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Letting. Risks. Twist. View. Liquid. Settles. Leaning. Beginning. Grasping. Going. Axis. Undoing. Tendency. Uprightness. Overriding. Releasing. Towards. Turning. Sensation. Lightness, front-facing. Stillness. Vertical. Gaze. Gravity. Liquid. Conversation., feedback forming highlight. Low down. Working ground. Silence. Bubbling up. Asymmetry. Restlessness. Species. Stigma. Transition. Drift. Axis. Visceral. Trace. Sensing, breath. Underground. Agent. Resting. Passivity. Aliveness, pressure. Curve. Distracted. Disorientation. Pause. Pressure. Attention. Impulse. Falling. Dropping, binary. Fluidity. Arrive. Alert. Alive. Attuned. Responsive. Questions. Peripheral feeling paying attention, shape. Dropping back. Back bones. Not forcing. Time. Twisting. Habits. Renouncing. Remove. Not-ness. Unfolds. Rootedness. Releasing. Nuance. Quality. Proximity. Movement. Rotating. Towards. Reservation. Listen. Screen. Let. Mode. Turning. Scanning. Arise. Attentive. Voice. Dynamic. Performance. Back-ness. Formless. Guarding.

Asymmetries of the body. There is this other experience of back-ness. Semi-supine position. This impulse of turning my head, wanting to turn around. The eyes were also dropping back, somehow into the head. This sense of rotating, if you were to turn towards something, or to turn you back on something. An image of the axis - the liquid of the eye dropping back into its orbit. Being relieved of the performance of attention, so that you can actually listen. A much bigger sense of awareness of the wider surroundings. Just letting it come in – the difference between a narrow, focused concentration, through the eyes to a certain extent, and this wider, peripheral, more expansive experience or awareness. A voice I didn’t quire recognize from myself – it was really back, a thinking voice, a kind of voice where I thought, I don’t mind her. It is not only not all of these front-facing things, it has actually got its own characteristics and qualities. A deviation strategy which risks taking away my focus. Taking this idea of the blur, the not fully focused, and taking these out of focus edges – the blur, or the not-yet-in-focus. Writing becomes a different thing after – you are writing but you are still there; you slip in and out. There being just enough pressure, or just enough resistance, to want to try to bring it into formation. I am talking towards the wall, I am quite close to the wall. A lot of the work has been relaxing, leaning back into, letting the body go. Exploring the space between reactive gestures and creative response – being able to speak and also to listen, without having to think what you look like or that someone is looking at you, or you are looking at them. Breathing and gravity – it is also a sort of conversation. Allowing the back to have its own agency somehow. To really tune into what opens up or what unfolds as an experience in its own right. Feedback from the floor or wall, feedback from surface, feedback from another person, a counter-force. This back-breathing – only then being able to soften into a sense of breathing into the back, and the awareness of the breath. It takes a while to settle, to let go. To tune into this relationship between holding on and fighting gravity – letting myself be held. Can I let myself be held? And what can I let go of? And what can I surrender? As though the wrapping around the body, embryonic trace of forming. This coming into down – the crouch, the folded down, further down into hands and knees … and that has more animal-like sensations. A different relationship going into the back. The feeling of a tail, a tail coming, and of a dorsal fin. A slight uneasiness about being under-guard. To be low down. The voice comes in, sounds can come – but with the eyes, you get drawn out. It is like the other gaze you had – where we can just see and let light come in, scan rather than. And how weight changes – resisting, dropping, settling, sinking … it almost goes so low that you can start to float. It feels like by heavy, heavy, heavy, somehow lightness comes into the body. In that space, without fully turning back to the front – to somehow carry something forward into that space, but without quite going back to the full front. So there is something in the turning. Sometimes to do with associations or habits. There is a turn, and a turn can also be an image, something that brings another possibility into what has been set up. As soon as I close my eyes, the experience of the conversation felt much closer to that of a telephone conversation, although the sound is coming from behind me. What am I guarding my back against? What is it not allowing for, by not having this space around the back, for thinking in a way? There is this other experience of back-ness. And the surface of the wall – having a sense of force or pressure against which you could push. And maybe also missing that sense of another human-kind contact of pushing. A lot of energy is investing in the mirroring and affirming, and wanting to really bring attention to what is being said. Those gestural devices that show you are really paying attention – they deviate from the attention that you are bringing. And how the chair and the body become a kind of chair-body thing. And the idea of the back that has to be straight. The slump is really nice, and the sort of unit-thing with the chair-body. A kind of move of experience which was in relation to uprightness, a certain idea of uprightness, or a certain idea of not just uprightness, but holding and control actually. I might just fold without having to put my hand down, to just follow the image and not worry if I was going to fall over. And then this coming into down, and all these images of women, old and ancient images of the crouch, the folded down. To get in tune with your back, which was to do with releasing certain expectations – particularly to do with habits of control, which are also habits of the eyes in a way. You were behind me – there is a sense of the back of the head and the neck and the ears. And I am becoming more aware of that through the conversation. This undoing of the head-oriented, sight-oriented, future-forward oriented – to try and undo that. And letting go, surrendering, renouncing, releasing – not-ness and not-upright.

The limbs were more like the active agents and the back just followed. Not to have a passivity that is inert or lifeless, but actually there is a quality of passivity that is very alive and responsive. Something in this rotation that somehow brings enough pressure for it to start – to have to draw on this well of un-form-ness, or to come from that space, to really try to bring something into experience. Just letting things come, letting things arise or arrive. The working ground would be to do with how to let things come. Trying to send the voice in a curve in order to reach me. Our eyes wander in a way – we are dropping back into something, maybe something that is not quite formed yet. I can keep feeling this impulse of wanting to turn my head – it keeps pulling as if I am wanting to turn around. I keep thinking to not so much resist it, but to keep coming back into this experience of trying to be aware of the back of the body, in a way that enables you to dwell in this space of the not-fully-formed. Residing in this space of the not-fully-formed in a positive sense; not having to force it into formation, not to force it into, not even to do with forcing it into language. Because we are in the conversation with our backs. The sound coming from behind – more of an environmental sound. Maybe there was something in there about the axis – like the impulse I could feel was reactive actually. Maybe there is something about exploring the space between reactive gestures and a more creative response. I have more of a tendency to sit with my back against the wall – what am I guarding my back against when I sit with my back close to the wall? Explore that transition – something to do with paying attention to where those habits are and exploring that as well. The back is not the opposite of the front – it is not falling into a binary. Where does the back end and begin? All these animals flying through my imagination – animal, cat-like, dog, serpent, lizard, fish, all there. The animal in the back. Letting something come, letting something arrive – rather than reaching out. This working ground which is to do with how to let things come, to activate a quality of passivity that is also very alert and active. This invisible image of a line, and the sensation of the vertical. This desire to do, to move, to follow. Confronted with this inability to balance and the asymmetry of the body. There is something to do with a kind of restlessness. I am sure that the body wants to correct it. That sense of having someone turn their back to you, on you, is strong. You don’t exist for them in that moment. It is a different kind of conversation. Having to listen in a more concentrated way because the visual cues are not there. Not so much back and forth, back and forth – trying to send the voice in a curve in order to reach me. I still have visual trace of it. Corrugated. Resisting. Settling. Do I really know what it is to be upright? Heavy, heavy, heavy. And the rootedness of the feet and how the head is somehow often later with me – like a delay. What starts a turn or a twist – what comes later, spirals, delays that happen? The stimulation to try to bring a thought into formation, or a word into formation, falls away into a kind of silence. Backbone, we talk about backbone but not back bones. This conversation between breathing and gravitational force – a conversation between two different motions. There is something to do with a kind of restlessness – maybe there is something in this rotation that brings enough pressure for it to start to have to draw on this well of un-form-ness, and to come from that space and to really try to bring something into experience. Not into experience, because it is already in experience, it is bringing something into articulation. Something around feedback from the floor or wall, feedback from a surface, desire for feedback from another person, a counter force. In that space without fully turning back to the front, to somehow carry something from that formless space, but not quite going back to the full front. There is something in the turn that is really important. As soon as there is a turn, it stimulates. You let this voice drift in, the voice comes in. To do with non-grasping, letting things arise or arrive – but not to completely flip from an active, grasping mode. There are these different forces and resistances and limits to the material body. An idea of delay – what starts a turn or twist, what is later? A slight uneasiness about being under-guard, being watched. The asymmetries of the body, my body. Something about feedback from the floor or wall, feedback from a surface, feedback from another person – a counter force. A different kind of gaze – almost like the liquid of the eye was dropping back into its orbit, into the actual socket. Tuning into the back softens the front, softens the front – allows the front to drop back, expectation drops, time drops, the body drops into another sense of time. Eyes fall into the body, front falls back. Can I let myself be held – and what can I let go of, and what can I surrender? And this is a big territory of work – so it feels quite slow, the dropping and the sinking. The coming to the ground - a kind of a resistance to letting go, or a holding onto certain tensions. Back to back or in between. The feeling of what the air was like on my feet – having air on the soles of the feet and what that felt like. There is something in this rotation that somehow brings enough pressure for it to start, to have to draw on this well of un-form-ness, to come from that space, to really try and bring something into experience, into articulation. In that space without fully turning back to the front. To somehow carry something forward from that formless space, but not quite going back to the full front. And this question of what is a back, what’s the back then? Is it all these points of contact, or are we talking about the anatomy of the back itself? And if I roll a little to the side, is that still the back? Are the backs of my heels the back? If we are talking about the back, what does this really mean? If I am turning, it feels like a sort of mechanical possibility – I have an image of the axis, so I should be able to turn. Whereas a twist feels more like what actually happens – there are these different forces and resistances and limits to the material body. I wonder if turning and twisting are different things in the body? All these resistances, to not move, to let the body move, but to not move - forces acting on the body, pulling, holding, releasing. The complexity keeps bubbling up, surfacing and there is a kind of restlessness. The soles of the feet on the ground, there is a kind of energy going on. It is incredible how a kind of up-ness can come through these angles. To activate the back in its liveness, as a field of live experience, living experience; rather than this resting, passive, inert sort of place. A magnetic tilt in that direction – the sense of rotating. To do with the un- … like the undoing, this undoing of the head-oriented, sight-oriented, future-forward oriented, and to try and undo that. Coming to ground. Tension. Talking about the anatomy of the back itself. It felt that there was a way of residing in that differently. It perhaps allowed time for, gave permission for. There just being enough pressure, or enough resistance to want to try and bring it into formation. I was scanning, taking this idea of the blur, the not-fully-focused, and taking these out of focus photos on the edge of you might know what it is or not. It made me think of what kind of effort can be dropped if you take the attention away from the front to the back. That kind of frontality forces such a lot of effort in a way. There is this other experience of back-ness. Maybe it is when we are thinking that our eyes wander in a way – we are dropping back into something, maybe something that is not quite formed yet. I have my eyes closed, or I can release the eyes – I can concentrate better on what is being said. Drop back into the not-yet-formed. Back to back, or the in between. Into the back as an agent of moving, of movement. This undoing of the head-oriented, sight-oriented, future-forward orientation – to try and undo. Voice going into throat going into back going into the shoulder blades – a connection. Surrendering. Renouncing. Releasing. Not-ness. Not upright. The back is not opposite of the front – not falling into a binary. Where does the back end of begin. It is not even back/front. The screen gives the sense of back/front but in our rooms it is not like that. Residing in the space of the not fully formed, not having to force it into formation, not even to do with forcing it into language. Paxton’s Small Dance and the movements that happen in the stillness of simply standing. I am also aware of all these resistances to not move. To let the body move, but not to move. How can we just see, and let light come in? Letting light come in, letting things arrive rather than reaching out. Bubbling up, surfacing – a kind of restlessness. Trying to communicate something. Confronted with the instability of balance, asymmetry of the body. And having a sense of force or pressure against which you could push. Needing some kind of force or resistance against which to push the back – conversation has this dynamic of a push and pull, and a force that you are working with. It is a different kind of conversation – not so much a back forth, back forth. I had my eyes closed – I was looking at the wall, I could see the garden reflected in the wall. It is almost like I can almost see forwards. Releasing certain expectations, particularly habits of control which are habits of the eyes in a way. Conversation has that dynamic of a push and pull, a force that you are working with. As a field of live experience, living experience, rather than this inert, passive sort of space. My horizontal plane, my point, my plane of reference. What starts a turn, a twist, a spiral – delays that happen. Just trying to get closer to sensations of things. Embryonic trace of forming. Facing the back. A different kind of gaze, like the liquid of the eye was dropping back into its orbit.  Letting myself be held – to tune into this relationship between holding on and fighting gravity. What can I surrender? Sense of the shape of my back – a sensation and an image. The sense of the hairs on the back of my neck – it is like an image forms in my mind but it is a sensation. Aware of my feet on the floor – this invisible line of gravity, of a vertical axis. Holding these two images of the vertical and the image of what I know of the spine to be curved, and all the asymmetries of the body that emerge. The slump is really nice – this sort of unit thing of chair-body. The back wrapping around the body, wraps around the body, embryonic trace of forming. Magnetic tilt in that direction – not falling into a binary, a sense of rotating. Movement from side to side – the possibilities of the back. To do with this movement to the ground. There is something to begin with to do with this forward-leaning, future-leaning sense of frontality – coming to the ground, coming to the ground has associations of letting go. There is some confrontation with my own sense of resistance to that.

Intrigues. Perpetuated. Symmetry. Relaxing. Collapsing. Standing. Blurring scanning. Gravity. Touch. Pattern. Listening thinking voicing. Orientation. Falling. Frontality. Depth. De-privilege. Releasing. Drop. Mouth skin eyes. Surfaces. Surveying contact. Rotation. Twisting. Discrete. Manifestation. Roundedness. Digestive organs. Proprioceptive capacity. Slippery. Over calm. Struggling. Trying. Frontality. Gathering. Relieve. Falling. Leaning. Leaning back Shifting. Resting upon. Taking time. Joyful. Tense. Urge. Temporal sense. Twisting at the waist. Voicing. Anatomical. Thinking. Vulnerable. Happening. Seeing. Listening. Dorsal voicing. Triggers of the imagination. Dorsal listening. Fade blue. Drifting experiential. Protection and exposure. Activated. Nurture. Resistance. Lights. Orientation. A thinking flipping. Falling in. Fascinating. Soft and blurred. A willingness. A way of releasing. Perpetuating. Sensation. Between. Reveals. Rolling. Exploring. Gravity and grace. A different rotation. Active dimension. Sinking. Vulnerable exposed. Asymmetrical. Curving. Possibility. A call for rotation. Unseen. Unknown. Three dimensional. Confidence. Navigating. The future. behind. Leaning. Forwards. Infront. Disrupting. Rush of desire. Voicing the air. Thinking aloud Breath. Listening. Trigger thoughts. Voicing. Leaning. Residing. Curving. Soft eyes. Relaxing. Flipping the body. Drop. Associations of sleep. Dropping into. Full of feeling. Dorsal voicing. Quite complicated. Connected. Playfulness.

The twist, the resistance. Twisting feels more like what happens, turning is a possibility. Voice as a kind of listening. And maybe there is a kind of voice that can drop, a thinking, drifting, experiential voice. Maybe there is something about falling back into the memory of things or bringing the memory of things into more vivid awareness. Recollection – something about recollection. Because in a way, I love this idea that light is just falling in, it can stay soft and blurred. Sort of scanning, blurring, which is also what happens when the eyes drop back or when some attention drops away from this orientation. There is a lot of release that has to happen in the front, there is a lot of relaxation that has to happen in order to really drop into the experience of backness. Am I really experiencing the sense of the back or am I just thinking about the experience of the back? Is this a direct experience, or a thought I am having about experience. There is something to do with this thinking about something, which feels as if it is very much in the front mode of being. Whereas dropping into the back feels as if there is something much closer to the experience somehow. Listening - to these other surfaces of the body, of the eyes, the ears. And maybe there is a kind of voice that can drop, something to do with a more thinking, drifting, experiential voice. So, it is not the body, and it is not the floor; it is the plane of contact between the body and the floor. Bringing voicing into this, opening up spaces, my body here sitting, my awareness of you behind, these things on the wall, my breath. It is so paper-like, so fragile – it is touching, there is a touch to it. Yes, the touch took me on a thought. What would it be like to really drop in and let it come a bit more. Can I actually do that? Dropping into the body, the voicing feels like it has the lungs behind it somehow, or the organs behind it, the diaphragm behind it. Twisting feels more like what happens; turning is a possibility. I am thinking about twisting and sometimes you see a fold on the skin. I was wondering if there is something about what is possible and what is the mechanics of it and the observation of it, what appears on the skin or in the folds and surfaces. Not just the surfaces outside, but also inside surfaces, all the organs. This idea of futures, pasts, forwards, behind, projecting and leaning back into the projection. It can really sort of disrupt, even this talking back to back. Disrupting the usual mode of understanding. Our orientation to our own bodies and to each other. I often think of the dorsal as something that relieve the eyes, but maybe it is something that can relieve the voice. A sort of softening. And all these things of bending and curving and dropping and lifting and turning and all these shifts of weight … and slowing that process down. Not slow motion because that  is actually quite hard work, but enough to somehow follow the sort of monologue of my elbows are dropping, now my knees have gone, and then the choices within that. All the other choices. This pressure to speak, whatever the pressure actually, is something to do with a preoccupation with what is coming next and the future, so kind of an orientation to what is going to come, what is going to come, and I think that there is something about tense. Something in both senses – like being tense and the temporal sense of tense. Shifting from the pressure of projecting, a kind of voicing like speaking to oneself. Or even listening, a listening to yourself really. I realized my kind of taken for granted mode for lying on my back would be to have my eyes closed. So as soon as I go to my back, I shut my eyes. This was interesting because it feels as if I have to almost, very actively, de-privilege that frontal-facing way of being in order to somehow become more aware of the back. There is something about what is possible and mechanics of it and the observation of it, what appears on the skin or in the folds and surfaces. Not just the surfaces outside, but also inside surfaces, all the organs. The eyes are so fascinating because of what they do, but also the materiality of them. The sense that when they are opening, when they are open, they don’t have to feel that they have to see or understand. As soon as I go back to my back I shut my eyes. The light it’s just falling in, it can stay soft and blurred. Sort of scanning, blurring, which is also what happens when they drop back or when some attention drops away from this orientation. To soften the back the hip flexors have to relax, my eyes need to relax to take the attention back. My awareness is so determined by what my eyes are seeing. This is such a reduced field of awareness. There is a sort of voluminous feeling to it – with breath and light and air. A relationship somehow with releasing – maybe releasing the weight falls into the back and creates lightness around the ribs and the top surfaces, and softens all these exposed areas – the mouth, the skin, the eyes. And maybe there is a kind of voice that can drop something to do with a more thinking, drifting, experiential voice. How I might bring voicing into this, opening up spaces, also taking this – my body here sitting, my awareness of you behind me, these things that are on my wall. And my breath. How voicing, a dorsal voice, creates sort of spaces or is part of listening, so active, this activation around the neck. A sort of softening. Yes, this leaning back and resting upon, or re-collecting rather than pushing forward. To explore a sense of unseen or unknown in relation to the voice. Talking back to back there is something very joyful about it. I am doing a hand gesture where my left hand is angled back towards me and my right hand is sort of moving around in a circle, kind of gathering. But actually, it maybe should be the other way around? It is touching, there is a touch to it and yes, the touch took me on a thought. Something about feeling able to rest in the situation or being able to reside in the situation or be able to reside in the situation. To lean back. Taking time. There is something about taking time. But it felt that touch was somehow almost compensating in some ways for my de-privileging of the eyes.

Habits would be to think in a dualistic way - that there is a front and a back, and I think that a lot of this is to do with expanding the sense of frontality to include, or shifting the emphasis on the back more. There are these traces of memories of previous ways of going down and I am aware that when I moving I have all those previous experiences and I also have lots of images as well. So, I am working between … memories and imagination, projecting, bringing the previous into what is happening now. And that is how we, how we lean into some part of what we have experienced, or what we know or what we think we know or get retriggered or reconnected to. But it takes an effort to move into this, it actually feels like it takes effort to move into this more relaxed mode of being which is perhaps going about it in the wrong way. I was thinking before about this sense of trying. And, what is it to let go of the trying which feels so connected to the frontal mode of being. This listening, thinking, voicing. Not that I feel like a piece of paper, flat, but there is a sense, a sense of flatness that is coming from the contact with the floor. A sense of exposure, lying on the ground I recognise this experience of sinking. I sometimes feel like I am on top of the ground so I can’t quite join, then this sense of sinking. I can feel my eyes grasping at the reflection in the photographs as a way of bringing a frontality. I am feeling an urge to turn around, to turn back to the front, so in a way it feels as though there is a call for rotation. As you move to one side the sense of the body pressuring on one lung or the sense of the digestive organs being moved in some kind of way. My body is future leaning. If someone says future leaning, I feel my imagination move, tilt forwards, future leaning, but actually, my understanding is actually opposite to what my actual body thinks – perhaps my cultural conditioning of the future in front, of desire and possibilities. It can really sort of disrupt, even this talking back to back. Disrupting the usual mode or understanding. Our orientation to our own bodies and to each other. Orientate to seeing and listening. There is a kind of void here as well. I feel like, because I am not facing you, but I am aware that you are receiving, therefore it is … that the sense that I am talking to you is less dominant. Working between memory and imagination, projecting, bringing the previous into what is happening now. That is how we, how we lean into some part of what we have experiences, or what we know or what we think we know or get retriggered or reconnected with something that has happened before. And I often wonder whether those previous experience inform what is happening now – sometimes they can be so strong that they can block the experience or replace it or muddle it. It is impossible to untangle. Like grasping, grasping towards the things that I want to say. Actually, this felt quite dissatisfying - what seems to happen in my experience, is that attention on the back activates a sense of proprioception much more strongly - that the back might be a sort of gateway into that proprioceptive capacity, a way of practicing that capacity, or nurturing that capacity – there is something to do with really trying to nurture a proprioceptive capacity, and what kind of being and thinking and observing comes from that as a ground. Gravity and grace. Dynamic and alive and vibrant and full of feeling, front and the back, letting go but keeping it still there. The spine as perhaps different from the back, a kind of density and the depth of the body in a way. And whether the back is this plane of the back, the exterior aspect of the back of the body or whether there is a, whether there is a depth to it. Like where does the back begin in terms of the interior of the body?  Working with the forces of gravity and the possibilities of rotating the spine, bending the spine, twisting at the waist, or leading or letting another thing lead – it is a very three- dimensional thing. Maybe it is something about the being and the doing – somehow being in the experience of going down. I need to slightly move, a kind of seaweed creature with my arms and legs up. I had to move – to stimulate the body in order to understand, oh, that is where my body is. It is interesting – there is also something around the eyes, open/closed. The eyes are so fascinating because of what they do, but also the materiality of them. The sense that when they are opening, when they are open, they don’t have to feel that they have to see or understand. Light just falling in. They can stay soft and blurred. Sort of scanning, blurring. It feels like all of the below of the skin feels back. Back is not so much back behind but it is more working with the spine. And I suppose it is back but it is inside the body so it is an experiential sense of the spine and there is something around the image of the anatomical. And then dropping into the body, the voicing feels like it has the lungs behind it, the organs behind it, the diaphragm behind it. I think that sometimes the voice is high in the body and shallow in the body. A sense of a dorsal voicing. A mode of dorsal listening. I realize then that I have my eyes closed again. And I am thinking, when did that happen? Not so much about relaxing the back but relaxing the front and keeping the front present in some kind of way, not to do with shutting it off from the experience. This 360 circular awareness. Maybe some sort of integrating the front and the back, or collapsing the sense, no, not collapsing the sense of the front and back … letting go but keeping it still there. Future leaning. I feel my imagination move, tilt, forwards. Future leaning, and actually my understanding is opposite to what my actual body thinks – perhaps through cultural conditioning of the future in front, of desire and possibilities. The doing, the rush of desire. For me the front, there is something about the front and back that does create a binary but also that the front somehow when lying on the back, becomes exposed to the air. So, there is a sort of voluminous feeling to it – with breath and light and air. The pulling of gravity, even when coming up, a sense of moving up through. This relation between doing and being – and it feels as though the back is a mode of doing and the front a zone of being, but again there is a risk here that there are these binaries being perpetuated. Axis and twist and turn, also the transition from up to down. How complex it is. Not the body and not the floor. It is the plane of contact between the body and the floor. All these things of bending and curving and dropping and lifting and turning and all these shifts of weight … and slowing that process down. Not slow motion because that is actually pure effort work, but enough to somehow follow the sort of monologue - my elbows are dropping, my knees have gone, and then the choices within all of that. It slips between the physical understanding and kind of slippery, abstract sense of the unseen surfaces of the body. Internal. This listening to the other surfaces of the body, of the eyes, the ears. Voice as a kind of listening. The way that the back might be a sort of gateway into the proprioceptive capacity, a way of practicing that capacity, or nurturing that capacity – there is something to do with really trying to nurture a proprioceptive capacity. What kind of being and thinking and observing comes from that as a ground? This sense of trying and what is it to let go of the trying which feels so connected to the frontal mode of being. So, I was wriggling around a bit and moving and thinking about, no, not thinking about, exploring and thinking about the quality of being on the back when it is much more dynamic. Rolling from side to side. Yes, what is my preconception, and why is it to do with inertia and stasis – and maybe it is to do with associations of sleep and death actually? But the active dimension of the back, a sense of active passivity. A kinaesthetic groundedness as a basis for experience. Rather than it being purely this passive state I experience when I am lying down, how might that passivity be active and dynamic and alive and vibrant and full of feeling? There is all of this unknown terrain which is just here. Not a closing off, something moving up and down and what does it mean if I keep my attention in the back while doing that? Working with gravity, the pulling of the gravity, when coming up a sense of moving up through. A sense of a horizontal plane, which is different to having the contact areas on the front. So maybe there is something about the front that I am understanding very differently, linked with the eyes being at the front. Flipping the body, reveals something. This plane, this plane of contact was also in my mind a little, not in my mind actually, it was in my body, or in my mind-body. A bit uncertain. A bit defensive. This idea of future behind. Walking around with my attention in the back. My body is future leaning. Underneath the level of the ground. Like where does the back begin in terms of the interior of the body? I can sometimes get the simple pattern. This leaning back and resting upon or recollecting rather than sort of pushing forward. Dropping into the body, the voicing feels like it has the lungs behind it somehow, or the organs behind it, and the diaphragm behind it. Taking time actually, there is something about taking time. Like the back feels as if it somehow makes a connection, creates a sense of continuity with thinking. It’s not always so much about pushing or leaning into what is coming next. Disrupting the usual mode of understanding, our orientation to our own bodies and to each other. Orientate to listening and seeing. There is a kind of void here as well. Working between memories and imagination, projecting and bringing the previous into what is happening now. There is also a sense I am just talking into a kind of void ,a thinking-aloud. This way of back to back creates a thinking, a kind of thinking space. I like this idea of sitting back into thoughts or leaning back into thinking, listening to one’s own thinking, that emerges through voicing. This thinking listening voicing. Asymmetry feeds back into the body – stimulates to understand. It keeps working the mind’s interest, it intrigues. Maybe it triggers some self-generation, the moving that self-generates the body or reminds the body it is a body or something like that. The muscles that sort of resist or won’t soften or won’t allow. I can feel this with the moving and twisting. There is a mechanics to this skeleton. It is built in a way that can turn. It feels like I am making this up because of the words. There is the mechanical and there is the manifestation. There is a call for rotation, the way that the skeletal system was activated but also very much around the organs. It is this turning of the body and even the way that the weight feels more compressed as you move from one side, the sense of the body pressuring on one lung or the sense of the digestive organs being moved in some kind of way. This sense of 360 awareness. I was picking up the idea of axis and twist and turn, about the transition from up and down. So I was kind of working with this moving up and down a number of times – noticing many things within that, how complex it is, all these things of bending and curving and dropping and lifting, turning, these shifts of weight. Slowing the process down. Spaces. Something about the being and doing, somehow being in the experience. Lightness around the ribs and the top surfaces and softening all these exposed areas - the mouth, the skin, the eyes. The sense of flatness, a sensation of flatness that is coming from the contact with the floor. Sometimes standing with my back to the wall felt that it was protective, almost defensive. Whereas walking around with my attention in the back felt vulnerable, exposed. So, there is something to do with protection and exposure. Working with the forces of gravity and the possibility of rotating the spine, bending the spine, leading or letting another thing lead. I was thinking a lot about the experience of the back expanding the range of awareness to a much more, not so much three-dimensionality, but more like 360 degrees. All this unknown terrain that is just there. Shifting to a kind of voicing like speaking to oneself.  A kind of seaweed creature. This mode of dorsal listening. Light just falling in. Rolling from side to side, a sense of active passivity. So, it is not the body and it’s not the floor it is the plane of contact between the body and the floor.

Unfurling. Momentum. Flat. Receptivity. Sideness. Operation. Resisting. Grasp. Falling in. Vibration. Feedbacking. Dropping back. Continuum. Wrapping. Twists. Activation. Opening movement. Roll. Relation. Asymmetrical. Tuning into. Slowing. Dropping into. Going this way. Appearances. Transition between. Something about. Releasing. Uncertainty. Mutual. Cutting off. Unknown. Edges. Upness and frontness. Quality of listening. Oblique diagonal. Below and behind. Heavier. Playing field. Stripping out. Force. Transition. Dip of the head. The sideness. Of falling in. Asymmetrical. Soft belly. Convoluted. Blur. Cooperation. Awareness. Resonance. Sideness. Bending. Really try. Just collapse. Cordon off. Slowing down. Thinking breath. Complex. Curiosity. Vulnerable. Horizontal forces. A field of cooperation. Back of my neck. Slip into. Deeply affect. Back and behind. Presence. Eyes scanning. Supporting hand. Sides. Kind of experience. Indirect. Resting in. Periphery. Blurring. Listening. Dissolving. Shadowy spaces. Belowness and backness. Behindness. Beneathness.

The way in which gravity gets worked with as a kind of force. A quality of letting go or relaxing or releasing. Allowing the front and the back to cooperate more and maybe the qualities of thinking that are connected with the front and the back to cooperate more. The sense of the cooperation of the body, what’s involved and what doesn’t need to be involved. Thinking of the body as a field of cooperation. This sense of the back seeping around the sides of the body. How do these various modes of experience in the thinking cooperate with the whole experience of thinking? I am thinking breath and softness that creates a sense of spaciousness, if the body lets that happen. Recognising the mutual relationship with the front and the back. Something about the dropping back, not necessarily back but letting go, dropping something. A sort of oblique or indirect sense of listening, a sense of periphery, the sides. Maybe vulnerable is a condition of habit, that it feels as if you want to protect the front so this opening up feels vulnerable, but it actually also feels quite spacious, and quite liberated to move into the chest, heart, opening movement. Something that is somehow concealed or hidden or not accessible or unknown in a way. And the body has to somehow sort itself out on the way down. This leaning back into the unknown space of the behind enables a kind of relaxation or a resting in experience. A leaning into the unknown. And by slowing it down there are more possibilities to create a diversion, a different decision or to drop something that was held. The line between the front and the back or the up and the down is very graded, or not even graded. It is very blurred. Behindness has a close affinity to beneathness and belowness, so there’s something to do with this proximity between upness and frontness and belowness and backness that I am curious about. A sense of moving in and out of something as a dynamic action rather than this flat plane of sensation. Maybe the sides become really significant because of the dissolving of the binary between front and back or even between discipline and curiosity. Dropping in. Or what would be the sides of discipline and curiosity, the transition space between discipline and curiosity and how to activate that? Something about the dropping back, not necessarily back, but letting go, dropping something that let’s something else move up and out, how the force of gravity allows the expanse of the body. There’s something about the awareness of it and the saying of it and practicing does feel important, even to give a feedbacking to yourself of daily practice, to remind yourself that you are working with these things. Bringing a quality of backness into the front, maybe that relates to this idea of enveloping or the wrapping of the back. That strong supportive round of the back supporting the front and again not so clearly shaped, but more of a presence, a strong physical sensation. It’s behind. The back and the front and the back or the front not being excluded from this backness. Something there about light and shadow and light and dark, and the back seems as if it has an association with darkness or shadow and I wonder how much that binary is actually an experience and how much of it is a product of language. Like back/front, up/down, right/left, that in a way does set up a binary but also its a continuum, it sets up a field of play, a playing field. That zone that is something, that is somehow concealed or hidden or not accessible, or unknown in a way. A complex system somehow of unfolding, bending, twisting, and physically working. It seems counterintuitive that somehow this leaning back into the unknown of the behind space enables a kind of relaxation or a resting in experience. A leaning into the unknown future is quite different. I can just collapse, I can let go of everything, I can fall to the ground. The body has to curve and bow and wrap itself, it creates a sense of wrapping as well as initiating different kinds of spirals and twists in the body, a complex system somehow of unfolding, bending, twisting, and physically working with that in the transition. At times the turn was leading from the hips, and then to explore the movement of the chest and the shoulder girdle really moving. Kind of rolling up to standing, this is really difficult, I can’t do it very well. It’s also to do with a kind of receptivity to the pull of gravity, to just let the body be willing to work with gravity rather than just tensioning all the time, always tensioning against gravity. Something has to move first, something has to drop first, there’s always a sort of curiosity about what will start a movement. A sort of oblique or indirect sense of listening, a sense of periphery, the sides of what can be heard. The sense of the back seeping around the side of the body or holding the experience of the body in a kind of envelope of experience. Right side and left side, right and left are not exact things, like north and south of the compass feel, it’s relative.

The image of the skeleton helps me, so having a duet with my own skeleton and gravity, a trio of myself, skeletal image and gravity. This sort of pull of gravity on the way down and the push of the body back to come to standing. Round and back, that image is coming back that strong supportive round of the back supporting the front. A kind of falling in on myself. Strong back soft belly, sense of openness. Hip. To think of that zone that is something that is somehow hidden or not accessible or unknown in a way. As soon as you settle into the body in how the body is at the moment, it can then cooperate with itself rather than projecting an idea of itself, having to hmm tune in. This not forgetting of the front and recognising the mutual relationship with the front and the back. Maybe there’s something about this kind of middle point or middle range that’s neither fully back, nor fully front nor fully open nor fully closed, or there’s a range of experience that falls a bit outside the parameters of language or the tendency in language to fix things as one or the other. Allowing the front and the back to cooperate more and the qualities of thinking that are connected with the front and the back to cooperate more. Metaphoric imagery. Ground. Orientation. Eyes. A supporting hand. A supporting surface that allows then the front to soften and be open. A sort of oblique or indirect sense of listening, a sense of periphery, the sides of what can be heard. Some of it is in a lower range and it seems as if there is something there about light and shadow and light and dark and the back seems as if it has an association with darkness or shadow. This half, blurred vision or eyes scanning, or almost eyesight touching the surfaces of things, more a sense of scanning, a different kind of possibility with the eyes, more linked to an experience of the eye, light touch, eyes seeing but not jumping. Closing the eyes but not completely, like looking through a kind gap of the eye, a slight slant of the eye. It just seems as if the capacity of the back seems as if it’s so contingent on openness at the front. Like a kind of openness around the hip area, which is a tremendous area of tension for me, just really letting go into that hip area. Also, different combinations of tending towards seeing and listening, a different kind of spaciousness that is not visible and has a different kind of imagery dark rather than the light. There is moving between lying and standing. Low orientation, low as in not social, or language based, a link with low and behind. Just exploring this turn on the floor where at times the turn was leading from the hips and the pelvis, pelvic area almost as though my legs were turning first and then to explore the movement of the chest and the shoulder girdle. Playing with gravity, being willing to yield into gravity, whereas the torso and the chest were much more somehow to do with vulnerability, in that sense of openness of the body. Maybe vulnerable is a condition of habit actually, as if it wants to protect the front, so this opening up feels vulnerable but it actually also feels quite spacious and quite liberated to move into the chest, heart, opening movement. It was to do with testing the potential within that movement, there’s this invitation. It seems this space that feels less known somehow has the capacity to support or hold a certain kind of experience. What gets lost or what falls away in our capacity if we’re not careful, out of habit, or ease, or sometimes inefficiency. A sense of really taking care of the transition. In listening we do also try and grasp what someone is saying, for social communication, also in trying to understand where you are, like locating, but then there’s another sense of listening as in dropping more, something to do with something around sensation and looking around, a three-dimensionality and sideness. It’s so contingent on openness in the front, a kind of receptivity. There’s always something tending towards right or left, our bodies are not stable, always a tendency to lean a little this way or that way, a little forwards, backwards. This idea of the sides allow, how we can listen, also from the sides, how sight is often trying to direct, pinpoint, to name things, whereas this blurred vision or eyes scanning, or almost eyesight touching the surfaces of things, more a sense of scanning, a different kind of possibility with the eyes. Sometimes when I am working with the back, I can feel heavy, or get quite stuck in it. I lose the edges of the continuum and the spaciousness of around and through the body. Perhaps the sense of binary can invade the thinking, like I’m cutting off the edges, not moving around the edges. No, not edges, sides. The sides of a conversation. Listening and talking from the back. This blur, blurred hearing and with my ears on the sides of my head, scanning with eyes and ears. Speaking low. A sense of drift. There is something about the kind of support that comes from leaning into that space and being supported by that space and letting go into that space where the possibility of a different kind of confidence come from. A dark spaciousness. Also bringing me back to walking in twilight, less contrast between light and dark, more shadows. You catch things in the corner of the eyes, the corner of the eye kind of shadowy spaces between physical things and imaginary things, unsettling too sometimes. Behindness has different qualities of uncertainty. It feels heavier. It can become heavy. What’s unknown and dark has a lot to do with fear. And there is an excitement in fear. I lose the edges of the continuum and the spaciousness of around and through the body. I’m cutting off the edges, not moving around the edges, no, not edges sides. Sides of a conversation. Listening and talking from the back. A kind of falling in on myself, a kind of dreamy sense. That makes me hear the ocean breath that you do with yoga. And I have also been thinking about tuning, resonance, vibration and whether a combination of tuning into the back, or a dropping into the body, that breath gets activated. By slowing it down there are more possibilities to create a diversion or a different decision or to drop something that was held or – there’s this huge playground of possibilities. The body just lets go, it’s still doing all those decisions but too fast to hold on to thought. I’m finding it hard to stay with the thought. Taking the attention to the back as a way of working against certain habits but not forgetting about, this not forgetting about the front. Of course it’s really different because on the way down you’re working with the force of gravity and just letting the body drop down in a way, whereas the momentum coming from lying is quite different, there’s this sort of pull of gravity on the way down and the push of the body back to come to standing, that seemed to be sort of quite significant. This sense of the cooperation of the body, what’s involved and what doesn’t need to be involved, thinking of the body as a field of cooperation and noticing where I was getting in the way of being able to cooperate properly. Something to do with the relation of the front of the body needing to be receptive and the relationship between the front and the back. Allowing, allowing certain movements to happen, not resisting, or maybe not even thinking it, I had to do it quite quick to begin with, how do I do this, how do I drop into. The kind of taking care of what was also to do with on the one hand, being as efficient as possible in this movement between lying and standing, so stripping out or exploring the possibility of stripping out anything that doesn’t need to be really involved but on the other hand it was to do with testing the potential within that movement. Initiating different kinds of spirals and twists in the body a complex system somehow of unfolding and bending ad twisting. The way gravity gets worked with as a kind of force. I can just collapse, I can let go of everything and I fall to the ground. A condition of habit. Chest heart opening movement. Sense of the back seeping around the sides of the body. The front of the body needing to be receptive. The relationship of the front and the back. It’s so contingent on openness at the front. What happens if the front presses into a surface and it’s not facing out into the world but it’s facing the floor. To protect the front so this opening feels vulnerable, but it actually also feels quite spacious and quite liberated, to move into the chest, the heart, opening movement. But this kind of middle point or halfway seems to open up a different kind of register of sensation and awareness, and what might that be somehow. The vertical line, the slash line, or the hyphen and in language this also sets up a kind of tension, a play between. So maybe there is something there about the way in which certain tendencies come to dominate and the range of capacity that the body and the senses has, becomes a little bit almost curtailed by the habits. On the one hand the limitations of language but on the other hand the capacity of language to perhaps open up some of these spaces that fall outside of this binary relation, the sense of the blur. The kind of gap of the eye, slight slant of the eye. Walking in twilight. I lose the edges of the continuum and the spaciousness of around and through the body. There are more shadows. You catch things in the corner of your eyes, the corner of the eye kind of shadowy spaces between physical things and imaginary things. There was a sense of drift, it is a drift with someone which is sometimes hard to organise when you are with someone. And also, the quality of listening is different because you are not performing, you’re listening to the other. I lose the edges of the continuum. It feels like the behind of the body is an unknown space but that’s only really from the perspective of sight and seeing and visuality, but actually, as a space, it’s really present in terms of listening. The transition dissolves the binary between the front and the back, what opens up a space between the front and back is the site of a different investigation. So, in listening we do also try and grasp what someone is saying.

Expanded feeling. Isolated. Transition. Back-ness. The edges. Surface. Cushion. Letting. Not clarifying. Not looking back. Some murkiness. Low. Safe. Space. Leaning. Falling. Crawling forwards. Thinking. Horizontal. Surrender. Cushioned by air. Moving backwards. Walking backwards. Orientate differently. A kind of resistance. To complicate. To unsettle. Orientate differently. Stilling. Settling, Leaning. Unraveling. Transition. More receptively. A kind of sampling. Spaciousness. Cushioned. Pulling out. Sensorial shifts. Rewind. Undoing. Speed. Reconfiguring. Projecting onto. Releasing. A watery human. Feeling backness. A different activation. This back-ness. Crawling. Letting. Turning. Ways of. Listening. Allowing things. Pleasure of cooperation. Surrender. Becoming other. A non-vertical axis. To get somewhere. Unraveling. Deep pleasure. Walking backwards. Swimming. Unraveling. Already in the thing. Movement. Coming next. Attention.

2.

Not knowing where to start. Gravity acting on the body. Somehow a different orientation, a relationship to gravity. Being on my own, thinking and reflecting, it is very messy and murky. There is a kind of releasing into gravity, a releasing of weight. There is such a back-ness to it. This future leaning I find very fascinating. This really gets accentuated. Pulling into not-quite-present. Out of necessity, realizing that I was pushing into the next thing. Already into the thing that was coming next. Trying to pull back, into the back as a way of pulling away from the future. And the sense of not having gravity acting on the body. The transition from the frontal to the back – it was pulling back, it was much more mobile, much more dynamic. Perhaps becoming other, sensing another, becoming a human being in another way. Through water or through a relationship with other kinds of animals or other ways of being. A watery human and then on all fours.

Letting it come, this letting, this letting aspect of the back. This rotation, this rotation of the head, this rotation from a vertical position, and what this does. It has to be reconfigured. In a physical sense there is an unraveling, and in that reconfiguring of how muscles and joints and things connect with each other. It is sometimes tricky – it disorientates. Unraveling of the habit perhaps, but also surprisingly fresh. It shifts your perspective. It creates a texture which could support me – a strong sense of reversal, a sense of movement and then a reversal of action. Is it possible to move into movement with the quality of back-ness, almost with the quality of the rest and the digest mode. So rather than it being a deficit or failure, to look at the transition as an active shift of awareness between, the range of awareness that opens up, those pulls and forces that are acting on us. Reconfiguring how we are moving brings attention to these pulls and forces that act upon us or that can be activated or isolated.

Having your eyes closed, trying not to disturb the rhythm. There is something very enjoyable about just being on the street and having your eyes closed for a while. Whilst trying not to disturb the rhythm. There are qualities of thinking that have much more a sense of this back-ness, and qualities of talking. Trying to complicate or unsettle the sense of the binary between the front and the back. So far, there is this correlation between back-ness and slowness, and I am not sure how much this is a correlation or if this is a habit. The attention to the back lying down – there is something of stilling or settling, and those kinds of associations of non-movement, passivity, inaction. And the correlation between direction, awareness and sight in a way. I was interested in this transition from the front to the back in a vertical orientation, and within that the relation between directional frontality, frontality and back-ness in a directional sense, moving forwards, moving backwards, awareness forward, awareness to the back, looking forward, looking more receptively – and the correlation between. It is a kind of safe space – it removes any sense of having to talk, or think, a kind of animal enjoyment in that. Feeling the weight, and the shoulder blades moving in a different way. Conjuring up images of cats, dogs, horses, but particularly cats. It felt as if I could fall but was cushioned by the air, or by something. That not-ness – looking away from the back. What is it to talk or even to think from the back-ness? It is almost like pulling thinking, the thinking coming from the back. To explore the participation of the thoracic spine in movement and being in the world. This sense, this notion of being-in-the-world, and how our ways of moving and being-in-the-world, are shaped by how we move and be in the world. Thinking and reflecting – it is very messy and murky. There is a sense of being kind of disoriented and not clarifying – there is some murkiness in the back.

Moving backwards, this stepping backwards – taking the joints in a direction that they don’t very often travel in, against the operation that is the habits of movement. This sense of future leaning. Shift of orientation in the body, affecting how we move through the world, and the way that we perceive the world. There is a kind of resistance to it. The awkwardness of the opposite, the awkwardness of moving the limbs opposite to habit. But there is a lot of darkness, walking backwards. There is something about how you are moving through life. As soon as it pulled back it opened up into a much more spacious, expanded feeling. How we move through the world, and how does this shift of orientation within the body affect how we move through the world and the way that we perceive the world. It was still in the head in a way - there was this perceptual awareness that was still oriented in the head, the organs located in the head – of listening, of sight. And as a consequence, not even noticing that there was something happening. This impact of such a strong orientation of frontality. How might the participation of a fuller range of the body change the sense of connection, and what worlds start to emerge in a way. So future leaning has this dorsal tilt – I like how it is in language, and in conversation. It is quite confusing. If I would say to someone ‘future leaning’, it feels falling forwards. Something more like murky back thinking. To really explore the participation of the thoracic spine in movement and being in the world. Our being-in-the-world, our ways of moving and being-in-the-world, are shaped by the ways that we move and be-in-the-world. Pulling thinking, thinking from the back. What is participating that doesn’t need to participate? I am thinking, I am pulled up. When I am thinking, as soon as I am thinking, I am pulled up and forwards, and think, because of my ears, being on my own, thinking and reflecting, it is very messy and murky.  There is a sense of being kind of disorientated, not clarifying. There is some murkiness in the back. Does thought, does thinking, always need to participate in action? And what does the thinking-participating-in-action do?

To counteract. Activate. Get somewhere. Pulling. Dynamic. Cushion. Tension. Reversal. Crystallize. Attention. Disorientated. Resistance. Leaning. Future. Murky. Pleasure. Surrender. Really feel. Awkwardness. Practicing walking. Participates. Unraveling. Moving forwards. Environments. Backwards. Water. Letting. Forefront. Rotation. Roundness. Deficit. Passivity. Unraveling. Between the front and the back. Becoming other, sensing another being, a human being in another way. Back bone, back ground, back track, again it is falling into binaries, and how these binaries create a field, a dynamic field. Trying to activate an antidote to that next, next, next; with a sense of not having gravity acting on the body. Whereas with back-ness there is a lot of acceptance, listening, allowing things in, a connection with the environment. And all these variables within small sequences, in some senses, I have not really dwelt within these practices. More a kind of sampling. Reconfiguring of how muscles and joints and things connect with each other – unraveling of the habit perhaps. It is a surprisingly fresh perspective, it shifts your perspective. Within that the nuance between directional frontality, frontality and back-ness in a directional sense, moving forwards, moving backwards, awareness forward, awareness to the back, looking forward, looking more receptively. And the correlation between direction and awareness and sight in a way. It is a kind of falling as well as a forward motion. It is a different kind of territory. A different kind of experiential sensation shows itself, which might not just be the opposite of this going forward. Having your eyes closed and trying not to disturb the rhythm. Being on all fours, it is more distributed and how backwards comes into this. So that the whole back is tilted 90 degrees into the horizontal plane. Back bone, back ground, back track – trying to complicate or unsettle this binary between the front and the back. A releasing of gravity, or a releasing of weight. There is such a back-ness to it, especially with crawl. This transition from the front to the back in a vertical orientation and within that the nuance between directional frontality, frontality and back-ness in a directional sense. Moving forwards, moving backwards, awareness forward, awareness to the back, looking forward, looking more receptively. Almost as a remedy to the forward-ness of my attention. This stepping backwards, taking the joints in the direction that they don’t very often travel. What an operation that is actually, against the habits of movement. Murky back thinking. Thinking, talking, about this turning of the head. This mix of front crawling, down, animal-like. To really explore the participation of the thoracic in movement, and being-in-the-world. It activates another kind of sense of oneself as human. Our being-in-the-world, our ways of moving and being-in-the-world, are shaped by the ways that we move and be-in-the-world. So this impact of such a strong orientation of frontality and the sense of dorsality as binary, almost like a segmentation of the body. How this then shapes the world that one encounters. Letting go. A little bit of space. A pleasure in moving backwards, a very elemental pleasure, the pleasure of the cooperation of the body and the ground and the environment. A correlation, a dynamic field. There is a sense of being disorientated and not clarifying – there is some murkiness in the back. Different kinds of thinking perhaps and again, not front/back. Because it is too binary. But there is a back-ness. And future leaning. There is a kind of resistance to it. In thinking, I am pulled up and forwards. There is a lot of darkness, I often resist those things, though it intrigues me: walking backwards, moving backwards, walking backwards. It reminds also of myths of not looking back, not looking back, that not-ness, looking away from the back.

Crawling. Dragging. Unraveling. Orientation. A kind of falling. To counteract. A different kind of territory. It is much more mobile, it is much more dynamic – the back as a dynamic field. How to activate the back as a dynamic field? Something about speed, the pull of the eyes. The sensation of time, how this can create different sensations of duration and of time. Or whether it is a habit, the awkwardness of the opposite. Almost a sense of reversal. The quality of the back being this negative – this not, or none, this un- or opposite of the forward, of the frontal, or whether this is just a habit of my thinking, to think of it only as reversal of going forward. Or whether with more attention a different kind of experiential sensation shows itself, which might not just be the opposite of this going forward. I have been activating this attention to the back whilst walking, but doing it almost as a remedy to the forwardness of my attention. So the places where I have most been activating this, was not setting out to actively think about this or to experiment with this, but it was more out of necessity, recognizing that I was pushing into the next thing. The habits of movement and how we move through the world and how does this shift in orientation in the body effect how we move through the world, and the way that we perceive this world. The opposite, the awkwardness of the opposite, the awkwardness of this experience of moving the limbs opposite to habit, but also the pleasure in this.  Yes, the back as a dynamic field is still this area of challenge that I am experiencing in the experiments that I have been doing. Front/back – it is too binary. The awkwardness of moving the limbs opposite to habit. Something more – murky back thinking. There is a kind of resistance to it. The pleasure of the cooperation of the body and the ground and the environment. This turning of the head. A kind of resistance. Becoming other. Sensing another being, a human being in another way. Maybe it was even a bit graspy. It activates another kind of sense of oneself as human. To crawl backwards – in that non-vertical situation with the spine horizontal there is a still a sense of difference crawling forwards and crawling backwards. It activates a different experience of backwards, the reversal of things, unraveling. Very simply what the body has to do, what the breathing has to do, in order to stay on one leg, or move backwards or orientate differently. I am finding out different things in a way, but there is something about how you are moving through life. It has to coordinate the breathing and the limbs and the swing and the kick – there are all these different rhythms. Cushioned by air. The range of variation. Back track, back ground, back bone. A sense of time going backwards, going back in time, I am moving away from the future in a sense. A sense of dorsality – it is surrender, it is not giving up, it is coming down to a more child-like, animal-like, low to the ground, it is a kind of safe space: it removes any sense of having to talk.

What does thinking, what does the thinking participating in action do? So something about toning down or letting go of certain tendencies or habits. Not to switch from them, but to shift the balance, to recalibrate the balance in a way. This recognition of the pull of the frontal, the pull of the next, the pull of the future, the pull of the eyes. All the time, this pulling out of the present, this pull of frontality. You were saying about desire, but also pleasure, this sense of pleasure, the pleasure in moving backwards, the pleasure in being and moving. A very elemental pleasure, of almost like the pleasure of the cooperation of the body and the ground and the environment. Our being-in-the-world, our ways of moving and being-in-the-world, are shaped by the ways that we move and be in the world. What is it to talk or even think from the back, a different kind of thinking? Again, not front/back – this is too binary. But there is a back-ness. I sort of skate over the surface - this impact of such a strong orientation of frontality. How might participation of a fuller range of the body, change the sense of connection and what worlds start to emerge in a way? What is participating that doesn’t need to participate?

I mean I was just going up and down, right to left, breathing in and out, kicking, lots of one/two, one/two. But how all that coordinates, it is really into the back. I am thinking of the back in terms of this all-roundness sense of the back. There is a kind of releasing of gravity, or releasing of weight. There is such a back-ness to it. Maybe I come back to a sense of the eyes, or thought actually – does thought, does thinking always need to participate in this action, and what does the thinking participating in action do? With the attention  in the back with the eyes looking, and then with the eyes just being open, quite receptive, and then with the eyes closed.  All these variables within small sequences. It is much more mobile, it is much more dynamic. Where are the edges – yes, the back as a dynamic field is still this area of challenge. A kind of push/pull dynamic but it was cushioned by the air. A quality of attention and of awareness but it was still in the head in a way. And the awkwardness of the opposite, the awkwardness of moving the limbs opposite to habit. But also the pleasure in this. Like a kind of sampling. To just change the balance, recalibrate the balance in a way. Sensorial shifts. In leaning, a sense of spaciousness or being held by something beyond me. Like with the forward-facing, forward attention, the moving back was a kind of push/pull dynamic. But with this one it felt as if I could fall, but it was cushioned by air. This idea of different pulls and forces that are acting on us, or I suppose reconfiguring how moving brings attention to these pulls and forces that act upon us, and can be activated or isolated. And then this movement into a wider field, rather than as this still, flat surface. Whether it is the front or it is the back. And there is this move from the front to the back as a kind of conscious transition. There is some murkiness in the back, a different kind of thinking perhaps – and again not front/back, this is too binary.

Letting. Folds. Non-grasping. Dropping. Leaning. Closed. Listen. Granting. Magnetic. Twisting. Unknown. Possible. Oblique. Heavier. Gravity. Cooperation. Spaciousness. Horizontal. Embryonic. Softness. Beneath-ness. Enveloping. Capacity. Field. Opening up. Counter-intuitive. Alive and vibrant. Projecting. Connection. Parameters. Continuity. Imagery. Dropping. Chest, heart. Dorsal listening. A tendency. Vulnerable. Sometimes dissolving. Possibilities. Dynamic, shadows. System, thinking noticing oblique and indirect orientation, edges of continuum, spaciousness. Taking care. Organise unravel surrender. Releasing habits feeling backness a watery human allowing things pleasure of cooperation attention texture disorientates a reversal of action, a correlation, that not-ness an opening movement, being in the world. Messy and murky messy and murky, pulling thinking acting on us. To counteract, anticipating. Passivity, awkwardness unravelling. Crystallising unravelling, looking forward, a kind of falling, a murky back thinking. A very elemental pleasure. Reconfiguring. A direction sense – releasing of weight, participating. Of the head, breathing. Backwards. More receptively. Crawling, darkness. Acceptance. Pleasure. Participation. With the eyes looking, releasing, a watery human. About desire but also pleasure. In the physical sense, there is an unravelling and a reconfiguring of how muscles and joints connect with each other. It is sometimes tricky – it disorientates. Cushioned by air – I mean I was just going up and down, left to right, breathing in and out. Thinking, lots of one, two, one, two – but how all that coordinates, it is really into the back. And I am thinking of the back in terms of this all-round sense of the back. This kind of middle point or halfway seems to open up a different kind of register of sensation and awareness, a vertical line, the slash line or the hyphen and in language this also sets up a kind of tension, a play between. Conjuring up images of cats, dogs, horses, but particularly cats. It felt as if I could fall but was cushioned by the air or by something. That not-ness, what is it to talk or even to think from the back-ness. It is almost like pulling thinking coming from the back. Having your eyes closed, trying not to disturb the rhythm. Letting it come – this letting, this letting aspect of the back. The sense of really taking care of the transition, closing the eyes but not completely, like looking through a slight gap of the eye, a slight slant of the eye. Recognising the mutual relationship of the front and the back, something about dropping into the back, not necessarily dropping back but letting go, a sort of oblique or indirect sense of listening, a sense of periphery. There is always something tending towards right or left – our bodies are not stable. Always a tendency to lean a little this way or that way, a little forwards or backwards. This idea of the sides allowing, how we can also listen from the sides. How sight it is often trying to direct, pinpoint, name things, whereas this blurred vision or eyes scanning or almost eyes touching the surface of things, more a sense of scanning, a different kind of possibility with the eyes. Disrupting the usual mode of understanding, our orientation to our own bodies and to each other. Orient to listening. There is a kind of void here as well. How we lean into some part of what we have experienced, or what we know, or what we think we know or how we get retriggered or reconnected with something that has happened before. I often wonder whether those previous experiences inform what is happening now – sometimes they can be so strong that they block the experience, or replace it or muddle it. It is impossible to untangle. Like grasping, grasping towards the things that I want to say. I often think of the dorsal as something that relieves the eyes, but maybe it is something that can relieve the voice, a sort of softening. Twisting – feeling more like what happens, turning is more of a possibility. I am thinking about twisting, and sometimes you see a fold on the skin. There is something about what is possible and the mechanics of it, and the observation of it and what appears on the skin or in the folds and surfaces. Not just the surfaces outside but also inside surfaces, all the organs. Shifting from the pressure of projecting, a kind of voicing like speaking to oneself. Or even listening, listening to oneself really. I realise that my taken-for-granted mode for lying on my back would be to have my eyes closed. There is this other experience of backness. Having a sense of force or of pressure against which you can work; a kind of move or experience which was in relation to uprightness, a certain idea of uprightness, or a certain idea not just of uprightness but also of holding and of control actually. It is not the body and it is not the floor, it is the plane of contact between the body and the floor. Bringing voicing into this, opening up spaces. My body here sitting, my awareness of you behind, these things on the wall, my breath. Breathing and gravity – it is also a sort of conversation. Allowing the back to have its own agency, to really tune into what unfolds or what opens up as an experience in its own right. Feedback from floor or the wall, feedback from surface, feedback from another person – a counter-force. Magnetic tilt in that direction. Not falling into a binary. A sense of rotation, movement from side to side, the possibilities of the back. To do with this movement to the ground, there is something to begin with to do with this forward leaning, future leaning sense of frontality. Coming to the ground, coming the ground has associations of letting go – and there being some confrontation with a sense of my own resistance to that also. This relation between doing and being and it feels as though the back is a mode of being and the front a mode of doing, but again there is a risk here that these are binaries being perpetuated. Axis and twist and turn also the transition from up to down – how complex it is. Allowing the back to have its own agency somehow – to really tune into what opens up or what unfolds as an experience in its own right. Feedback from the floor or wall, feedback from surface, feedback from another person – a counter-force. This back breathing. Only then being able to soften into a sense of breathing into the back and the awareness of the breath. It takes a while to settle, to let go. Dropping into the body, the voicing feels as if it has the lungs behind it somehow, or the organs behind it, and the diaphragm behind it. Taking time actually, there is something about taking time. Can I let myself be held and what can I let go of and what can I surrender? As though wrapping around the body, embryonic trace of forming. This coming into down, the folding down, the crouch, this coming down further to hands and knees. And that has more animal-like sensations – a different relationship going into the back. The feeling of a tail coming, a dorsal fin. A slight uneasiness about being under-guard, to be low down. Something that is somehow concealed or hidden or not accessible or unknown in a way – this leaning back into the unknown space of the behind enables a kind of relaxation or resting in experience. A leaning into the unknown. And by slowing it down there are more possibilities to create a diversion, a different decision, or to drop something that was held. I am talking towards the wall, I am quite close to the wall. A lot of the work has been relaxing, leaning back into, letting the body go – exploring the relation between reactive gestures and creative responses. Being able to speak and also to listen without thinking about what you look like, or that someone is looking at you or you are looking at them. Breathing and gravity – it is also a sort of conversation. Different combinations of tending towards seeing and listening, a different kind of spaciousness which is not visible and has a different kind of imagery – dark rather than light, low orientation, low as in not social or not language based, a link with low as in behind. How can we just see and let light come in. Letting light come in, letting things arrive rather than reaching out. Bubbling up, surfacing – a kind of restlessness. Trying to communicate something, confronted with the instability of balance, asymmetry of the body and having a sense of force or pressure against which you could push. Needing some kind of force or resistance against which to push the back. Gravity gets worked with as a kind of force, a quality of relaxing or letting go or releasing. Allowing the front and the back to cooperate more and maybe allowing the qualities of thinking that are connected with the front and the back to cooperate more. The sense of the cooperation of the body – what is involved and what doesn’t need to be involved. Thinking of the body as a field of cooperation. My horizontal plane, my point, my plane of reference. What can I surrender? A sense of the shape of my back – a sensation and an image, the sense of the hairs on the back of my neck. It is like an image forms in my mind, but it is a sensation. A kind of falling in on myself, a kind of dreamy sense – there is a something about the kind of support that comes from leaning into that space and being supported by that space and letting go into that space where the possibility of a different kind of confidence comes from. A dark spaciousness – you catch things in the corner of your eyes, the corner-of-the-eye kind of shadowy spaces between physical things and imaginary things. Unsettling too sometimes. There is something to do with protection and exposure, working with the forces of gravity and the possibilities of rotating the spine, bending the spine, leading or letting another thing lead. I was thinking about the experience of the back expanding the range of awareness, not so much to three dimensionality but to 360 degrees. All this unknown terrain that is just there, unfurling. It was much more mobile, more dynamic – perhaps becoming other, sensing another, becoming a human being in another way. A kinaesthetic groundedness as the basis for experience. Rather than it being a passive state when I am lying down how might that passivity be active and dynamic and vibrant and alive and full of feeling. Not a closing off - moving up and down, what does it mean to keep my attention in my back while doing that. Working with gravity, the pulling of gravity, and moving up a sense of moving through. Back bone, back ground, back track – again it is falling into binaries and how these binaries create a field, a dynamic field. Trying to activate an antidote to that next, next, next, with a sense of not having gravity acting on the body. Whereas with the back, there is a lot of acceptance, listening, allowing things in, a connection with the environment.

Flipping the body reveals something. To counteract, activate – attention disoriented. Murky pleasure - rolling from side to side. A preconception – why is it to do with inertia and stasis? Maybe it is to do with associations of sleep and death actually. The active dimension of the back, a sense of active passivity. A kineaesthetic grounded-ness as the basis for experience. How to activate the back as a dynamic field - the sensation of time, how this can create different sensations of duration and of time. My body is future-leaning. Underneath the level of the ground … but where does the back begin in terms of the interior of the body. I can sometimes get this simple pattern – this leaning back, or resting upon, or reconnecting rather than pushing forwards. A dropping into the body. The voicing feels like it has the lungs behind it. Future-leaning – and almost a sense of reversal. The quality of the back being negative – this not or non- or un- or opposite of the forward, of the frontal. Or whether this is just a habit of my thinking, to think of it only as a reversal of going forward. Or whether with more attention a different kind of experiential sensation shows itself? Doing it almost a remedy almost to the forwardness of my attention. A zone that is somehow concealed or hidden or not accessible or unknown in a way. A complex system of unfolding, bending and twisting, of physically working. It seems counter intuitive that somehow this leaning back into the unknown of a behind space enables a kind of relaxation, or of resting in experience. A leaning into the unknown future is quite different. Something more, murky back thinking. There is a kind of resistance to it – the pleasure of the cooperation of the body and the ground and the environment. A kind of resistance. Becoming other, sensing another, being a human being in another way. It activates another kind of sense of oneself as human. It seems that there is a space that feels less known somehow, that has the capacity to hold a certain kind of experience. What gets lost or what falls away in our capacity if we are not careful, out of habit or ease or sometimes inefficiency? The sense of really taking care of the transition. And there is this move from the front to the back as a kind of conscious transition, there is some murkiness in the back, a different kind of thinking perhaps. And again, not front/back – this is too binary. Having your eyes closed – trying not to disturb the rhythm. There is something very enjoyable about being on the street and having your eyes closed for a while, whilst trying not to disturb the rhythm. There are qualities of thinking which have much more of a sense of this back-ness than the qualities of talking. Trying to complicate or unsettle the sense of the binary between the front and the back. A correlation between back-ness and slowness; and am not sure how much this is a correlation, or if this is a habit. The attention to the back, lying down, there is something of settling or stilling, and those kinds of associations of non-movement, passivity and inaction. Perhaps the sense of binaries can invade the thinking, like I am cutting off the edges, not moving around the edges. No, not edges, sides. The sides of the conversation – listening and talking from the back. Also, bringing me back to walking in twilight, less contrast between light and dark, more shadows. You can catch things in the corner of your eyes. The impact of such a strong orientation of frontality – how might the participation of a fuller range of the body change the sense of connection, and what worlds start to emerge in a way. Future leaning - it seems it has this dorsal tilt, but it is confusing. If I were to say to someone – future leaning … it feels like falling forwards. Something more like murky back thinking. Our being in the world, our ways of moving and being in the world, are shaped by the ways that we move and be in the world. Pulling thinking, thinking from the back. To get in tune with your back is to do with releasing certain expectations, particularly to do with habits of control, which are also habits of the eyes in a way. This undoing of the head-oriented, sight-oriented, future-forward oriented – to try and undo that. And letting go, surrendering, renouncing, releasing. Not-ness and not upright. A pleasure in moving backwards, an elemental pleasure, the pleasure of the cooperation of the body and the ground and the environment. A correlation, a dynamic field. There is a sense of being disoriented and not clarifying. There is some murkiness in the back, a different kind of thinking – not front/back, because this is too binary. But there is a back-ness and a future-leaning, there is a kind of resistance to it. In thinking, I am pulled up and forwards. There is a lot of darkness. The slash line, or the hyphen, and in language this also sets up a kind of tension, a play between. So maybe there is something about how certain tendencies come to dominate, and the range of capacities that a body and the senses has becomes a little more curtailed by the habits. On the one hand, the limitations of language, but on the other hand the potential of language to open up some of these spaces that fall outside of this binary relation, to a sense of blur. A kind of sampling, reconfiguring of how muscles and joints and things connect with each other. Unravelling - a surprisingly fresh perspective. It shifts your perspective. And within that the nuance between directional frontality and backwards in a directional sense, moving forwards, moving backwards, awareness forward, awareness to the back, looking forwards, looking more receptively. And the correlation between direction and awareness and sight in a way. It is a kind of falling as well as a forward motion. It is a different kind of territory - a different kind of experiential sensation shows itself, which might not just be the opposite of this going-forward. Recognising the mutual relationship between the front and the back, in a sort of oblique or indirect sense. Something that is somehow concealed or hidden or unknown. This leaning back into the unknown space enables a kind of relaxation in experience, a leaning in to the unknown. And by slowing it down there are more possibilities to create a diversion, a sense of moving in and out of something as a dynamic action rather than this flat plane of sensation. Listening to the other surfaces of the body – of the eyes, the ears, voice as a kind of listening. The way that the back might be a sort of gateway into a proprioceptive capacity, a way of practising that capacity, or nurturing that capacity. There is something to do with really trying to nurture proprioceptive capacity. There is also something around the eyes – open/closed. The eyes are so fascinating because of what they do but also the materiality of them – a sense of when they are opening, when they are open, they don’t feel that they have to see or to understand. Light just falling in, a mode of dorsal listening. The exterior aspect of the back of the body – there is a depth to it. But where does the back begin, and where does it turn into the interior of the body? Working with the forces of gravity and the possibilities of rotating the spine, bending the spine, twisting at the waist. Leading or letting another thing lead. Undoing tendency, uprightness. Releasing towards turning. Low down, working ground. Arrive, alert, alive. Future-leaning – I feel my imagination move, tilt forwards. Future-leaning – and actually my understanding of it is different to what my actual body thinks, perhaps through cultural conditioning of the future in front, of desire and possibilities. The doing – the rush of desire. But for me, there is something about the front, there is something about the front and the back that does create a binary. But also the front somehow relying on the back become exposed to the air. There is a sort of voluminous feeling to it, with breath and light and air. Dropping binaries. Peripheral feelings. Paying attention. Memories, rotating. Memories and imagination. Back-ness. Form-less. Impossible to untangle. Arise, attentive. Urge to turn towards. Breathing and gravity – it is also a sort of conversation, allowing the back to have its own agency somehow. To tune into this relationship between holding on and fighting gravity and letting myself be held. Can I let myself be held? What can I let go of and what can I surrender? Maybe releasing the weight falls into the back or creates lightness around the ribs and the top surfaces, softens all these exposed areas - the mouth, the skin, the eyes. And maybe there is a kind of voice that can drop, something to do with a more thinking, drifting, experiential voice. How I might bring voicing into this, opening up spaces – also taking this, my body here sitting. My awareness of you behind me, these things that are on the wall, my breath. How voicing a dorsal voice creates spaces, is part of listening. A sort of softening. Dropping into the body, the voicing feels that it has the lungs behind it, or the organs behind it, of the diaphragm behind it. Twisting feels like what happens, turning is a possibility. The limbs were more like the active agents and the back just followed. Shifting from the pressure of projecting, towards a kind of voicing like speaking to oneself, of even listening, listening to yourself. Because it feels as if I have to almost, very actively, de-privilege that frontal-facing way of being in order to somehow become more aware of the back. Residing in this space of the not fully formed in a positive sense, not having to force it into formation, not to force it, not even to do with forcing it into language, because we are in a conversation with our backs. The sound coming from behind – more of an environmental sound. Maybe there is something in there about the axis. Like the impulse I could feel was reactive actually. And maybe there is a kind of voice that can drop – something to do with a more thinking, drifting, experiential voice. How might I bring voicing into this – opening up spaces? How voicing a dorsal voice creates spaces or is part of listening? Active, activation around the neck, a sort of softening. There is something very joyful about it – I am doing a hand gesture where my left hand is angled back towards me and my right hand is moving around in a circle, kind of gathering. But maybe it should be the other way round? It is touching, there is a touch to it, and yes, the touch took me on a thought. Something about feeling able to rest in the situation or being able to reside in the situation, or being able to reside, to lean back, taking time. Something about taking time. There is something to do with the confrontation of my own sense of resistance to that. Listening, thinking, voicing – orientation, falling. De-privilege, releasing. Proprioceptive capacity, slippery. A dorsal listening, a way of releasing. Asymmetrical. A different kind of gaze like the liquid of the eye was dropping back into its orbit. The sense of the shape of my back – this slump was really nice, this sense of unit-thing of back and chair, wrapping around the body, wraps around the body. Embryonic trace forming. Magnetic tilt in that direction. Not falling into a binary. A sense of rotating. Movement from side to side. Soft eyes, relaxing. Flipping the body. Dropping, dropping – associations of sleep. A dorsal voicing. The twist, the resistance. Twisting feels more like what happens, turning is more a possibility. Voice as a kind of listening. I love this idea that light is just falling in. Eyes can stay soft and blurred, the eyes scanning, blurring, which is also what happens when the eyes drop back, when attention drops away from this orientation. There is a lot of release that has to happen in the front, there is a lot of relaxation that has to happen to really drop back into the experience of back-ness. Am I really experiencing a sense of the back or am I just thinking about the experience of the back? Is this a direct experience or a thought I am having about experience? There is something to do with this thinking about something which feels as if it is very much in the front mode of being, whereas dropping into the back feels as if it is much closer to the experience. You let this voice drift in, it comes in. To do with non-grasping, letting things arrive or arise. But not to completely flip from an active, grasping mode – there are these different forces and resistances and limits to the material body. Tuning into the back softens the front, softens the front, allows the front to drop back. Expectation drops, time drops, the body drops into another sense of time. Eyes drop into the body. Front falls back. So I am working between memories and imagination – projecting, bringing the previous into what is happening now. And this is how we lean into what we have experienced, or what we know or what we think we know, or what gets retriggered or reconnected. But it takes some effort to move into this. It actually feels like it requires effort to move into this more relaxed mode of being – which is perhaps going about it in the wrong way. It slips between a physical understanding and slippery abstract sense of the unseen surfaces of the body. This listening to the other surfaces of the body – they ears, the eyes, voice as a kind of listening. And the way that the back might be a gateway into a proprioceptive capacity, a way of practising that capacity, or nurturing that capacity. There is something to do with really trying to nurture a proprioceptive capacity and what kinds of being and thinking and observing comes from that as a ground. Disrupting the usual mode or understanding, our orientation to our own bodies and to each other. To reorient to seeing and listening – there is a kind of void here as well. I feel like because I am not facing you, but I am aware that you are receiving, therefore it is that the sense that I am talking to you is less dominant. Working between memory and imagination – projecting, bringing the previous into what is happening now. There is a sense of being disoriented, not clarifying – there is a murkiness in the back. Moving backwards, this stepping backwards, taking the joints in a direction that they don’t very often travel in. Against the operation of habits of movement, shift of orientation in the body, affecting how we move through the world and how we perceive the world. There is a kind of resistance to it. The awkwardness of the opposite, the awkwardness of the limbs moving opposite to habit. There is something about how you are moving through life. As soon as you pull back it opens into a much more spacious expanded feeling. How do we move through the world, and how does this shift in orientation affect how we move through the world and the way that we perceive the world? Gravity and grace – dynamic and alive and vibrant and full of feeling. The front and the back – letting go but keeping it still there. The spine is perhaps different from the back – the depth and density of the body in a way. And whether the back is this plane of the back, this exterior aspect of the body or whether there is a depth to it. Where does the back begin in terms of the interior of the body? Working with the forces of gravity and the possibilities of rotating the spine. Bending at the spine, twisting at the waist, leading or letting another thing lead. Reconfiguring how we are moving brings attention to these pulls and forces, that act upon us, that can be activated or isolated. And those kinds of associations of non-movement and passivity and inaction – trying to complicate or unsettle the sense of the binary between the back and the front. I suppose it is back – but it is inside the body, so it is an experiential sense of the spine. There is something about the image of the anatomical. And then dropping into it. The voicing feels like it has the lungs behind it, the organs behind it, the diaphragm behind it. I think that sometimes the voice is high in the body or shallow in the body. A sense of dorsal voicing, a mode of dorsal listening. Back bone, back-ground, back track – again, it is falling into binaries and how these binaries create a field, a dynamic field. Trying to activate an antidote to that next, next, next. Whereas with back-ness there is a lot of acceptance - listening, allowing things in. Reconfiguring how muscles and joints and things connect with each other – unravelling of the habit, it shifts your perspective. This thinking, listening, voicing. Asymmetry feeds back into the body – stimulates to understand. It keeps working the mind’s interest – it intrigues. Maybe it triggers some self-generation, the moving that self-generates the body or reminds the body it is a body, or something like that. The muscles that sort of resist or won’t soften or won’t allow – I can feel this in the moving and twisting. There is a mechanics to this skeleton – it is built in a way that it can turn. It feels like I am making this up because of the words – but there is the mechanical and there is the manifestation. There is a call for rotation – the way that the skeletal system is activated. But also around the organs – this turning of the body and the way that the weight feels more compressed as you move from one side, the sense of the body pressuring on one lung, or a sense of the digestive organs being moved in some kind of way. It activates a different experience of backwards, the reversal of things, unravelling. Very simply what the body has to do, or what breathing has to do in order to balance on one leg, or move backwards, or orientate differently. There is something about how you are moving through life – you have to coordinate the limbs, and the swing and the kick. There are all these different rhythms. The sense of the back seeping around the sides of the body – unfurling, dissolving, supporting, scanning. Beneath-ness – a sense of spaciousness, if the body lets that happen. A sense of dorsality - I am moving away from the future in a sense, a sense of time going backwards, going back in time. It is surrender, it is not giving up. It is coming down to a more child-like, animal-like, low to the ground – a kind of safe space, it removes any sense of having to talk. That strong supportive ground of the back, supporting the front, and again, it is not so clearly shaped, more of a presence. A strong physical sensation – it is behind the back and the front, and the back or the front not being excluded from this back-ness. A pleasure in moving backwards – it is a very elemental pleasure, the pleasure of the cooperation of the body and the ground. A correlation, a dynamic field. A continuum, a field of play, a playing field. All these variables within small sequences, it is much more dynamic. Where are the edges, yes, the back as a dynamic field is still this area of challenge. Round and back – a kind of falling in on myself. Strong back, soft belly. This sense of openness. To think of this zone as something that is hidden or not accessible or unknown. To explore the participation of the thoracic spine in movement and being in the world. This sense, this notion of being in the world, and how our ways of moving and being in the world are shaped by how we move and be in the world. Contingent and open – the front, a kind of receptivity. There is always something tending towards right or left – our bodies are not stable, there is always a tendency to lean a little this way or that way, a little forwards, a little backwards. This idea of the sides allow, how can we also listen from the sides? Sight is often trying to direct, pinpoint, name things – whereas this blurred vision or eyes scanning, almost eyes touching the surfaces of things … a kind of different possibility with the eyes. A dark spaciousness. Drop back. Drop back into the not yet formed, back to back, or into the inbetween. Into the back as an agent of moving, of movement. Surrendering. Renouncing. Releasing. Not-ness, not upright.