Day Seven: Self Exploration

Our warmup was to open up our touch sense with some roll downs and spine massaging. One partner would be bent over by the waist as the other partner would place their fingers on each spine bone going up and down as the person would roll up according to a specific tempo.

We then continued exploring the spine with Leonor by responding to there touch when your partner pushes weight on you and you have to push it away from them releasing a sound. A sound that is not held by tension in the throat.

After working with reacting to our instincts we took it a step further and starters passing a water bottle around in the circle. But each time it was thrown the person needed to feel the whole weight of the bottle and release a sound/breath when the bottle would be thrown to the next person. It took quite a while tog eat the hang of it. But when we did we started exploring with a second bottle being added. But the twist was that this bottle didn’t have to go in order. The bottle could be thrown to someone across/diagonal from you in the circle. The three main elements that made this exercise a success was eye contact, listening, and constant awareness.

The night before we had text to memorize which brings me to the next exercise we did. After walking through the space we would make eye contact with one other person in the space and make eye contact with them. Not look at them. But look in them. What are they they thinking about? Are they thinking about me? Do they want to hug me? Do I want to kiss them. Do they want to kiss me? But it’s an exercise so that can’t happen. Right? Or no?

In no particular order, each partner would speak text at a certain point. Some of us had partners who spoke in Spanish and had no idea what the context was of what they were saying. But due to creating a connection with them we had every idea of what they were saying. One would respond with certain. Text depending on how they felt that person was treating them in that moment.

This exercise was then expanded into the whole class having a conversation with the text. Again, in no particular memorized order. It was very difficult at first and took many tries in order to get a grasp on how to do it. The answer to that is not planning on the words you are going to say to make the story make sense. If you are listening to what they are saying the words will come right out with out any preconceived knowledge of the outcome.