Hiro and Simon October 2009

I-thou – process and contemplation

I think these two quotes  illuminate Freeforming.

Buber stressed that an Ich-Du relationship lacks any composition (e.g. structure) and communicates no content (e.g. information). Despite the fact that Ich-Du cannot be proven to happen as an event (e.g. it cannot be measured), Buber stressed that it is real and perceivable. A variety of examples are used to illustrate Ich-Du relationships in daily life – two lovers, an observer and a cat, the author and a tree, and two strangers on a train. Common English words used to describe the Ich-Du relationship include encounter, meeting, dialogue, mutuality, and exchange.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Buber

i-Thou relationships, on the other hand, are different, being essentially “contemplative” rather than practical. Here we meet an Other in such a manner that nothing beyond the meeting is desired or sought: the experience is one of something/someone which/who is seen and felt as an end-in-itself. The experience involves an appreciation of and a respect for the reality of the Other, grasped in its uniqueness and its mysteriousness. Here I am open and willing to receive the self-revelation of the Other as it stands-out-in-the-open-toward-me, showing itself just as-it-is. In this I welcome, and thus encourage, the Other to show me his/its own unique Truth. The experience is not expressible in descriptive language: it is fundamentally ineffable, since it is the experience of the Other in its uniqueness and its unfathomable mysteriousness: the Other is apprehended as a reality which we can never fully to know, predict, or control. The attitude which characterizes the person who experiences I-Thou is one of disinterested–yet caring and curious–fascination.

http://www.g-gej.org/4-2/crocker.html

nice article on improvisation

A very nice link regarding improvisation

Expanding sensation

Peri Mackintosh expanding sensation with breath and movement.

Freeform practice begins with sensation.

Breath and movement is used to heighten and expand sensation into space.

Breath and imagination is used to link sensation.

This is the internal aspect of kimusubi (energetic bonding) that is central to Freeforming.

mood contagion as kimusubi

In practice to day with Carl – we weren’t getting it….

Despite our best efforts we were unable to connect. To find kimusubi. To meet each other.

I tried slowing to allow connection in stillness – no joy.

I tried moving as fast as I could to catch up with what I perceived as Carls flickering attention. No dice.

We paused to review. “we are not communicating” Carl succinctly put it.

We tried again. I then remembered how Carl had a number of times referred to mood. This term had never entirely clicked with me. However, I decided to focus on this. What was the mood in the room? I  felt as though  my zone of awareness  lowered. My sense of smell perked…

Boom – we were connecting! The Practice instantly moved from an arid desert to a rich, vocal and emotional dynamic engagement.

I realised I had been looking for communication on the first or second floor – but Carl was looking for me in the basement. Our kimusubi or connection happened in the  ambiance of our meeting rather than the detailed alignment of our focus or attention. The connection felt like that of a pack of animals with coordination of roaming  rather the pointed precision of duelists. In psychological terms we are talking mood contagion.

This was no new area for me to practice in, but one I hadn’t consciously made explicit to myself in my conceptualisation of freeforming practice. It could have been described as the id of our situation.

So, Carl, thanks for your patience in helping me realise this crucial aspect of practice.

Bicycling intersubjectivity

Riding home on my bicycle last night exchanging glances with pedestrians and other road users. Much of the time I had a sense we were judging each others trajectory (Buber’s I-it relating). However there were occasions I believed that in our contact we both recognised each others consciousness.

Re-reading Daniel Stern’s The Present Moment (p. 73) I liked this passage.

The present moments that interest us most are those that arise when two people make a special kind of contact – namely inter-subjective contact. This involves the mutual interpenetration of minds that permits us to say, “I know that you know that I know” or “I feel that you feel that I feel.

This is a nice elaboration of what the aikido tradition might call kimusubi and is at the heart of freeforming

where are WE…?

Another way of looking at the challenge of Freeforming is trying to find

Where are we and what is us between you and me?

communitas

I think the concept of communitas as elaborated in this link fits very well with both the intent and affect of freeforming practice.

Quotes from the UKAGP Freeforming workshop handout

inclusion

the therapist must feel the other side, the patients side of the relationship, as a bodily touch to know how the patient feels.

Buber, M. 1967. In R. Anshen (Ed.), A believing humanism: Gleanings by Martin Buber New York:Simon and Schuster

kimusubi

“tying awareness/intention” – a process of continually unfolding connection.

and awareness of different levels of physical and energetic feedback that enables spontaneous creative experience of Aiki (meeting energy)

See Aikido As A Martial Art © by Lawrence Novick, Ph.D. http://home.earthlink.net/~aiki1/martial.html

intersubjective communion

mutual engagement between subjects who consensually attend and attune to one another’s emotive states, expressions and gestures in a prereflective and nonverbal mode of felt immediacy.

Braten, Stein  http://stein-braten.net/p00044.htm

attunement

“a kinaesthetic and emotional sensing of others – knowing their rhythm, affect and experience by metaphorically being in their skin, and going beyond empathy to create a two-person experience of unbroken feeling connectedness by providing a reciprocal affect and/or resonating response” (p. 236).

Erskine, R. (1998). Attunement and involvement: Therapeutic responses to relational needs. International Journal of Psychotherapy, 3(3), 235-244.

play

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.

Plato

new freeforming flyer

freeforming.net and facebook group

We have a new URL to fit our new identity – freeforming.net.

We also have a new freeforming facebook group.

This group is open to all to add your thought, experiences, ideas, media and links regarding althings freeforming and associated areas of connective awareness, mutual mindfulness, freeform aikido, kimusubi, intersubjectivity, improvisation, play, etc…

Your contributions are most welcome

creativity spontaneity poetry vaniegem

Spontaneity is the mode of existence of creativity; not an isolated state, but the unmediated experience of subjectivity.

The Revolution of Everyday Life:The Reversal of Perspective

by Raoul Vaneigem.

Vaneigem championed “radical subjectivity”. Maybe Freeforming could be considered as radical intersubjectivity!

no ready made solution

In thinking about the openness required in kimusubi practice i thought of a title of an art work by john ferris. No Ready Made Solution. This was a found piece of linoleum that by chance had the shape of Ireland. He presented this as an artwork – a Ready made.
I thought the title expresses the perpetual beginner frame necessary. Being without either formal “techniques” or dredging the traces of what we thought had worked in the past. This is challenging in that little can be taken for granted. All we have is the authenticity of our attention and our openness to our partners shifting focus in this moment.

Holding attention

Hiro and Peri and Paper

I may use my eyes to see the direction of your attention but  I can feel your attention upon me.

I can feel where your attention is.

I can sense when I hold your attention.

I can also break your attention. I can neglect your attention and move too fast.

In kimusubi our attentions  are like lights shining back at each other. And like a bright light I feel the “heat” of your attention.

In the past few weeks I have been focusing on our ability to be moved, to be motionally responsive to our partners attention. We experimented with one person restricted in their travel by having to remain on a large sheet of paper. This challenges the free participant to release thier mobility.

I was also interested how in a particularly fast engagement my own volition could override my responsiveness. I discovered that at speed I needed to allow my awareness to “fall” or “rest” in my partners movement. This receptivity allows for a direct connection with less of  the interuptive mediation of my will.

These past few weeks in order to hone our attention skills we have refrained from much actual physical contact.

Carl and Peri

This has been intense and rewarding in the distinction and clarity it brings to the practice. Kimusubi is about attentional linking. This can sometimes be muddied by the mechanics of a physical contact when pressure and weight bearing can be confused with attentional focus. It is the attentional focus that might distinguish Kimusubi free-form practice from, say, contact improvisation.

Daniel Wescott on Kimusubi (freeform aikido)

I began training Freeform Aikido in February of this year, since joining I have been surprised by the number of unexpected benefits to be found in this discipline. Aside from the obvious benefits of training to improve physical fitness and co-ordination I have also found that the practice has given me a space to explore ideas that have been of great interest to me in my creative practice as a designer, in particular the notion of reading intent.

One of the first concepts Peri introduced me to be the concept of Kimusubi, the idea of oneness and connection. In my practice as a designer I have become interested in developing an approach to practice that does not rely on a fixed approach, technique, or style instead I have tried to develop an approach where my choices are informed by the values present in the subject, people and environment. Working in this manner is much more like stumbling, feeling for a sense of what is present and of value. In taking this approach I have found myself developing not just a more intuitive and honest approach but also more importantly a practice, which is born out of the relationship with the people, I work with.

In my first training session with Peri it was obvious that a similar idea was at play in our practice. I wasn’t being asked to learn a technique or system of responses, instead I was asked to feel the intent not just of my partner but also of environment and myself. I’ve been taught a few basic principles of how to protect my self and my partner when Freeforming such as rolling and extending. Outside of this I have found that listening for Kimusubi has been enough to inform my choices when Freeforming, a feeling of extension in the shoulder, a bending of the knees towards the body, a drawing of breath, all these things are there in the moment informing myself and my partner. I have had no formal training in traditional Aikido but listening closely for Kimusubi I’ve found myself responding in a way that has not been learned but would be recognizable to many as a form born of the ideas of Aikido.

Freeform Aikido has offered me the opportunity to understand myself in relation to the practice both on and off the mat and aside from this it continues to be a fun and uplifting experience.

where your energy is….

I noticed with a number of trainings  there is demand that a practitioners “energy” inclination, arousal arrangement be a certain way. At times this can be at odds with where theirenergy is. This I realise creates a problem in aikido practice. If the goal is unification though  joining energy -kimusubi- we are at once creating a split between the practitioners actual energy state and that demanded of the practitioner.

With this in mind I am attempting to encourage practitioners to stay where there energy currently is. Using the a deepened breath to heighten this awareness. Practice then evolves from from following the direction of any energy and opening to the influence of the energies of those around, without loosing touch with our own energies.

This will be familiar to Gestaltists as both the paradoxical theroy of change and the practice of inclusion.

aikido and comedy

I passed a billboard advert for Gatorade – a racing cyclists body with the head and forearms of a scientist looking into a microscope “The science of winning”. There was something about the solemn linearity of this that seemed to me the antithesis of the aiki ethos.

In many ways aiki embraces losing – at least half the time…. I also thought of the hilarity of aikido. I think the aikido situation follows comedic dynamics and the subverted expectation of the joke – looks like one thing is going to happen, it doesn’t, then… ooops! someones fallen over. There is something almost archetypely and inexhaustively funny about people falling over – check “You’ve been framed”.

“Thats the way to do it!”

deep listening into kimusubi

Whilst practicing this evening I realised that the “receptive mode of conscioussness” discussed in my last post really boils down to deep listening – feeling the stick or partner with full attention.

I was delighted to notice how deep listening became energetic bonding (ki-musubi).

The task of motion then simply became moving so that I could “hear” more.

We extended this to partner work with stick. I was surprised and delighted that we were able to freeform out of this work with the stick between us.

deautomatization and the freeforming experience

I would like to pick up on one of the points that Caroline Redl raised in her letter to us “Caroline Redl on Freeform Aikido – a letter” -

“I find that your free forms prevents from getting into a routine”.

This is an issue that has been raised by others – “as if something got disorganized inside me” (Else Hartmann-Johnsen)

For me the disruption of habitual ways of being – thinking, feeling, doing is central to freeform practice. To me this relates to what Arthur Deikman refers to as deautomatization.

Deautomitization is an undoing of psychic structure permitting the experience of increased detail and sensation at the price of requiring more attention. With such attention, it is possible that deautomatization may permit the awareness of new dimensions of the total stimulus array—a process of “perceptual expansion.”

… Deautomatization is here conceived as permitting the adult to attain a new, fresh perception of the world by freeing him from a stereotyped organization built up over the years and by allowing adult synthetic functions access to fresh materials.

… The general process of deautomatization would seem of great potential usefulness whenever it is desired to break free from an old pattern in order to achieve a new experience of the same stimulus or to open a perceptual avenue to stimuli never experienced before.

Char Davies has usefully precis of this

This dehabituating of perception tends to occur as a result of certain psychological conditions, such as when the participant’s attention is intensified and is directed toward sensory pathways; when there is an absence of controlled, analytic thought; and when the participant’s attitude is one of receptivity to stimuli rather than defensiveness or suspicion.

Davies goes on to paraphrase Deikman that the undoing of habitual perceptions allows for the experience of alternative sensibilities that includes

an intense sense of “realness,” as when inner stimuli become more real than objects

transcendence of time and space

unusual modes of perception

feelings of undifferentiated unity or merging (e.g.; a breakdown of distinctions between things and/or the self and the world)

ineffability or verbal indescribability

a profound sense of joy or euphoria

a paradoxical sense of being in and out of the body

Many of these fit with the descriptions of Morihei Ueshibas experiences in Aikido.

It was the promise of such a breakdown of habitual perceptions and the heightening of these sensibilities that attracted me to aikido. They are now the motivating factor behind the development of freeform aikido practice.

This deautomatization demands that we shift to what Deikman refers to as the “receptive mode of Consioussness”. This is where our intent changes from one of manipulation of the environment to “taking in” and appreciating.

The receptive mode presupposes the deautomatization of the intellectual states, which is tantamount to letting things occur rather than make them to occur. This is also called “passive volition”. 1

This is expressed in our practice by the sense of breathing in our sensation, the inhibition of an emphasis on doing with our hands, by using the whole of our body’s, allowing breath and balance to move us.

1. Arthur J. Deikman, Bimodal consciousness, in Archives of general psychiatry, 25(1971), December, p. 481-489, and R. Ornstein, The nature of human consciousness. A book of readings, Freeman and Company, San Francisco, 1973

Caroline Redl on Freeform Aikido – a letter

Dear Peri, Dear all,

Even though it is already a few weeks ago, that I visited your dojo, the pleasure of having had the chance to experience your freeform aikido still stays with me.

Again, thank you all for your very warm welcome!

And finally, here are some lines from me for your page.

What was it like for me to experience Freeform Aikido?

My aikido is based on the forms of Christian Tessier and I’m studying for quite some time with Jan Nevelius and Jorma Lyly from Stockholm, whenever they are in Berlin.

There are many parallels to the approach, which is also focused very much on the awareness and deep contact with your partner and really accepting and taking on the energy / the attack from your partner.

So, it was a fascinating experience to practise your Freeform aikido and to find so many links.

I found that freeform made me very aware and gave me a deep contact with my partner and the group.

Freeform aikido is like flowing in contact with the partner.

The timing and speed of our movements came naturally through the contact. Any change of speed was a mutual decision, a result of constant communication.

Also, I find that your free forms prevents from getting into a routine. As every aikidoka might know, and has experienced throughout countless repetitions of aikido forms, there is a danger of drifting off.

Freeforming is like acting in the unknown. I have to be in touch with my partner, because I don’t know what is coming next.

I have to be aware and yet I can give myself fully into the movement the same time. I very much appreciated that.

I also liked how you included legs, arms and the entire body in the freeforming. That made it a very three-dimensional.

And getting out of strict rules frees the movement and gets the head out of the way.

I think Freeform Aikido is a valuable contribution to everybody’s training, regardless what school of aikido I’m coming from.

I experienced Freeform aikido also as joyous, playful and great fun. It enriches my aikido practice and also my personal development.

To me it’s a very pure and refreshing free form of the spirit of Aikido.

Now having written so many words about my experience and my thoughts and knowing that aikido should be practised and not written about, I hope to share more freeforming lessons with you all. And wish you all the best for your dojo, many students, and new discoveries in movement for freeform aikido.

Thank you!

Hope to see you all soon!

from Berlin

Caroline

Splicing the felt, and the intended

Gathering up and connecting the reciprocal yield between stick and player, I felt the integrative relationship between the sticks tip and my feet.

I wanted to splice this with a more overt outward focus, and linking intention.

sweet surrender

As we discussed the evenings practice I said that something had shifted half way through. Carl said that he experienced a sense of surrender, at which point the practice began to flow more.

I pondered this and pictured both the surrender to the waves and the extension through myself when I have ever body surfed in the sea.

I remembered John Ferris suggestion of “yield” with its dual sense of non-resistance and giving forth – of profitability!

dialogue with a stick

Today we practiced with a stick.

The play evolves out of a feed back loop between the stick and I.

The stick, when held freely, responds to my slightest movement.

I, in turn, attempt to attune to the sticks momentum and align my movement with it. I am again seeking to find and sustain energetic bonding or ki-musubi.

The stick and I are mutually influencing. The practice dries up, or stutters if I try to master or overtly direct the stick.

For me, the discipline is to be open to the stick. This again is an example of how freeform practice is emergent from the “between”.

Here are some comments and observations that Carl Griffiths made on his practice.

• The “prestige” or trade secret is listening to, and following the stick.
• To stay in contact with the stick I need to loose my attachments.
• …this challenges me to steady, continuous listening – and when I do this, I feel liberated from my inhibitions!

Again, thank you Carl!

Looking like “beginners”- Naive art and faith

www.find-art.info/littledog

After practice today we discussed the observation that has been made, that Freeform practitioners look like “beginners”.

I said I really liked that.

Carl said that there was something in our practice that was like Naive Art.

I really liked that.

I said I like the way our practices seem to come out of nothing.

Carl said he liked the way he leaves these practices with nothing, except faith.

I really liked that too.

Thank You Carl

Caroline Redl visits Konjiki Dojo

We were delighted to be joined by the actress Caroline Redl from Berlin as our guest.

Caroline works with Aiki movement in the training of actors.

a review of a Freeform Aikido practice!

We were visited by Mark Walsh, a specialist in Integration Training.

He took this photo and wrote this review -

Last night I had the pleasure of training with these guys.

They do aikido as a movement art rather than martial art. I really enjoyed it and there was a lot of crossover with Original Play and Paul Linden’s work. The emphasis on expression, intuition, sensitivity and presence was refreshing. Paradoxically, this dancelike way of training is also of great benefit from martial perspective as it teaches aiki in its purest form, and a great workout to boot.

If you can get yourself to New Cross East London check them out.

Visit Mark Walsh site

chaos aikido II

Again, the comment was raised as to how freeform aikido is emergent from chaos. A quick search of the web bought up the view point that aikido was to wrest “order out of chaos”. This troubled me, as I ask myself “whose order”?

Maarten Vanden Eynde

For me, freeform aikido is a way of engaging with chaos, in chaos. I would like to think it can embrace mess, stumbling and confusion.

For me there is something important in being able to recognize, own and express as best I can, that this chaos is something I am part of, and is me… and you!

It is out of the mess, the “dancing leaves” * that novelty arises – creation!

* Robin Williamson The Waltz of the New Moon

intense bursts

I have noticed a gradual shift in our “culture” of practice. These days we often group round a practicing pair and enjoy their practice – jumping in and taking over from one of the participants when there seems to be an opening.

I discussing this shift we were aware that our current practice is highly intense and demanding. Our practice goes through wave motions of intense participation and more relaxed recovery time. This is different to the more steady practice rhythm that we used to enjoy.

learning from the ground up

At the end of practice today I noticed that from the waist down I had the feeling of earthiness – like a gro-bag!

We had spent quite some times working from and on the ground in squats, knee walking and back work.

I was aware that I had learnt a lot. Yet my learning felt as though it was in my hips down or feet up. This felt different from the learning I experienced as “head-based” which I tend to experience when working more arm-based and standing.

growing into contact, glowing and marriage!

Today we looked at “growing into the contact”. I was considering how we can at times contract, shrink or brace ourselves against quick or or threatening impacts. I was interested to see that if we expand into, and with the other, ki-musubi is made and developed without any secondary actions necessary. Nicola Endicott suggested we slow down to experience this. Hiro said he wished to look at simultaneous mutual engagement. We combined these two ideas in our practice. Out of the slow practice I became aware of two things.

• a “glowing” quality in our approach is needed to bring the contact alive -The Shining!
• it must be full-bodied not fragmentarily from the limb

When we engaged with each other in this way I had the image of bride and groom meeting at the alter. Hopefully (for the sake of the ensuing marriage) there is the glowing sense of growing together, a vivid electricity. I was reminded of O’Senseis idea of practice as the “cultivation of attraction”.