Tensegrity Seminars

Los Angeles (8) - August 1997 [ 1997 Index | Previous | Next ] To:   The Ixtlan Mailing List Date:   Sun, 31 Aug 1997 01:00:11 +6 Los Angeles workshop 'notes'.... The description is; exhausting, exhilirating, demanding, intense, unpredictable, direct, detailed, surprising, and very much mind altering. Saturday and Sunday both were devoted to the condensation of the Six Series of passes into long forms. The long forms mirrored the separate movements from the 'purple book' with a few variations. The initial schedule was scrapped right from the start. We were led over and over through these long forms often to the point where we were all sweating profusely. On Monday we began the Not-Doing passes. They are all performed from a supine positon. The leg and foot movements are innocuous enough. To anyone walking through the room it must have looked liked a huge group doing some sensless, benign exercises. Florinda spoke to the group four times during the day on Saturday about flyers, the point of self reflection between our toes, alternative points of focus on the small fringe of awareness around our toes remaning to us, and all sorts of other points. Taisha spoke to the group several times on Sunday about much the same thing. She focused on "the dark sea of awareness" likening it to the spirt and intent. I can't now recaall whether it was Taisha or Florinda that said the dark sea of awareness emanates from one of the great bands of energy in the universe and that organic forms that have awarenss are represented by another band. Early Monday Carol Tiggs spoke. She repeatedly said that the Not-Doing passes "are to be performed". She advised us to be alert to the "lull" that may come as one pauses between passes. This lull will be characterized affectively as and "exquisite sadness." The goal is to interrupt the "natural cognitive flow" even if for only a "millisecond". The advice was to perfrom the Not-Doing Passes slowly and "perfectly" especially those of the first and second series. She went on to talk about the odd behaviors of sorcerers chronicled in Castaneda's books. She said that these behaviors were what these indiviuals chose to do with what they gleaned from the "lull" of the Not-Doing passess. The point of Not-Doings is to create a break in the narural, usual flow of awareness. The behavior is a result of this break. Up until then I had assumed that the behaviors themselves caused the interruption but Carol Tiggs said this is not the case. (I think I heard right???) Carol said that the frst series of Not-Doings creates an energetic increase and the second set balances the first. Some new force enters and the continuity of our lives is broken. Effort and endless discipline yields from the spirit the needs of the practicitioner no matter how complex those needs may be. Not-Doing passes are to be performed until we lose the human form. Both Don Juan, his cohorts, Carlos and his cohorts have had to "dust off" the Not-Doing passes to present them. Carlos' and Taisha's books have nothing to do with what they are doing now. The universe is an endless challenge. The sorcerers of antiquity recognized this and "tightened their belts". Florinda added that the material that comes up in the lull between the Not-Doing passes "...is not a dream. It is someting else." The Energy Trackes and the Elements (10 women and 6 men) have been formed as a new cohort group. Florinda said that the Tensegrity Instructors do see energy directly as it flows in the universe. She went on to introduce them and their occupational/academic undertakings. On Monday and Tuesday we practiced the 86 Not-Doing passess and the 14 breathing passes. On Wednesday we reviewed all the passess before noon. At four p.m. on Wednesday some of the Energy Trackers and Elements performed some long forms for the group. We were to meet back at the center at 8 p.m. for the Theater of Infinity. This was an absolute scream. With Carol Tiggs, Lorenzo Drake, the Blue Scout and Cleopatra (who was she???) acting as M.C.'s the Elements and Energy Trackers treated us to 13 skits. I won't even try to detail to antics and poignant moments. This is a must see if they ever do this again. The cumulative impact of all this was profound. I saw numerous people walking out of the center looking stunned after the first practice of the Wheel of Time passes on Tuesday afternoon. Near the end of the set in the middle of the use of the wheel of time I felt a squeezing pressure on some undefined part of my body. It was more difficult to breath. It was not a feeling of being overwhelmed or anxious, just an intense, strange pressure. I sat up and looked straight down toward the floor with my eyes closed. I perceived an upwelling of some inner darkness and was held for a few moments in its influence. I then fell back onto my back on the mat. My mouth fell open and I was indeed stunned. I couldn't move for a few moments and then began to recover my faculties. This created a state of inner silence, detachment and a break with my unending concern with myself . The overall feeling continues to the preseent. My guess is that this will fade in time and I am curious if I can delve deeper into this realm on my own while doing the Not-Doing passes. While I had some idea of some effects of the magical passes prior to this workshop, this was magnitudes beyond anything I have experienced before. 'hope this may be in some ways confirming and accurate too...... Tom Hiken [ 1997 Index | Previous | Next ]

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