Lost and Found

[radiantfracture]

One of my favorite sensations is a kind of safe disorientation, a lost-ness withing secure (but perhaps not quite known) parameters. Walking here is excellent for that. It is easy to lose your way on these unbiddable and slightly ensorcelled streets, but if you do get lost all you need to do is point yourself towards the ocean.

Yesterday when the Tai Chi class at Thrive Studio turned out to be not a Tai Chi class and not at Thrive Studio but across the street, and when the check-in was in a by-appointment-only skin product store and the class in the next-door art studio, and when the instructor, a youngish Tim Robbins lookalike with a gentle manner and something spilled down his shirt, began by saying "I've been thinking about some of the movements we make as infants, before we begin to walk," I lay back on my yoga mat in complete contentment.

Apparently the exercises were based on the Feldenkrais method? This is a word I have heard but a practice I know nothing about. I believe some friends did it after they were in a car accident? It sounded as though the instructor kind of improvises each session around a theme, rather than sticking to a particular practice. He seemed genuinely lovely, soft-spoken and kind.

I was intrigued because there was a lot of attentiveness to small shifts in bodily and somatic states, which is something I'm interested in as a part of my poetic project (which is in a not very active stage, so this is lucky and maybe helpful. Maybe.) It was interesting, too, in that what he did wasn't wholly symmetrical -- he had us try different actions on different sides.

I went with A. -- this had been her counter to my suggestion that we try a Pilates class. (The pilates class was super-intense, so good call.)

When I arrived, I was feeling lost in a less happy way, having had a sort of comic disagreement with a colleague I like a lot (not a political disagreement, but one about a book he liked and I didn't). I was running late, and uneasy, and unsure of my bearings. I would not say that all of my problems were solved, but the oddity of the situation was a great comfort.

{rf}

Comments

[oracne]

That sounds intriguing. The Feldenkrais, I mean.

[intertext]

In one of those odd overlaps in existence, I knew about Feldenkrais from a very good friend of mine who does short-term rentals. One of her regular customers is someone who comes down to Victoria every year to do training in ... you guessed it, Feldenkrais. It has always sounded rather interesting.

And I so sympathize with that feeling of being slightly disoriented and off-balance. I seem to suffer from that a lot (like entering a room and finding no free chairs except at the corner of a table next to someone you dislike). I'm glad you found your center in that class.

[sovay]

Yesterday when the Tai Chi class at Thrive Studio turned out to be not a Tai Chi class and not at Thrive Studio but across the street, and when the check-in was in a by-appointment-only skin product store and the class in the next-door art studio, and when the instructor, a youngish Tim Robbins lookalike with a gentle manner and something spilled down his shirt, began by saying "I've been thinking about some of the movements we make as infants, before we begin to walk," I lay back on my yoga mat in complete contentment.

I am glad you could be comfortably bemused.

[calimac]

"Safe disorientation" makes me think of a hobby of mine in childhood, which was to ride my bicycle into a neighborhood I didn't know and then just ride around randomly, not knowing where the streets (twisty and irregular around here) went.

Then when I felt done, I'd just head in one direction until I hit one of the major straight through roads. Those I knew, so I'd know where I was and could head home from there.

[radiantfracture]

I used to do this exact thing!