If you are perfectly capable of the thing you are attempting to do in training, then you’re missing the point.

Question: we are tasked with imbuing our movements with meaning, significance, presence, during training, even when following. But we are discouraged from ‘acting’. How can we create a story without acting? Or am I wrong that I should avoid it?

There is a moment in training that I’m not sure if I’ve described where everything clicks–either the endorphine/adrenaline surge takes over, or you become completely present, or completely engaged in whats going on, or rather all of that at once. Todd, another student here, called it ‘breaking on through to the other side’ once in my hearing. I kind of experience it as igniting–one minute I am everyday, and the next minute I am warm and moving freely; my aches and pains disappear, I feel the weight of my body travel upward instead of pulling me down, and I stop worrying for a little bit about whether I’m being creative enough or too pushy or too passive and just enjoy myself. It’s a sudden transition sometimes, and sometimes I notice that I have been in that state for a while.

It’s delicate, though–the moment I think “I’m there! I’m in that state” then it starts to slip and I have to stop rejoicing. And if I ever experience a moment of doubt, uncertainty, hesitation, that makes it slip too. I didn’t attain it at all during this morning’s run or training, and I missed it. A lot. Tired today, and feeling my aches and pains. But so little time left!

Off to do design work–
Alissa