessons from a global lockdown, as we emerge from our respective caves.

we are the creature that can selectively wear idealogical biases like costumes for the masquerade, pragmatically or aesthetically or exploratatively dancing between “constructions” and “values” and “senses or skills or attitudes”.

Choose and use your tools, and choose and use them wisely.

The good news here is that you can practice till your last moment, and you can do it beautifully, without sacrificing the things that make movement practice singularly special - quality and attention to detail, the work ethic it demands, the fears it puts you up against, the way it connects the seemingly disparate, the exploration and adventure and growth that characterize it.

During the lockdown, we maintain our practice with full intensity.

The best definition which has ever been given of a high standard of organization, is the degree to which the parts have been specialized or differentiated

- Charles Darwin.

A movement practice is an excellent way to model the mindbody phenomenon; by giving us reference after reference of what it IS, from as many vantage points as possible...

Hypocognition is usually used to refer to things besides ourselves... but what about turning that lens back upon ourselves? What don’t we see, of who and what we are, for lack of models and mental machinery which manufacture the context for making our own existence comprehensible?

When engaged in partner work, it is common enough that one is the agent, and the other the patient. That is, one seems to be doing “the work” while the other provides the context for practicing. One component that must differentiate our practice and our culture, that we must install to be truly rarefied, is to bring quality to that dynamic. And one of the most difficult aspects of cultivating such a high level of partner work is the attention and focus of the agent.

First order retrievability: Any tool you will use should be immediately accessible from the place from which you work (Adam Savage). Our craft is less characterized by specific tools, but this philosophy bears significant relevance for us.

The importance of the ability to keep your center of mass over the base of support (balance) is difficult to over-state. On the other hand, it’s not the end-all-be-all of a movement practice – just look at the best “balancers” (whether on hands or feet) and see that they struggle when control has to be sacrificed.