After I wrote the post on Nelson, talking about the “basic, homogenized body”, I thought about the other side of that coin: the separate and distinct flavors of the body. A little like the difference between Western cuisine, which strives for combinations of flavors, and Japan, where there is more of an emphasis on meals consisting of distinct foods, each retaining their own individual taste and appearance.
When I first started to ride, I was overwhelmed by all of the sensory information from my own body and the horse’s body – like trying to listen to about five hundred radio stations at once. After about fifteen years of sifting and sorting, I can (often, not always) selectively tune into one channel at a time. It happens quickly – like a momentary check in: my hips, my legs, his mouth (I feel that in my hands through the reins), each of his legs, my spine, and so on. This requires a light, quick body-mind, one that doesn’t bear down or get stuck in one place. No over-thinking, no aggressive fixing. Corrections happen in a flow, awareness is dextrous and global. That is the goal.
I can feel my lovely trainer, Brandi Rivera, smiling as she reads this. She has seen me get very stuck, heavy-handed and frustrated. When that happens, I am usually not tasting or feeling much of anything. The parts have gotten thick and mushy, like a bad soup. At that moment, I find it helps to tune into the fluid base of the breath, and from there let the mind bloom out to the feast of flavors once again. It’s the same when dancing – sensing the whole while feeling the relationships and qualities of the parts.
