The body has a memory, especially for touch.

The body has a memory, especially for touch.

Thinking about how Mia Morissette stuck her gloved hand into the roof of my mouth and pulled up to get me to feel where the top of my spine could be and how it should feel. She did it for a few seconds two days ago but I don't have to think hard at all to remember the feeling and pull myself up by the roof of my mouth (where the bony palate meets the soft, if you're interested in doing this to yourself).

Thinking about how Levar Burton climbed up a 1000 foot adventure pole and jumped to a trapeze 10 feet away from the top before breakfast. After breakfast one of the adventure park employees told him to do it blindfolded because his body had the memory and he could do it. He did the climb and the leap of faith and he caught the trapeze based on that one time before.

Thinking about traumas inflicted. Thinking about how a physical touch done long ago can wave out keep the pain flaying on its wavelength varietal years later. Thinking of how a repeated repeated repeated repeated friendly and positive touch on that wavelength is what's needed as the antitode. Thank you Mic Lee for your patience. It's a hard time coming.

Thinking about stretching and how stretching the muscles in isolation (like just letting them dangle from endpoint to endpoint in thin air) doesn't feel nearly as wholesome or helpful as when I stroke my hand down my leg trying to release the muscle. Thinking of Thai Massages in Bangkok when I was the most flexible I've ever been. Thinking of how circus physios say passive stretching is really not the way to go.

Thinking of how I fall in love with each person I social dance with at a congress from the first moment so my emotional core will be motivating my movement, and how this seems at odds with the stuck techniques I've been trying to stick my body into, and how disparate they feel right now, and how oh how can they ever meld together? I know it will suck a lot until it gets better. It's so easy to do what's already good...

How does all of the above relate to what I know about how to hold the core and how to operate my body from an emotional center? So said Ida Rolf as paraphrased by Mia Morisette: The peripheral body is the fascia and the mechanical event of the animal. The core is the emotional and energetic event. In zouk we connect these to each other. Everything moves from the red thread of desire. Jose the ballet teacher tells me I need to move my entire body together, and with power. I know this is what he is talking about. Every discipline I've done so far has said this same thing in different ways. All actions need to be taken with your soul. You know it's with your soul if it gives you a good feeling. Physical actions and decision actions. They are not really so different.

Maybe it will all come together some time.