Tensegrity Seminars

Los Angeles (6) - August 1997 [ 1997 Index | Previous | Next ] To:   The Ixtlan Mailing List Date:   Tue, 2 Sep 1997 00:04:46 -0400 (EDT) LA TENSEGRITY WORKSHOP AUGUST 23-27 These workshop impressions have a large subjective element in order to attempt to impart more of the *mood* of a workshop. I'm afraid I failed in this attempt, as there is no substitute for immersing oneself in a workshop. I also tried to cover material that was new to me, that I had not encountered in any previous workshop or writing. The Setting The workshop was held at the Concourse Hall inside the LA Convention Center. The site was on the Southwestern fringe of the Downtown area. Although I lived in the LA metro area for 17 years, I never paid any attention to this area, but it has an energy of its own, as I discovered. The old was mixed with some very large modern skyscrapers. I stayed in the Figueroa Hotel, which had a marvelous lobby, restaurants, and outside bar on the first floor. The Spanish decor was absolutely enthralling, and very conducive to the mood of the workshop. I encountered many workshop-attendees carrying their blue mats in this hotel and the one adjoining it. The feeling of comradery was palpable. On the short walk to the LA Convention Center from the Figueroa Hotel I could read the sign on the Holiday Inn every morning. It read in large letters, "WELCOME TENSEGRITY WORKSHOP". I guess Castaneda's ideas have finally hit the mainstream of commerce. In most of my previous 3 workshops, I kept mostly to myself, practiced the movements, and contemplated the lecture material in silence. On this occasion I was adopted by two female warriors: one from the South (where I currently reside), and the other from Germany. I guess they thought I looked like I needed a mommy. (They were probably right.) We often walked to and from the workshop together, and had meals together. Their hotel was next to mine. Their companionship and wisdom brought a whole new dimension to the workshop experience for me. Thanks ladies, for your blank check of support. Overview This workshop gave saturation new meaning as they spent the weekend giving us the usual intensive treatment that other recent workshops have seen. After saturating us with 6 long forms, we were finally ready for the five series of not-doing passes which began on Monday. As we have seen in other recent workshops, the lectures were short and focused. Taisha, Florinda, and Carol actually read from prepared notes! Identity Crisis with the Sorcerers Florinda began a common theme in this workshop regarding their identities. After the obligatory stating of their names, they would say "I think", or "I'm still ..." They implied that they didn't know how much longer Florinda Donner-Grau or Taisha Abelar or Carol Tiggs would continue to exist. The condition was compared to senility - the disappearance of familiar signposts. I didn't kow how to take these statements. Did they mean that they didn't feel like themselves today? Did they mean that they might have to abandon their personas that allow them to appear in workshops and adopt new ones that would drive them underground once again? Did they mean that they might literally forget who they were? Bobby and Seymour In this workshop, the Flyers were simply referred to as the predators, or as Bobby. The latter was a more psychological designation. They described Bobby as simply being like we are: chubby, lazy, a little dumb. We are Bobby. But they also claimed that one never rids themselves of predators completely. There is a predator for every man, woman, child, and sorcerer. For example, although Bobby no longer bothers the witches, they now have Seymour with whom to contend. Bobby likes the awareness covering the lower half of our luminous eggs, but Seymour (see-more ?) feasts on the upper half of the cocoon. Seymour is lean, mean, clever, and evil. The witches were philosophical about the ubiquitous predatorial nature of the universe. Predators force us to perform at our very best, to evolve, to mutate. Without predators, the universe stagnates. The universe itself endows entities with awareness and sends them out as probes. The probes are what permit the universe to become conscious of itself. Bobby's Ownership Paradigm Florinda said that the benevolent interpretation of the way sorcerers handle the world is through elegant acquiescence. We must acquiesce to forces greater than ourselves, but we have the choice sometimes to do so with elegance and beauty, and this is the predilection of the warrior. One big issue that needs to be handled with elegance, according to Taisha, is how we ultimately deal with our owners. The sorcerers choose their words very carefully, and they selected the word *owner* to refer to our parents. Our parents *own* us, because they forever try to bring us back into the fold by stressing our obligations to marry, raise a family, go to church, be a responsible member of the extended family and community, etc. They often compare us unfavorably with one of our siblings if we attempt to stray. It doesn't matter that the sibling is an alcoholic, depressed, wife-beater. At least he's married. Bobby's ownership paradigm is indeed a paradox for sorcerers, for it seems there is no satisfactory solution. Taisha dealt with her owners by standing on a chair and battering her extra-sized father. After that humiliation, her father forbade the family from having any more to do with her. Taisha stressed that this was a totally unsorceric way of coming up with an elegant solution. Useless Hope Three musical themes were introduced especially for this workshop. They were 1. Nocturnal, 2. Sin Ti (Without You), and 3. Esperanza Inutil (Useless Hope). Each is a romantic love song. They were chosen because the sorcerers believed that the longing experienced by the lover for another was a very apt expression of the longing of the sorcerer to join the energy body. In fact, they would say that the longing of the average man is for the energy body, but that it is just projected onto another person. Of course, the energy body is shooed away by the predator shortly after birth, because it knows that together with the energy body, we would be an unbeatable combination. The situation is nearly hopeless, but we still dare to hope... Useless hope Flower of sorrow Who do you persecute me In my loneliness? Why don't you let me Drown my yearnings In the bitter cup Of reality? I was touched by the observations of the sorcerers on this issue, and found them more poignant than previous mockeries of "luuuuuuuuuuuv" heard in other workshops. Of course the kind of self-love we call love deserves nothing but scorn, but it isn't our fault really (another workshop theme). New Conception of Not-Doing Just 9 months ago the sorcerers were voicing a different definition of sorcery, and recommending dissonant behaviors like moving around in a swivel chair on our bellies. Now, Carol Tiggs defined not-doing as an "interruption in the natural flow of energy." Anything that obstructs our usual behavior patterns, even for an instant, is a not-doing. The interruption itself is not-doing. The unusual behaviors that entertain or shock us are only the result or byproduct of a not-doing. They believed that they had wrongly focused for years on the outlandish behaviors, and had missed out on the essence or kernel of not-doing. Now the new not-doing passes focus exclusively on encouraging this subtle interruption. This is an example of something I really like about the sorcerers. They don't claim to know it all. Their understanding evolves and changes with the times in a very hermeneutical fashion. They don't fall back onto dogma and the literal truth. Nothing is sacred, everything is open to pragmatic interpretation. As warriors, they keep on their toes, and are running all the time, like fugitives from the predators. The Not-Doing Passes The clan has had many names for the ineffable, including *Spirit* or *It*. The current favorite seems to be the Dark Sea of Awareness. I very much like this impersonal but beautiful/terrible image-provoking term. The strategy behind many of the not-doing series is to exploit the only awareness left to us humans: the narrow fringe on the bottom of the luminous cocoon. Many passes involve splashing or dipping into the stream of awareness that runs through the bottom fringe. They say that the bottom fringe is connected directly to the Dark Sea of Awareness. I feel refreshed as my toes dip into the stream of awareness while performing these passes, and then smear the awareness onto other parts of the body. The not-doing passes were performed lying down on mats. We were able to see the instructors on several projection screens that were distributed around the periphery of the Hall. The not-doing passes are clearly aiming at a deeper level than the previously taught series. Even the mood and tempo were shifted. The not-doing passes are performed very slowly, both between reps and between passes in a series. The instructors often waited for more than 2 minutes between passes while the whole room was poised in silence. The reason for the slowed tempo is so that the practitioner can avail herself of the highly sought-after lull. The Lull The Lull or pause is the pearl sought by the practitioner of the not-doing passes. It is a moment, or even just an instant, the length of time doesn't matter, wherein the mind ceases and you go away to somewhere else. Most of us experienced the Lull during the practice. I spent much time staring at the ceiling of the Hall. The ceiling described an interesting pattern. It was a grid with slanted recessed squares. A light was in the center of each square among translucent tiles. My eyes became lost in the details of the ceiling. For a while I mused that the pattern was the surface of a Star Wars type spaceship. Sometimes I found myself walking on the surface of the spaceship. The people lying on their mats were like insects hanging from the ceiling. One Lull produced a fantastic vision and a bona fide journey to *somewhere else*. I was watching the ceiling as usual. Suddenly, the space opened up and I saw a Mezzanine level in the Hall. The sorcerers were peering down at all of us over a rail on the Mezzanine. Then all the sorcerers were doing something together in a room, and I watched them from a distance. This memory of this Dreaming returned to me at later times during the workshop when Florinda mentioned that she couldn't make fun of Taisha because certain people were present in the Hall, and when the announcement was made that Carlos was *here* in some mysterious sense. Were the sorcerers actually among us in the Hall, observing the effects of mass as we practiced the movements? Were they Dreaming the workshop? Where's Carlos? That brings us to the question so rudely posed by a gentleman during the Q/A session given by Taisha and Florinda. Where was Carlos? I had been to 3 previous workshops, and had seen Carlos at each one of them, so it was not a big issue for me. For the many first-timers, it was an issue. I had thought that Carlos would not be able to stay away from an intensive LA workshop, but the energetic tides were just not right. Someone suggested maybe he had a cold. How mundane. Theatre of Infinity Wow! Wow! Did you think that these people take themselves ever so seriously all the time? The Theatre of Infinity will blast that conception. Prunella Fitz-Moritz, the alluring red-headed transformation of Carol Tiggs and hostess for the theatre, assured us that this was not acting, but actual transformations of persona. For in the world of sorcery, all acts are final. Some skits were extremely funny, as in "This Girl is Mine" starring Tiggs as another bombshell, "Farleys' Day", "The Hunter and the Hunted", and "A Lesson for the Unenlightened Ones". "The Marionettes", which traced a love affair between a robot-like man and woman, hit extremely close to home. The best one-liner came from the lips of host Lorenzo Drake, who knelt down at the edge of the stage to say to a woman in the audience "I saw you on the mat earlier." Lorenzo asked us all if we were feeling empty; why not watch the 24-hour sorcery channel on cable in our hotel? Indeed. Sorcery paradigms: Cynicism vs. Suspension of Judgment Everyone seems to eventually view these workshops with one of two perspectives. The cynic sees the cost as too high, the bookstore as too commercial, the profusion of movements as a gimmick to induce the unwary consumer to keep returning for more. The practitioner simply suspends judgment, and goes along for the ride. The movements are performed to perfection in the way they are taught, and the answers are sought from the end results of practice and experience. I do not judge either the cynic or practitioner, although the practitioner is closer to my heart. As the sorcerers say, "I never thought I'd live forever, so let's do it." Postscript: Santa Monica Practice Group On the evening following the workshop I attended a practice group in a dance studio on Santa Monica Blvd. From 35-40 people were in attendance, a figure that was probably inflated by the recent workshop. This workshop was no nonsense practice - not much socializing here. We practiced the 6 long forms many many times to exhaustion. This practice really helped to cement my kinesthetic memory of the long forms, most of which would have faded without the practice group. I heartily recommend these practice groups to those who can't afford to attend a lot of workshops. They really help! Hail to you all: the elegant artisans of freedom. -jack [ 1997 Index | Previous | Next ]

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