Use these in your own time, they can be fun, compelling, and brainhacking.
Especially useful if you feel listless and need to get off ya phone and conduct energy!
This is a glimpse into the workshops, there’s many more activities, and I will keep updating this page. The key ones you can do alone for fun and therapeutic potential –
The Crystallisation sequence: Held poses, Mantra, Crystal ? see below
The Pathways Sequence: Ritual actions, heroes journey, pathways ? see below
Shouts of Power – bodily positions affect the voice, repeat a sound while moving in different ways until you find a movment and sound that resonates in a satisfying way. Link multiple into a skyrim style shout of power and imagine its ability
Elemental cores ! — Earth, Fire, Water, Air – you may have seen people using them to inspire movement, and that’s great, but if you haven’t developed the physical sensitivity through some from of training, it might feel forced. Try this, walk around, and shift between the elements, not theatrically, just subtly imagining you have an elemental core –
how would you, with a water core, respond to a circumstance you find yourself in? a rejection, a roadblock, etc . Use this four personalities by answering the same question from four perspectives. perhaps multiple are needed at different points in the journey.
The gateway training !
directed attention! try picking one object, something meaningful to you. If you’re not sure, pick a living thing, a plant or a seed (if its a seed you can contemplate on the potential contained within it, very compelling). Sit with the object placed in front of you, so you can gaze at it comfortably. Try, for as long as you like, to let your perception of this object be the focus of your conscious experience, try to notice when thoughts appear, and gentle return your awareness to just looking at the object. Don’t force thoughts to leave, perhaps interesting ones appear from contemplation of the object, or the experience. The aim is to notice your thoughts, and practice the conscious control of awareness.
Mantra / Crystallisation Sequence
You can start this one by doing another meditation technique where you hold your thumb against each finger in turn, and attach a thought, so that whenever my thumb is pressing with my middle finger, for instance, I am thinking about feeding the fire in by belly, or i’m thinking about my favourite place, whatever the thought, however meaningful, personal, symbolic, visualisation, or a short affirmation, it is valuable to practice the control of thoughts in this way. So that as you go through the fingers and their assigned thoughts, you try to not slip into random thinking, and you try to improve the clarity of the visualisation, or find more meaning within the contemplation. Now, pick a direction, a place in the room or space you are in. The mantra sequence operates by fixing thoughts to certain poses, which can start with a visual focal point, and then find a thought to connect with it, then involve the whole body in expressing idea with a pose.
A gateway mantra that I like to use is, looking downward, contracting self, thinking about my issues to overcome, break away from that to look left, lifting the shoulders, thinking about something which I am grateful for/look forward to. Looking upwards, arms stretched out away from me, expanding into the world while thinking about the potential contained within you, perhaps visualising a light glowing within you. and then bringing your eyes to the right, with the right arm outstretched, and the left arm held on the heart, thinking about the specific actions towards which you will direct your energy.
Once you have solidified a mantra, with physical poses and strong associated thoughts, begin making the poses smaller, until they are just hinted at in the body with tensions and directions, now you cycle faster and faster, until an experience of holding all simultaneously appears
another level to this, once you have a few clear sections of the mantra, begin vocalising them, just a sound, try Ahh Ohh Ooo Eee Iiiiiiii
when you have found the right sound for each, turn it into a little tune. If you tie the sounds to the ideas hard enough, the tune will hold the entire message.
Pathways sequence:
In an empty space , walk in a big circle, decide to step through a doorway (or any action or gesture, especially one that marks a beginning ), now walk around your circular route again and repeat the action when you reach that spot, take another step or so, and find a new action, then walk the route again, doing both actions and adding a new one. Fill up the pathway with more actions until you have an assault course/ heroes journey. Consider placing actions of struggle near the beginning, and a point of growth in the middle, and empowered actions afterwards. This creates a full Heroes journey, of trial, overcoming, and growth.
Now stop, and do the journey in your mind. As precisely as you can, imagining the movements you make, even creating story around it or a purpose behind it. Then do it physically again. Notice the determination it takes to complete it, notice energetic current being switched on. Switch it off, relax a moment. Then switch it back it and enter the flow. Do it in slow motion, feeling the sensation of movement. Do it as if your life depends on it. Do it casually, with the most relaxed body that still allows every movement to be done at a good pace. Repeat until you are sick of it then do it three more times.
Another variation is – create a straight pathway, in a larger space, maybe outside. This is a life path. There are infinite variations of how your life could be. depict the best one, the actions that are required to reach it, to embody your highest self. This can be done only once, or multiple times, learning the behaviours of this highest self and bringing them into your current self. or try acting out the pathway that you’d be on if you never change. Try scaring yourself into activating a need to make changes. If you need to.
With a friend, you can play another variation – one leads, describing different actions and points of the journey, different environments to walk in, different emotional situations, or actions and tasks with a reason. Make an overarching goal and drive yourself towards it.
Archetypal gestures ! The laban efforts are useful, these gestures hold energy, repeating them, even without a mental narrative, can create energetic and emotional reactions
Some Key gestures/poses
Reaching upwards, looking up, legs shoulder distance apart.
Reaching upwards, looking downwards. Feet close together.
reaching forwards towards something
Reaching forwards, pushing something away
reaching downwards, drawing something upwards
etc
Some Key actions: -Note – I’ve picked this actions from my brain because they hold potential emotional weight. Find your own too. When performing an action with the aid of your imagination, its not essential to do perfect mime work, it is essential to commit in your brain as well as body, to being in the scenario, even if you don’t have good visual imagination, if you commit, in your body and mind, it will be real. take it slow, play around with it, and remember that just trying is great for your brain.
Washing your face
planting a tree
sorting a big wall sized filing system
dabbing a wet cloth on a sick loved ones forehead
building a fire – Think about gathering sticks as components, putting in effort to find/break branches, carefully arranging the logs and igniting- a ritual of preparation
striking a match and watching it burn out
throwing away something you held for a long time – repeat the action of throwing, until it sinks in.
stepping over the threshold – be specific about what you’re leaving behind or beginning – a habit, held belief, etc
putting on a ring – marking a binding contract with yourself
bowing in front of someone you respect
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These can be used as solo activities, imbued with whatever purpose suits you. or multiple can be placed at different points along a pathway.
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Score of Contact
With a partner- you can engage in free movement, free association, shared interplay. Afterwards, discuss your favourite moments, moments that held weight, were interesting to do physically, or brought complex associations . Write down or otherwise remember the sequence, run through it several times, try to fix moments of attention, for instance if you were focused on yourself during a certain moment, noticing how you felt, repeat that, or if you were focused on them, a certain thought or relation, or focused on the two of you together, and your shared energy.
Running through the score can be liberating, fun, and revealing.
Here’s some shared moments to spur your action if you don’t feel confident with free interplay yet.
Walking towards each other, holding the hand of your inner child, as if you are the guardian of that part of yourself. Switching attention between your own inner child and their body language, determining the dynamic
Circling each other , focused intently on them
one goes high the other goes low like a seesaw, any form of opposites
any form of mirroring each other
re-enacting a bullfight
helping each other up off the ground
one tries to make eye contact the other avoids
both avoid eye contact
slowly stepping towards each other.
playing with balance, being in balance together, toppling like dominoes, and then being locked back in
