Algunos aspectos del juego dramático en la construcción de la función

Returning to the first workshop, next I offered a slow spinal roll from standing, allowing the head to slowly roll forward and down towards the ground, letting the spine be included in the movement, letting the knees bend as needed. I asked participants to take the spinal roll as far as

they were comfortable and then slowly come back up, not co-ordinating the movement with breath, but letting breath come and go on its own and staying aware of their breath movements, noticing whether these changed during the roll.

After a rest I offered a standing, ‘sideways’ spinal roll, where the head first tilts to one side and the spine follows into a sideways bend as far as is comfortable. Then the upper body swings across to the other side and comes slowly up that side, the neck and head coming up last. Spinal rolls have been a feature of the training in Berkeley. I recall the ‘slow spinal roll’ from early in the first segment, and I remember finding my breathing becoming laboured with the difficulty of it. Now I find the same ‘exercise’ much easier and I enjoy how my breath seems to be drawn to the part of my spine that is stretched in each moment of the roll. The idea that a flexible spine promotes good health seems self- evident given that it is the conduit for the sensorimotor nervous system. In the breathwork training spinal rolls are regarded as having an effect on the whole body – an integrating effect in that they bring together all the inner spaces. Sometimes after a slow one we were invited to do some faster ones. Sometimes we added a hum. Sometimes at the lowest part of the roll we are invited to add a lowering of the sacrum, possibly going into a squat.

The Spinal Roll – that brings me the horizontal breath in the upper space – and the head and neck finally are able to unroll with the breath, and legs free further. No don’t let the weight of the head take me down – let the breath lead me – otherwise it drags, is without lightness and without the whole. Gravity is not presence.

The Sideways Circle Only a tad in each direction as that’s all I want to start – ‘presence’ yes = suit myself. Eventually further into the circle – then eventually a discovery of being unable to come up without going down a bit as the breath perception in the whole and the ‘holdings’ of knees, sacrum was highlighted – the loss of presence and breath calling me back – or more the sense the exhale wanted to find my feet, that the movement, if I follow the breath – and surrender to it, went in the

opposite direction to my intended circling. To not override the breath with my movement intention was great. It let me perceive my body more (KB 1 May 04).20

I take it from KB’s remarks that my instructions for the spinal roll included ‘let the weight of your head take you down’. Now I would not refer to the weight of the head, because I agree with KB that such an instruction can act against a sense of lightness.

Slow, conscious spinal roll: Old injury in left shoulder ouch. Pain

referring in to left elbow. Breathing into it to release. Enjoying observing breath travelling in to different areas in my back.

Sideways Roll: Much more slowly than I’ve done before. Sense of the breath travelling in to my hips. One lung closing as the other opened. Afterwards standing – much more movement in my sternum. Sitting. Free movement in my sacrum (OP 1 May 04).

OP’s comment, ‘Breathing into it to release’, is indicative that the ‘healing power’ of breath is recognised in various traditions. From the perspective of Middendorf breathwork, the active intention implied in that phrase ‘breathing into’ is contrary to letting breath come and go on

20 _{KB has long had a practice of her own in body, voice, and movement, in which}

‘presence’ is a particularly important feature. She attended most of Dieter Gebel’s workshops, and had undertaken two segments of Middendorf breathwork training in Berkeley at the time of this workshop, so she is relatively experienced in the

its own. Of course OP may not have been so active. The Middendorf way would be to invite or allow breath into it, and the invitation could be through movement, touch, or presence.

Sideways spinal roll, I find myself being moved by the breath. I am amused by this, as it moves me differently to where my mind thinks I should go. I don’t move until the breath does it – literally moves me. But I have to go very slow to remain connected to this. I feel immense relief, as if I have stopped fighting myself (LC 1 May 04).

LC’s response expresses the way there can be a contradiction between how I think my body ‘should’ respond and how my body actually does respond; that this can be a ‘fight’, and that it can be a great relief to let go of the ‘should’ and, as Jürg Roffler said in one of the training

workshops, ‘love what is’. The relief, I suspect, comes from getting in touch with a source of ‘knowing’ about one’s body from within the body itself. In my experience that inner source has a sense of certainty about it – it just feels right.

Spinal Rolls Forward – breath seem[s] to become more rhythmic. Sideways – breath becomes agitated. Don’t know why. Contractions in back & along spine. At back of skull (AS 1 May 04).

Intrigued by what was happening with the breath in the slow lean to the side – drop down – up the other side exercise – surprised by feeling ‘out of breath’ on every rise up, despite feeling relaxed with even, steady breath as I was doing the cycle of moves. If I was holding my breath I couldn’t tell! and I wasn’t doing the cycle on one inhalation to go with the moves so – who knows? (HD 1 May 04).

Spinal Roll: lovely to spend a few minutes on it, exploring different parts of my spine. This exercise was most difficult for me in terms of

observing anything in detail about my breath. There was an ongoing sense of ‘my friend the breath, my trusty good friend’, as a tangible presence throughout my whole torso, encased in a moving bone, muscle, tissue body.

Sideways roll: Breath was tighter, less free. I felt disoriented & a little dizzy at the end of each movement. Also: appearing & disappearing then reappearing: a feeling that the breath was the engine, driving the movement, that the breath was the source of the movement. This snapped on & off as a presence, and I was only aware it had gone when it reappeared again (BC 1 May 04).

spinal roll, a fern, or a proton or electron [sketch here] a sense of the space my breath visits as a bubble of air (like a spirit level) rolling down into my body as I rolled down, clearly passing through

upper, middle & into lower, more rapid when unrolling to standing. my back, anterior surface of my spine, felt like it was the runway for the breath bubble to run. my front was very soft and protected by the back of me. could feel my breath clearly when eg. my head/chin came to rest on my chest, or my lower belly pressing on my thighs, and somewhere in the middle also, the pressing together (by way of weight not force) of parts made the movement of my breath very evident. Connection to an ATM21 _{session called paradoxical breathing, moving a ball of air up &}

down inside the thorax (JM 1 May 04).22

Again there is a wealth of individual detail in these four responses. The first three share a sense of stress from the sideways roll – breath was ‘agitated’ or ‘tight, less free’, and one felt ‘out of breath’. In these

21 _{ATM is ‘Awareness through movement’, the name Moshe Feldenkrais gave to his}

work.

22 _{JM has studied anatomy in massage training as well as Feldenkrais movement}

work, so uses anatomical phrases like ‘anterior surface’. She came to six workshops in the first series and three in the second.

extracts JM is the only one who refers to ‘my breath’. The others use ‘the breath’, one ‘my friend, the breath’, giving a sense of separation from it: breath moves me, so I feel that it is independent from me; it continues on whether or not I pay attention to it.