Archive for February, 2009
Teaching Abstractions
Published Wednesday, February 4th, 2009 by Steven Smith
Thank you: all those who attend the First Baguazhang Dreaming Workshop. I appreciate your support and the powerful roles each of you played in capturing your dreams. Let me tell you a few things.
I typically prefer teaching specifc and peculiar details about form or about partner drills or about proper anatomical movements. I can tell when people get it and understand it. I cannot tell what you dream. Dreams defy specific teachings. And teaching people to unite with their dreams, in their own, personal way is beyond the scope (so far) of being me. So the latest workshop was a challenge.
I set up opportunities. I gently directed attention. I kept lessons brief and made space for inner exploration. The deep secret: put pressure on normal living expectations, in this case pressure was on sleeping.
We contorted sleep while moving in a Baguazhang way around real, live blazing fires in the middle of the starry night. And I wondered often: how is it working for him, for her, for him, for her, for him?
In the First Dreaming Circles Workshop, practitioners got a mellow taste of proper Baguazhang and drank deeply of Earth Palms in the starry night. We started right at 10pm and rode a wave of sleepiness through 7am. In five teaching episodes, spaced by 45 minutes of sleep, people practiced:
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