<

PART 1

EXPLORATION PERIOD: 14 April - 13 May 2022

FOCUS/PRACTICE: The focus during this period was on the experience of back-ness, through 'walking backwards'. 

We each undertook this exploration separately over the period. Below are some of the individual exercises / scores / questions / prompts that we used for activating the exploration or that emerged through the enquiry.

PART 2 (B)

EXPLORATION DATE: 13.05.2022

FOCUS/PRACTICE: Conversation-as-Material (I) as a shared practice. The focus of this conversation practice was the preceding period of exploration (between 14.04.2022 - 13.05.2022).

STRUCTURE OF PRACTICE

Speaker is not visible (masks camera with tape), listener has back turned, active listening.

1. Speaking/listening: taking turns facing [5 mins each]

2. Speaking/listening: taking turns facing [5 mins each]

3. Speaking/listening: taking turns facing [10 mins each]

4. Speaking/listening: taking turns facing [10 mins each]

5. Speaking/listening: taking turns facing [5 mins each]

'SCORE' FOR CONVERSATION PRACTICE

- Take a moment to tune into the chosen object/focus of exploration – this could involve a period of recollection, or looking back at notes, sketches, wordings that relate to the object/focus of exploration, or by noting/drawing/diagramming.

- Connect and try to stay connected with your direct experience.

- Feel free to speak before knowing what it is that you want to say – thinking through speaking.

- Feel free to speak in single words, partial phrases, half sentences, and thought fragments.

- Allow for vulnerability and embarrassment – for wrestling with, stumbling and falling over one’s words.

- Consider different speeds and rhythms. Allow for silence.

- Approach listening to the other as an aesthetic practice.

PART 3

INTERIM PERIOD

FOCUS/PRACTICE: Transcription and distillation of resulting text through marking/highlighting, undertaken separately.

EXERCISES/SCORES

So yesterday I went out to late afternoon-early evening for a walk and found a … partly I was walking on the street, and it goes down a path towards a river … and I was finding these moments - mostly when there was no-one around but sometimes when there were people around – where I could shift from walking forwards to walking backwards. And trying to be a little more, I suppose methodical, or know what it is that I want to test out. The one thing which I realised I had done, I had done it also a few days before at the bottom drive of the university, so these paths giving an opportunity, I know I don’t have to look behind, because I know for a while there are not any obstacles. So it really releases me from having to worry about that, and this was really interesting. I hadn’t really done so much outside before, mostly in the studio. And there was something about the immediacy of the turn, from walking forwards into backwards, that each time I did it, it struck me how quickly the body could reconfigure but also how immediately the difference felt. Even that feeling of difference without unpacking what that might be – it is really rather remarkable. Or I felt it, it kind of made me smile each time, before in this tiny subtle shift, it was kind of exciting. Especially walking backwards, and I think it is partly because I was on paths where other people might be so accentuating the normal way to be walking on a street or on a path – so there was that element to it. But what was particularly interesting on these pathways, there are these trees, with their branches coming over the path, so my attention was also being drawn to be looking, sometimes on the ground, sometimes straight ahead, but also sometimes up. And I started to really explore this idea of being free to be able to look what was ahead of me while I was walking backwards. And there was a number of thoughts around that, and one was, there is something very special … and it does link up with the train, but this is very different because I am physically moving … also a sense that once I know I am walking backwards and the body sorts that out, I am almost allowed, seeing is given permission to look, and a light feeling in the neck, that I can just look while the body takes me back. It is almost, it is almost releasing the seeing from responsibility. Normally, if I am moving forwards I have a feeling that the eyes are responsible for guiding me, for making sure I know where I am going, for not bumping into anything, for navigating people or a lamppost, and then walking backwards it feels that seeing, the sense of seeing and the actual receiving of visual things, feels it is allowed to happen or it is being taken for a journey or is allowed to wander. And the looking upwards, I find fascinating, because you are looking upwards as you are pass under, so we have talked about this before, this revealing of or this unfolding of the view, rather than moving towards, or moving into what you are seeing.

Yes, the thing that you were describing there about the releasing of the eyes, I have almost the same phrase written down –releasing, releasing the eyes from orientation, from looking where one is going to. This sense of easiness in the eyes, the sense of what the pressure feels for the eyes to be always orienting, always looking for where one is going. And I was experimenting with this to really test it. I think that maybe last time, I think I said, I am in this reading group and we were reading this text by Marion Milner, on two ways of attention, so narrow attention and wide attention. and it felt that the narrow attention was much more concerned with this finding of a way, you know, pragmatic, looking for the route. And as I was walking forwards I noticed that my eye is very busy, it is darting, it is looking around, it is one the one hand looking forward, but also trying to get a quick map of the bigger picture. I even wonder biologically whether there is something to do with, yes, looking for threats in the space, surveying and busy, cognitively busy, sussing out what is happening in the space, and then turning around and walking backwards, the eyes do not have that role to play, so it is releasing them from a particular role of orientation, or searching or protection or route-finding. And this sense of the eyes being able to inhabit a different kind or mode of being in a way, where they are released of their usual function, so yes, thinking a lot about the way in which visuality and sight seems to be a dominant sense, but it seems that is dominant in a particular kind of way. Searching, finding out, a knowing kind of mode. And I suppose it feels that the eyes, my eyes, my own eyes, were less practised, less accustomed to this other mode, which was really spacious, really allowing things to just be, really in a receiving mode. So I was really enjoying walking backwards and it felt almost, kind of, cleansing in a weird kind of way for my eyes, to be able to just let in, to not have an explicit responsibility or job to do. And there was a point on the walk where I was moving from this experience of walking backwards to then lying on the ground, and just really experiencing this sense of looking, no, not looking, just allowing the eyes to be, and moving from an upright position to a horizontal position. Just that letting in of the sky and the clouds and yes, moving the orientation of the eyes from looking backwards or being oriented backwards, but still in an upright position, to a horizontal position. It felt very nice, this, yes in a way, a quarter of the view, as you move from the vertical to the horizontal. And, I then was experimenting with moving backwards, walking backwards with my eyes in this more receiving mode, or taking the pressure of them needing to look forward or needing to look where I was going, and then when I turned to walk forwards, having my eyes closed. And this was really interesting, because it felt that it was much more possible to walk forwards with my eyes closed having been practising walking backwards. So it was letting the eyes being released of orientation in a different way, this time by closing them. And, yes, I was really surprised by almost the confidence I could feel walking forwards with my eyes closed, having been practising walking backwards. My balance and sense of orientation felt much more possible in a way.

It was interesting to her you speak, yes speak of lying down. And a sense of looking up at the sky or at the ceiling. I suppose, I have been in a dancing environment, so I am often in that situation, though it remains one of the most pleasant things that I do in my life, I think, lying down, as in, not in bed, but with an attentiveness to lying on the floor or the grass or the street. And I feel there is a strong connection with lying on the back, which also relieves the eyes of that responsibility of having to look. Coming back to this territory of low orientation, with a dorsal orientation. In a different way, although there is this 90 degree tilt, there is similarity in how the eyes are released and how seeing has to reorganise itself. I suppose with lying down the sense of touch is coming, is coming up much more. The surface area of the body being in contact with the ground. But I was, it is interesting this walk, I have particular memories, because I was, there was a time when two people had walked past me, and it was so interesting, this phrase of backing away. There was a dog and a tree that were moving, well, the dog was moving, the tree wasn’t moving – but this idea that you leave things behind, but you back away from them. Which I found very intriguing, it gives this feeling of, yes, backward away, I wrote it down here, some sort of nostalgia or almost poetics. You have that sensation and you are totally in that situation, but there is also something, like an outside eye, that imagines that you are in also watching a film, or that you are in a film. Maybe a heightened awareness of being a particular situation, in the midst of it, but also a sense of the particularity or the specialness of that situation. Yes, back away from people, leaving something behind, it is very different to turning you back on something, and walking away from it, forwards. Like the turn is a kind of recognition of I am leaving, and then you go. But this is, perhaps a suspension of leaving. And at the same time, maybe it the suspension of leaving something behind at the same time as this viewing unfolding or unravelling along the edges. And things appearing, from behind, a bush, or I remember walking and then suddenly there were these pink petals that had come from a Rhododendron or Azelea – so this patch of pink and how that gets revealed as you walk though it, so you walk through it, and discover yourself in it, rather than seeing it before and walking into it. So again, you talked about this last week, this being in the midst, it puts you there, amongst, present, amongst the other things in that situation or environment. The things around you but also the sounds, you are in the middle. Yes, you are in the middle of it all. And also the sound, the sound of my feet became much more pronounced, a different kind of rhythm. A kind of rhythm and for me it felt louder, it might just be how the toe or the ball of the foot has to find its way first.

Yes, my mind feels quite scatty today, I cannot quite land on, find a landing point in terms of where to go, and I am listening and so much of what you are saying is resonating. I think that one of things is to do with walking in a public space, backwards. And actually, also the shyness of that, or the self-consciousness of that. Whilst I have been walking in public space, I have tended not to do it when it is in people’s eye line. Even though there are people around and about. So one of the interesting things has been approaching people walking forwards and then once they have gone past, turning to walk backwards. And actually, when you were saying this thing about backing away or backing off, in some ways it has had the opposite quality – almost as if I had turned to stay with them for longer. I think I might have even said this last time, there was often this dilemma, particularly with individuals, as it can feel as if I am checking them out, and wanting to look at them for longer in a way. But this idea of wanting to stay with something, or look at something for longer, or allow something to remain in view for longer, remain in view for longer, this has felt very present in walking backwards. In walking forwards, things are endlessly passing, and going behind, disappearing into peripheral vision and then no longer being in view. Or the eye line feels as if what stays in view is the furthest horizon, the far distance. Yes, this is true actually. So as you are walking forwards, the near distance is endlessly passing, and disappearing from view, and the far distance stays in view for longer. However, when you are walking backwards, this is not true at all – the near, the middle and the far view, all stay in view, all of the time. And in particular, the near or proximate sphere of space does not disappear behind you, like when you are walking forwards – it really stays. And then gradually, starts to become the middle ground. But this idea of staying with something for longer has felt very strong with walking backwards. Keeping something in view. And then I was thinking about this idea of reflection, in the sense of turning back. In its etymology, re- and flectere: to turn, to turn back again. And I was thinking how we often talk about reflection in this sense of looking back on something, turning back on something. And in this act of turning whilst walking, there was this sense of re-flect, in the sense of turning back. But it wasn’t at all back on time somehow. So it was looking back, but still in the present. And I really like this action of reflecting, in the sense of turning back, simply turning back, but that it stays in the present. And this staying with something for longer, remains in the immediate experience, rather than bringing to mind something later, after the fact. So this weird temporal confusion that starts to arise through a focus on dorsality, or temporal stretchiness or elasticity in the sense of, yes, sort of how attention and movement through the world feels as if it has this tense to it. As I am moving forward, it can feel as if I am moving into the future, this future time ahead, and what I am leaving behind is somehow in the past. Which isn’t true because it is all existing at the same time, there isn’t anything like this sense of linear, the future is before me and the past is behind me, it is not spatial like this, but it can feel like that. I am not sure where I am going with this. I guess with walking backwards it feels that all of the tenses are present somehow. And big, and really spacious. It drops off the sense of linear.

When you were talking, on this idea of reflection, and how you were describing your experience of how the turning came up for you. I am wondering if it is linking with what I am calling nostalgia, well nostalgia has this weighty meaning to it, but there is something reflective in that. And perhaps that is what I am sensing, listening to you speak about what remains in view, yes, as you said, this also resonates with my experience. And it is nice how you said that, because backing away feels almost like an aggressive action or fearful thing of having to back away or to retreat. But actually I didn’t even mean it like that, so yes, allowing things to remain for longer in view. It kind of suspends, it suspends a sense of, I am trying to recall that sensation, it is almost … I am repeating myself, the moving forwards has more functionality, the moving backwards it does, there is a different sensation. Dropped into a different way of experiencing what is happening around. So in a way it feels a timelessness, almost like if I am walking forwards I roughly know how long it is going to take me, half an hour to get here, or five minutes to get there. There is a measure of time that just clicks in automatically if you are walking forwards. Whereas with walking backwards, it just switches off, it is not really important. That is not really what is being attended to. I suppose a temporal confusion, a temporal relief or release as well. So maybe it is in the turn. I did one other thing, I would sometimes just pause and actually choose something to listen to, and then take myself around, to place that sound behind me, and then to revolve so the way that I was listening to it would shift. And this was interesting. In particular, there were some sounds that stayed where they were, so there were people talking in the distance for example and they were moving but they were so far away. I could do a number of rotations and they were still coming from the same direction. Or if I was doing it with a bird which was also moving, so there are these two rotations – myself moving, rotating, and the bird’s sound moving from one place to another. This is also interesting. I suppose it is putting some attention just on locating where a sound is – how far, or how close, in relationship to whether I sensing it behind me, or to the side of me or about to come in front of me. I suppose it accentuate a sense of the 360 degrees of the body within the environment. And I suppose also because of the pausing and the rotating, it gives a difference sense, because you are not travelling. You have a more radial sense of space, feeling my body as a centre of rotation and in moving around – maybe my ears are scanning around me and I am listening to the shifting sounds. I haven’t explained that very well, I am bringing attention to the immersive nature of, the immersive quality of being in the space, sounds close and far, and different volumes. And perhaps also a little bit what we talked about frequencies – picking up or listening in a different way as well. So temperature and air are combining with different senses of listening, listening through touch and through the skin as well as through the ears, to sound and noise. But coming back to what you were saying about reflection and the turn, there is something about coming back to the turn. Turning. The capacity of the body to turn, and simply, in a very simple turn to be able to reorientate, to open up a new view or perspective. It is interesting this word – view. View revealing itself, it is the same way now, I am looking out of the window and there is a view. It is really interesting how in walking backwards it gives a similar sense of view, whether a real view or of a painting, of a tree or through the window. A sort of scape and spaciousness, horizon, a sense of the horizon sky around. I don’t know what I am saying. Start again. A small thing I did as I was walking back home this morning, you reminded me of this with reflection, I thought, if I walked forward and actually tried to pull my mind back to where I had just been or to the person I had just left. That is a very different sense of, although I am moving forwards, the thought of somewhere or someone I was just with, it is a real pull back. It is useful in a way, it is a very different, it is a very different manoeuvre. It is not really to do with the dorsal manoeuvre that we are interested in. that felt more like the not having to remember, as a pull back of the mind, as a recall or a remembering of what was past. But it struck me, because in the pulling back there was almost a weight to it. And it was a mind thing, it actually pulled me out of the body, and noticing where I was. Maybe these different kinds of re- and some of them have more resonance, there is a mode of dorsality that we are trying to explore as an embodied practice.

In a way, approaching this sense of the dorsal not in a grasping mode and I think that this is also true of this conversation or this exchange. It is such a habit of mine to make notes, to try and capture and gather the things that you are saying, in order to then come back to them. And it feels a real practice to not do that. I think I was transcribing one of the previous conversations and there was something about weaning oneself off a certain kind of, a certain kind of certainty in a way. Yes, now I am thinking, and this is a tangent, there is something about this temporal disturbance between having this conversation now and reflecting on what we have been doing, but also transcribing at the moment something from some time before. So all of these threads that get entangled. But trying not to grasp to strongly, not to pull too tightly into order in a way. And maybe that idea of release feels strong, releasing of this tendency of organising and coordinating and finding the route, also applies cognitively as well as with the eyes. And this idea of release, you said this idea of temporal release, was it this, temporal releasing. And this just seemed really close to the experience of, yes, being released of the sense of time, or maybe even time being released and it opening into this atemporal timelessness in the act of walking backwards. Yes very strong experientially, as you say, from this small shift of orientation. How it has such a transformative effect in the sense of how time and space and body and surroundings are experienced, very radical in a way. To say all it is, not even a 360 degree turn, a 180 degree turn of the body, and yet somehow attention, awareness, perception, sensory organisation, all becomes potentially transformed in that action. And one of the things that I was doing, so as I said, walking forwards or walking backwards and then turning 180 degrees to walk the other way, so forwards to backwards or backwards to forwards. And this sense, I think that this is almost present in the scores, the two dimensions of that, one could be recorded as a score for action – so turn the body and then walk backwards. And then the other is a score for attention – so notice the change, notice what happens. So these two aspects of affecting an action or changing an action and noticing. And the noticing dimension seems really interesting … also I think I mentioned I am doing this yoga training at the moment with Peter Blackaby, and a big part of his training, his approach, is noticing and awareness. And I guess that without the noticing it is a form of exercise in a way, you know, you can walk backwards as an exercise, it is positive for one’s health. I could do this quite mechanically, and probably at times have been doing that, and then also to come back to this sense of the enquiry. What is it that I am exploring here, or even this feels too forceful, so what is it that I am noticing here? What do I notice? What am I aware of?So at times, this noticing of the change between walking forwards and walking backwards and then doing it again, and doing it again. Testing in a way, or exploring, testing again. Is this my experience? Is this my experience? It feels like it opens up? Is this my experience doing it again? Confirming through experience, is there something that changes? How is that? How can I bring, not bring more notice to it, but what do I notice, how can I notice in a fuller way what is changing or what is transforming? And then there was another part of it which was trying to retain the quality or extend the quality of moving backwards into moving forwards. So almost inhibiting the change back, this carrying over of a backwards quality into the forwards direction? So keeping the receiving mode, the body feeling, as we have talked before, the shoulders are dropping, the lungs feel more spacious, the eyes, the gaze is higher … you know keeping that quality as I am turning and this being a different register of experiment almost. This moving forward into frontality but keeping this quality of the dorsal. So there were these two registers – one was noticing the change, the other was almost inhibiting the change or suspending the change or transformation. Then there was this other, this other third mode, really trying, no not really trying, but amplifying, so walking backwards and really being attentive dorsality, being in the back and then really being attentive to being in the front. These different registers of attention – and they feel very different in a way. And when you were talking about this sense of walking forwards, but holding in mind the sense of something past in time, it was making me think – I think I had written some notes about the dorsal having a physiological, a physical, even a proprioceptive dimension, but there also being a more psychological dimension to the dorsal or even an emotional dimension to the dorsal or an associative dimension. But the thing that you mentioned, it does not feel that the dorsal is to do with the past explicitly. Or certainly not in the sense of thinking of the past whilst being in the present, and you were describing that sense of disembodiment that comes from that. This disembodiment of being in the past. And my sense is that our explorations are very much concerned with staying in an embodied experience of dorsality, even if that might also include an awareness of memory, that the memory is embodied rather than being a departure of the mind back in time. This has felt really important. And then, now I am remembering as you were talking, I don’t know if you know Hollis Frampton’s film work called Nostalgia. It is a piece of work, let me think, a photograph is placed on a stove, on a hot plate so it burns and it disappears. I think that this is it – and as these photographs are being placed on the hot plate and are disappearing, there is a voice over which either describes the next photograph coming or what you have just seen, so there is this disjuncture between the past and the present. And again there is this temporal elasticity, listening to what is either going or coming. But very in the present at the same time. It brought that to mind, this disturbance of linear time in a way.

This image of the film that you describe with the hotplate and the disappearing photographs – I suppose while you were telling me this, it was such a clear image, I could conjure it up in my mind, get a real sense of what effect that might be. So in that way, I was thinking about film, yes, you can introduce something that is not yet seen. You can actually play in that way, in a similar way, something can be introduced before it is seen. Or playing with the edges of appearing and disappearing. And also what you were saying, while you were talking actually, you were talking about these emotional layers of … I was thinking while you were speaking and even before you said it, that I was actually at times feeling quite emotional within these experiments with the turning and the walking backwards. That might also be to do with … whether that is emotional, psychological, embodied … that is not so easily distinguishable. All those threads and layers. I suppose it made me realise how, the relief or the release or the shifting or the turning and reorganising of how you are orienting and how I am understanding how I am, or simply a different orientation. It also does orientate relationships to yourself, to others, to the world differently, and there is an emotional impact or layer to that. And even if it is in a way, when I turn, I want to walk backwards, especially in situations where I am free to do that, I have a sense of wanting to smile. It is not like there is a smile literally on my face, but there is that emotion of smiling and that is to do with releasing, release of, permission to lose control I suppose. I think that there is something to do with control. I have been transcribing something where you have been talking about expectation, expectation, responsibility, control, the sense of ourselves or how we think to present ourselves in the world, to ourselves and to others. And that is allowed to shift, it is a psychological and emotional shift as well, a twist, and a turn and a drop. Almost a sense for me the emotional shifts, there is almost a sense, there is release and relief, but it can even be stronger sometimes. Even a desire to let go, to actually totally let go, to abandon, leaning back, which also links back to this sense of trust, trusting oneself. Trusting that you won’t fall, and if you do fall, that is also fine. There is an interesting relation, of the psychological and emotional entanglement I suppose, in relation to trust. I am not quite sure how to express this, around the relation of control and trust and the rebalancing of that in the dorsal mode, which I also experience in the simple way of walking, of walking backwards. Reorientating my relationship to what I am afraid of in life, whether that is fear of falling, but also a fear of failing, fear of embarrassment, fear of change. Also it does reorientate one’s relationship to oneself. Yes, trust, fear, control. That is interesting. And what you were saying about the re- of reflection and the testing, the testing of things … it is mixed up with what I was transcribing, re-turn, as in go back to or do it again, and this returning as in to turn it over, to retest it, or do it again, and then to notice anew. And maybe some things re-emerge or feel familiar or not. The turning over and over, the testing as in with more circular or folding quality or perhaps settling back into something that is more familiar in order to test out how things are happening in this new situation. So now I am returning, I am repeating in a different way, what you said. I am turning what you said over and over in my mind and sometimes it comes as an image, sometimes it triggers a memory of what I was doing yesterday. It is interesting – to turn over things that you were saying, which as you say, not trying to grasp at them but seeing what emerging, and how some things have been absorbing. Absorbing what you were saying and them resonating with me. And not finding the language immediately. It is interesting – the more we talk, the more I can’t hold on. So much builds on and accumulates and fills our space in this conversation. It is nice, abandon any sense of where it is going, or what is being said or what would be useful to say now. I keep having a sense of how might I move this conversation forwards which is interesting – how might I move this conversation backwards. Turn it around.

Yes it is so interesting, as you are talking, so many things almost like vapours or clouds are forming. And then it is just like passing through a door and they have disappeared. Yes, completely disappeared. I have my notes in front of me and I am trying not to get too drawn into them, but I can see a couple of things that I suppose … one of the things last time was thinking about etymologies or common place words even that I am not sure I really understand. I mean, as you are talking today, I really want to explore nostalgia, I don’t think I have ever looked up the origin of nostalgia. I don’t think I know where it comes from in a sense. But one of the things that was, the words that were in my mind were ‘coming’ and ‘going’. Go and come as words and what they mean. And actually, as I have thinking about them there is something temporally unsettling about them, almost it is unclear whether going is towards or away from, or whether coming is going away from or going towards. Even using one to describe the other. So the inflection of those directions and orientations that are present and how they are embedded into language. Even inflexion, that feels interesting. Flexion was something that I was writing down and reflecting on – all these flexes and -flects, flexions and flections, even the relation between flexion and reflect. I am curious about. So flexion, one of the things that I was exploring was this coming to the ground as a way of releasing the back from uprightness. So lying down is a release from the pressure of uprightness, but as I was walking, maybe connected with some of this yoga training that I am involved in at the moment – this sense of flexion also being a way of releasing the pressure of uprightness in a different way. So exploring or bringing to mind, or experiencing the relationship between coming to ground in these two different ways. One of coming to the back as a way of releasing the pressure of verticality, but also flexion in the curling down to crouch as a way of releasing uprightness and also coming to the ground. And this flexion of the spine, coming down to crouch was really interesting as it also brought my eyes close to the ground. So there was this closeness to the ground in both of these practices, but really very different. So something about flex and -plex, complex, simplex, coiling and curling and folding through this gesture of flexion. Also this because my tendency is extension, this arching of the lower back, particularly when walking. So this exploration of flexion when out and about. And yes, something about trying to do things undercover – this exploration of how to do things undercover, to not look as if it is performing something. So just bending down as if I am interested in something on the floor, or I am tying my shoelace or this turning around towards the back, also folded into something that could be an everyday functional movement in a way. Yes maybe I have also been thinking about functional movement, especially through this training with Peter Blackaby, a lot of his emphasis is on functional movement. This question in my mind of the functionality of backwards walking, and the functionality of the articulation of our joints of the body being oriented towards this forwards faciality. Thomas Hanna writes on this in terms of the evolution of movement, as having this push towards uprightness, and faciality and frontality. But it feels not, I think it is strange that moving to the back in all kinds of ways, whether physiologically or psychologically, brings such a lot of release and joy, how can that not be programmed into our being in some kind of way. And the way that you were describing this abandon, this sense of abandon, the joy of abandon, felt really vivid. How can that not be functional, no, not how can it not be functional … but how can it not part of the fabric of being human and having a human body. It can feel so amazing, and expansive and liberatory. And then, as you were talking there was something about this emotional texture or tenor of dorsality. And it was really strange because the sense that came to mind, or even the word that came to mind, is sorrow. And I have experienced this in the practices, I feel as if it is almost this sorrow, yes, sorrow feels very close for it, a real, not quite sadness, but the sorrow that this is a fleeting experience, and I am experiencing it as I am turning round or I am lying in the park on my back. But they feel brief interludes in a life which otherwise feels very frontally oriented. These pockets of abandon, and the joy and the ease, and the relief feel momentary and there is a sorrow with that. The fatigue of frontality, the tiredness of it and this fluid, pleasurable, joyful, easy experience just experienced in these very slight pockets of exercising and of testing something out. And the sorrow that this is how it seems to be – encountered in a brief exercise. I mean it doesn’t need to be a brief exercise, why could it not be more, why not live life more dorsally? Maybe there is a provocation there or an interest there – does this sense of the dorsal give ease and release because it is the unaccustomed. Its easiness comes from being opposite to how I might ordinarily practice, so there is a unfamiliarity to it. And if I was more accustomed to this dorsal way of being would it somehow become normative, or have its own constraints in a way. And then something about this breaking of habit and the instilling of a different nature, a second nature, through this practising to be more in this mode. And then, yes, yes, it is complicated, no, complex, what is it that is being explored and whether there is something to do with this about expanding the sense of dorsality into more aspects of life, or whether there is this complementarity between frontal and dorsal and they each have their own characteristics which can cooperate. So whether this description of noticing the change moving from frontal to dorsal – whether this is something that is to be preserved, that there are these distinctive ways of operating: frontally and dorsally. And they can be complementary and the noticing notices the difference rather than to make them more equivalent.

Picking up from where you, from what you were last saying, it made me think, maybe that is why we keep coming back to the turn, the turn, it is the turn that can move us around. To navigate the frontality and the dorsality. That is right, if we became too familiar, if that became as natural as our frontal mode, would we be having the same sense of release. And I suppose it is the turn that keeps, the possibility of always being able to turn, we also have this flex, to bend or curl or twist, we also talked last time about this capacity to sway. I suppose physically, the spine and the joints can move us this way or that way. It keeps a sense of possibility to move in another way, to see things in another way, to perceive things in another way. Yes, it is what keeps some possible, not static, not fixed, not so familiar, that it becomes static. And maybe this is the joy, I was thinking when you were talking … I love this idea of the undercover researcher in the park. And doing these testings out. I think also when I am in the kitchen and I am moving around, I think I am also doing a lot of undercover stuff. When you sort of … finding of these different ways of going to the fridge to go down to the window, or between … I have quite a small place, so how to manoeuvre from one room to another room. Trying to find ways of turning around. There is a playfulness in that. Yes, full of joy and being fluid and finding different ways of moving and ease and being able to crouch down into the fridge rather than bend at the hips and having to pull myself up. How to keep fluid, without even thinking about how you might do these things, there is a childlike joy or curiosity or playfulness in wanting to sometimes move to the ground, to crouch and to crawl. To find different ways of doing things. What you were saying made me think, it is lovely these exercises and the similarities to how children are operating a lot of the time. Seeing what happens if. How does it feel if? Yes, and these words, nostalgia and sorrow. When you said that word sorrow it almost brought tears to my eyes and in the context that you are talking about it, there was resonance. And yes, it is not sadness, and I think that there is a link to nostalgia.

Yes this sense the fluidity and the options. Ah yes, the turn. I was also bringing to mind what you said, what you were reflecting on from David Wills’ text about the turn is always dorsal, as I was walking and some of this was to do with noticing which shoulder I turn back over as I am turning backwards. No, then there was this experiment with keeping the head forwards and turning the body, so almost like the head stayed a bit longer facing forwards as the body turned; and then turning the head quicker than the body. These experiments on the turn, and also this feeling of whether the shoulder was moving, whether the shoulder was moving dorsally. And actually it felt like the other shoulder was going forwards in order to go back, so I was exploring this turn that lets the body roll back, rather than forcing the shoulder forwards which is how it felt at times. I think I have a simplistic image of what a turn looks like at times, it is as if the body is a solid, almost cylindrical axis, almost in one plane. And then, more and more thinking about and exploring the complexity of what is involved in this turn to the back and one of the things that has been interesting is that in walking backwards I have injured my knee. Or at least I think part of it has come from being inattentive to the turn, and in this turning from walking forwards and turning whilst walking to walking backwards in my experience there can be quite some pressure on the knee joint to rotate. And yes, it is interesting, I am seeing this therapist for cranio-sacral therapy but last time I saw it was for Feldenkrais, one-to-one session, and she was manipulating my leg, and she was saying that the lower bones did not rotate. They were not moving. So she was manipulating to move the bones and this felt strange because I don’t think of the skeleton like that, having this movement capacity. It can feel rather solid and static at times but that range of movement, is dependent on these micro movements within the skeleton itself, the capacity of the bones to have rotation. And then almost like all of these turning upon which the turning to the back is contingent, like the reliance of the hips and the legs and the shin bones having this micro capacity for movement, to enable movement. And I got interested – what is at stake in not practising, in the stiffening and solidifying of the body into more of a sense of a single form without these micro capacities for movement. It just felt quite urgent really – what closes down as movement possibilities through lack of practice or through habits, habits of holding really, yes, habits of holding. And the potency of release as a principle, of letting go of control seemed very present in those experiences. And then something about deprivileging of certain things like the frontality of the eyes, and just thinking more in terms of lessening a dependence on them.

So yesterday I went out to late afternoon-early evening for a walk and found a … partly I was walking on the street, and it goes down a path towards a river … and I was finding these moments - mostly when there was no-one around but sometimes when there were people around – where I could shift from walking forwards to walking backwards. And trying to be a little more, I suppose methodical, or know what it is that I want to test out. The one thing which I realised I had done, I had done it also a few days before at the bottom drive of the university, so these paths giving an opportunity, I know I don’t have to look behind, because I know for a while there are not any obstacles. So it really releases me from having to worry about that, and this was really interesting. I hadn’t really done so much outside before, mostly in the studio. And there was something about the immediacy of the turn, from walking forwards into backwards, that each time I did it, it struck me how quickly the body could reconfigure but also how immediately the difference felt. Even that feeling of difference without unpacking what that might be – it is really rather remarkable. Or I felt it, it kind of made me smile each time, before in this tiny subtle shift, it was kind of exciting. Especially walking backwards, and I think it is partly because I was on paths where other people might be so accentuating the normal way to be walking on a street or on a path – so there was that element to it. But what was particularly interesting on these pathways, there are these trees, with their branches coming over the path, so my attention was also being drawn to be looking, sometimes on the ground, sometimes straight ahead, but also sometimes up. And I started to really explore this idea of being free to be able to look what was ahead of me while I was walking backwards. And there was a number of thoughts around that, and one was, there is something very special … and it does link up with the train, but this is very different because I am physically moving … also a sense that once I know I am walking backwards and the body sorts that out, I am almost allowed, seeing is given permission to look, and a light feeling in the neck, that I can just look while the body takes me back. It is almost, it is almost releasing the seeing from responsibility. Normally, if I am moving forwards I have a feeling that the eyes are responsible for guiding me, for making sure I know where I am going, for not bumping into anything, for navigating people or a lamppost, and then walking backwards it feels that seeing, the sense of seeing and the actual receiving of visual things, feels it is allowed to happen or it is being taken for a journey or is allowed to wander. And the looking upwards, I find fascinating, because you are looking upwards as you are pass under, so we have talked about this before, this revealing of or this unfolding of the view, rather than moving towards, or moving into what you are seeing.

Yes, the thing that you were describing there about the releasing of the eyes, I have almost the same phrase written down – releasing, releasing the eyes from orientation, from looking where one is going to. This sense of easiness in the eyes, the sense of what the pressure feels for the eyes to be always orienting, always looking for where one is going. And I was experimenting with this to really test it. I think that maybe last time, I think I said, I am in this reading group and we were reading this text by Marion Milner, on two ways of attention, so narrow attention and wide attention. and it felt that the narrow attention was much more concerned with this finding of a way, you know, pragmatic, looking for the route. And as I was walking forwards I noticed that my eye is very busy, it is darting, it is looking around, it is one the one hand looking forward, but also trying to get a quick map of the bigger picture. I even wonder biologically whether there is something to do with, yes, looking for threats in the space, surveying and busy, cognitively busy, sussing out what is happening in the space, and then turning around and walking backwards, the eyes do not have that role to play, so it is releasing them from a particular role of orientation, or searching or protection or route-finding. And this sense of the eyes being able to inhabit a different kind or mode of being in a way, where they are released of their usual function, so yes, thinking a lot about the way in which visuality and sight seems to be a dominant sense, but it seems that is dominant in a particular kind of way. Searching, finding out, a knowing kind of mode. And I suppose it feels that the eyes, my eyes, my own eyes, were less practised, less accustomed to this other mode, which was really spacious, really allowing things to just be, really in a receiving mode. So I was really enjoying walking backwards and it felt almost, kind of, cleansing in a weird kind of way for my eyes, to be able to just let in, to not have an explicit responsibility or job to do. And there was a point on the walk where I was moving from this experience of walking backwards to then lying on the ground, and just really experiencing this sense of looking, no, not looking,just allowing the eyes to be, and moving from an upright position to a horizontal position. Just that letting in of the sky and the clouds and yes, moving the orientation of the eyes from looking backwards or being oriented backwards, but still in an upright position, to a horizontal position. It felt very nice, this, yes in a way, a quarter of the view, as you move from the vertical to the horizontal. And, I then was experimenting with moving backwards, walking backwards with my eyes in this more receiving mode, or taking the pressure of them needing to look forward or needing to look where I was going, and then when I turned to walk forwards, having my eyes closed. And this was really interesting, because it felt that it was much more possible to walk forwards with my eyes closed having been practising walking backwards. So it was letting the eyes being released of orientation in a different way, this time by closing them. And, yes, I was really surprised by almost the confidence I could feel walking forwards with my eyes closed, having been practising walking backwards. My balance and sense of orientation felt much more possible in a way.

It was interesting to her you speak, yes speak of lying down. And a sense of looking up at the sky or at the ceiling. I suppose, I have been in a dancing environment, so I am often in that situation, though it remains one of the most pleasant things that I do in my life, I think, lying down, as in, not in bed, but with an attentiveness to lying on the floor or the grass or the street. And I feel there is a strong connection with lying on the back, which also relieves the eyes of that responsibility of having to look. Coming back to this territory of low orientation, with a dorsal orientation. In a different way, although there is this 90 degree tilt, there is similarity in how the eyes are released and how seeing has to reorganise itself. I suppose with lying down the sense of touch is coming, is coming up much more. The surface area of the body being in contact with the ground. But I was, it is interesting this walk, I have particular memories, because I was, there was a time when two people had walked past me, and it was so interesting, this phrase of backing away. There was a dog and a tree that were moving, well, the dog was moving, the tree wasn’t moving – but this idea that you leave things behind, but you back away from them. Which I found very intriguing, it gives this feeling of, yes, backward away, I wrote it down here, some sort of nostalgia or almost poetics. You have that sensation and you are totally in that situation, but there is also something, like an outside eye, that imagines that you are in also watching a film, or that you are in a film. Maybe a heightened awareness of being a particular situation, in the midst of it, but also a sense of the particularity or the specialness of that situation. Yes, back away from people, leaving something behind, it is very different to turning you back on something, and walking away from it, forwards. Like the turn is a kind of recognition of I am leaving, and then you go. But this is, perhaps a suspension of leaving. And at the same time, maybe it the suspension of leaving something behind at the same time as this viewing unfolding or unravelling along the edges. And things appearing, from behind, a bush, or I remember walking and then suddenly there were these pink petals that had come from a Rhododendron or Azelea – so this patch of pink and how that gets revealed as you walk though it, so you walk through it, and discover yourself in it, rather than seeing it before and walking into it. So again, you talked about this last week, this being in the midst, it puts you there, amongst, present, amongst the other things in that situation or environment. The things around you but also the sounds, you are in the middle. Yes, you are in the middle of it all. And also the sound, the sound of my feet became much more pronounced, a different kind of rhythm. A kind of rhythm and for me it felt louder, it might just be how the toe or the ball of the foot has to find its way first.

Yes, my mind feels quite scatty today, I cannot quite land on, find a landing point in terms of where to go, and I am listening and so much of what you are saying is resonating. I think that one of things is to do with walking in a public space, backwards. And actually, also the shyness of that, or the self-consciousness of that. Whilst I have been walking in public space, I have tended not to do it when it is in people’s eye line. Even though there are people around and about. So one of the interesting things has been approaching people walking forwards and then once they have gone past, turning to walk backwards. And actually, when you were saying this thing about backing away or backing off, in some ways it has had the opposite quality – almost as if I had turned to stay with them for longer. I think I might have even said this last time, there was often this dilemma, particularly with individuals, as it can feel as if I am checking them out, and wanting to look at them for longer in a way. But this idea of wanting to stay with something, or look at something for longer, or allow something to remain in view for longer, remain in view for longer, this has felt very present in walking backwards. In walking forwards, things are endlessly passing, and going behind, disappearing into peripheral vision and then no longer being in view. Or the eye line feels as if what stays in view is the furthest horizon, the far distance. Yes, this is true actually. So as you are walking forwards, the near distance is endlessly passing, and disappearing from view, and the far distance stays in view for longer. However, when you are walking backwards, this is not true at all – the near, the middle and the far view, all stay in view, all of the time. And in particular, the near or proximate sphere of space does not disappear behind you, like when you are walking forwards – it really stays. And then gradually, starts to become the middle ground. But this idea of staying with something for longer has felt very strong with walking backwards. Keeping something in view. And then I was thinking about this idea of reflection, in the sense of turning back. In its etymology, re- and flectere: to turn, to turn back again. And I was thinking how we often talk about reflection in this sense of looking back on something, turning back on something. And in this act of turning whilst walking, there was this sense of re-flect, in the sense of turning back. But it wasn’t at all back on time somehow. So it was looking back, but still in the present. And I really like this action of reflecting, in the sense of turning back, simply turning back, but that it stays in the present. And this staying with something for longer, remains in the immediate experience, rather than bringing to mind something later, after the fact. So this weird temporal confusion that starts to arise through a focus on dorsality, or temporal stretchiness or elasticity in the sense of, yes, sort of how attention and movement through the world feels as if it has this tense to it. As I am moving forward, it can feel as if I am moving into the future, this future time ahead, and what I am leaving behind is somehow in the past. Which isn’t true because it is all existing at the same time, there isn’t anything like this sense of linear, the future is before me and the past is behind me, it is not spatial like this, but it can feel like that. I am not sure where I am going with this. I guess with walking backwards it feels that all of the tenses are present somehow. And big, and really spacious. It drops off the sense of linear.

When you were talking, on this idea of reflection, and how you were describing your experience of how the turning came up for you. I am wondering if it is linking with what I am calling nostalgia, well nostalgia has this weighty meaning to it, but there is something reflective in that. And perhaps that is what I am sensing, listening to you speak about what remains in view, yes, as you said, this also resonates with my experience. And it is nice how you said that, because backing away feels almost like an aggressive action or fearful thing of having to back away or to retreat. But actually I didn’t even mean it like that, so yes, allowing things to remain for longer in view. It kind of suspends, it suspends a sense of, I am trying to recall that sensation, it is almost … I am repeating myself, the moving forwards has more functionality, the moving backwards it does, there is a different sensation. Dropped into a different way of experiencing what is happening around. So in a way it feels a timelessness, almost like if I am walking forwards I roughly know how long it is going to take me, half an hour to get here, or five minutes to get there. There is a measure of time that just clicks in automatically if you are walking forwards. Whereas with walking backwards, it just switches off, it is not really important. That is not really what is being attended to. I suppose a temporal confusion, a temporal relief or release as well. So maybe it is in the turn. I did one other thing, I would sometimes just pause and actually choose something to listen to, and then take myself around, to place that sound behind me, and then to revolve so the way that I was listening to it would shift. And this was interesting. In particular, there were some sounds that stayed where they were, so there were people talking in the distance for example and they were moving but they were so far away. I could do a number of rotations and they were still coming from the same direction. Or if I was doing it with a bird which was also moving, so there are these two rotations – myself moving, rotating, and the bird’s sound moving from one place to another. This is also interesting. I suppose it is putting some attention just on locating where a sound is – how far, or how close, in relationship to whether I sensing it behind me, or to the side of me or about to come in front of me. I suppose it accentuate a sense of the 360 degrees of the body within the environment. And I suppose also because of the pausing and the rotating, it gives a difference sense, because you are not travelling. You have a more radial sense of space, feeling my body as a centre of rotation and in moving around – maybe my ears are scanning around me and I am listening to the shifting sounds. I haven’t explained that very well, I am bringing attention to the immersive nature of, the immersive quality of being in the space, sounds close and far, and different volumes. And perhaps also a little bit what we talked about frequencies – picking up or listening in a different way as well. So temperature and air are combining with different senses of listening, listening through touch and through the skin as well as through the ears, to sound and noise. But coming back to what you were saying about reflection and the turn, there is something about coming back to the turn. Turning. The capacity of the body to turn, and simply, in a very simple turn to be able to reorientate, to open up a new view or perspective. It is interesting this word – view. View revealing itself, it is the same way now, I am looking out of the window and there is a view. It is really interesting how in walking backwards it gives a similar sense of view, whether a real view or of a painting, of a tree or through the window. A sort of scape and spaciousness, horizon, a sense of the horizon sky around. I don’t know what I am saying. Start again. A small thing I did as I was walking back home this morning, you reminded me of this with reflection, I thought, ifI walked forward and actually tried to pull my mind back to where I had just been or to the person I had just left. That is a very different sense of, although I am moving forwards, the thought of somewhere or someone I was just with, it is a real pull back. It is useful in a way, it is a very different, it is a very different manoeuvre. It is not really to do with the dorsal manoeuvre that we are interested in. that felt more like the not having to remember, as a pull back of the mind, as a recall or a remembering of what was past. But it struck me, becausein the pulling back there was almost a weight to it. And it was a mind thing, it actually pulled me out of the body, and noticing where I was. Maybe these different kinds of re- and some of them have more resonance, there is a mode of dorsality that we are trying to explore as an embodied practice.

In a way, approaching this sense of the dorsal not in a grasping mode and I think that this is also true of this conversation or this exchange. It is such a habit of mine to make notes, to try and capture and gather the things that you are saying, in order to then come back to them. And it feels a real practice to not do that. I think I was transcribing one of the previous conversations and there was something about weaning oneself off a certain kind of, a certain kind of certainty in a way. Yes, now I am thinking, and this is a tangent, there is something about this temporal disturbance between having this conversation now and reflecting on what we have been doing, but also transcribing at the moment something from some time before. So all of these threads that get entangled. But trying not to grasp to strongly, not to pull too tightly into order in a way. And maybe that idea of release feels strong, releasing of this tendency of organising and coordinating and finding the route, also applies cognitively as well as with the eyes. And this idea of release, you said this idea of temporal release, was it this, temporal releasing. And this just seemed really close to the experience of, yes,being released of the sense of time, or maybe even time being released and it opening into this atemporal timelessness in the act of walking backwards. Yes very strong experientially, as you say, from this small shift of orientation. How it has such a transformative effect in the sense of how time and space and body and surroundings are experienced, very radical in a way. To say all it is, not even a 360 degree turn, a 180 degree turn of the body, and yet somehow attention, awareness, perception, sensory organisation, all becomes potentially transformed in that action. And one of the things that I was doing, so as I said, walking forwards or walking backwards and then turning 180 degrees to walk the other way, so forwards to backwards or backwards to forwards. And this sense, I think that this is almost present in the scores, the two dimensions of that, one could be recorded as a score for action – so turn the body and then walk backwards. And then the other is a score for attention – so notice the change, notice what happens. So these two aspects of affecting an action or changing an action and noticing. And the noticing dimension seems really interesting … also I think I mentioned I am doing this yoga training at the moment with Peter Blackaby, and a big part of his training, his approach, is noticing and awareness. And I guess that without the noticing it is a form of exercise in a way, you know, you can walk backwards as an exercise, it is positive for one’s health. I could do this quite mechanically, and probably at times have been doing that, and then also to come back to this sense of the enquiry. What is it that I am exploring here, or even this feels too forceful, so what is it that I am noticing here? What do I notice? What am I aware of?So at times, this noticing of the change between walking forwards and walking backwards and then doing it again, and doing it again. Testing in a way, or exploring, testing again. Is this my experience? Is this my experience? It feels like it opens up? Is this my experience doing it again? Confirming through experience, is there something that changes? How is that? How can I bring, not bring more notice to it, but what do I notice, how can I notice in a fuller way what is changing or what is transforming? And then there was another part of it which was trying to retain the quality or extend the quality of moving backwards into moving forwards. So almost inhibiting the change back, this carrying over of a backwards quality into the forwards direction? So keeping the receiving mode, the body feeling, as we have talked before, the shoulders are dropping, the lungs feel more spacious, the eyes, the gaze is higher … you know keeping that quality as I am turning and this being a different register of experiment almost. This moving forward into frontality but keeping this quality of the dorsal. So there were these two registers – one was noticing the change, the other was almost inhibiting the change or suspending the change or transformation. Then there was this other, this other third mode, really trying, no not really trying, but amplifying, so walking backwards and really being attentive dorsality, being in the back and then really being attentive to being in the front. These different registers of attention – and they feel very different in a way. And when you were talking about this sense of walking forwards, but holding in mind the sense of something past in time, it was making me think – I think I had written some notes about the dorsal having a physiological, a physical, even a proprioceptive dimension, but there also being a more psychological dimension to the dorsal or even an emotional dimension to the dorsal or an associative dimension. But the thing that you mentioned, it does not feel that the dorsal is to do with the past explicitly. Or certainly not in the sense of thinking of the past whilst being in the present, and you were describing that sense of disembodiment that comes from that. This disembodiment of being in the past. And my sense is that our explorations are very much concerned with staying in an embodied experience of dorsality, even if that might also include an awareness of memory, that the memory is embodied rather than being a departure of the mind back in time. This has felt really important. And then, now I am remembering as you were talking, I don’t know if you know Hollis Frampton’s film work called Nostalgia. It is a piece of work, let me think, a photograph is placed on a stove, on a hot plate so it burns and it disappears. I think that this is it – and as these photographs are being placed on the hot plate and are disappearing, there is a voice over which either describes the next photograph coming or what you have just seen, so there is this disjuncture between the past and the present. And again there is this temporal elasticity, listening to what is either going or coming. But very in the present at the same time. It brought that to mind, this disturbance of linear time in a way.

This image of the film that you describe with the hotplate and the disappearing photographs – I suppose while you were telling me this, it was such a clear image, I could conjure it up in my mind, get a real sense of what effect that might be. So in that way, I was thinking about film, yes, you can introduce something that is not yet seen. You can actually play in that way, in a similar way, something can be introduced before it is seen. Or playing with the edges of appearing and disappearing. And also what you were saying, while you were talking actually, you were talking about these emotional layers of … I was thinking while you were speaking and even before you said it, that I was actually at times feeling quite emotional within these experiments with the turning and the walking backwards. That might also be to do with … whether that is emotional, psychological, embodied … that is not so easily distinguishable. All those threads and layers. I suppose it made me realise how, the relief or the release or the shifting or the turning and reorganising of how you are orienting and how I am understanding how I am, or simply a different orientation. It also does orientate relationships to yourself, to others, to the world differently, and there is an emotional impact or layer to that. And even if it is in a way, when I turn, I want to walk backwards, especially in situations where I am free to do that, I have a sense of wanting to smile. It is not like there is a smile literally on my face, but there is that emotion of smiling and that is to do with releasing, release of, permission to lose control I suppose. I think that there is something to do with control. I have been transcribing something where you have been talking about expectation, expectation, responsibility, control, the sense of ourselves or how we think to present ourselves in the world, to ourselves and to others. And that is allowed to shift, it is a psychological and emotional shift as well, a twist, and a turn and a drop. Almost a sense for me the emotional shifts, there is almost a sense, there is release and relief, but it can even be stronger sometimes. Even a desire to let go, to actually totally let go, to abandon, leaning back, which also links back to this sense of trust, trusting oneself. Trusting that you won’t fall, and if you do fall, that is also fine. There is an interesting relation, of the psychological and emotional entanglement I suppose, in relation to trust. I am not quite sure how to express this, around the relation of control and trust and the rebalancing of that in the dorsal mode, which I also experience in the simple way of walking, of walking backwards. Reorientating my relationship to what I am afraid of in life, whether that is fear of falling, but also a fear of failing, fear of embarrassment, fear of change.Also it does reorientate one’s relationship to oneself. Yes, trust, fear, control. That is interesting. And what you were saying about the re- of reflection and the testing, the testing of things … it is mixed up with what I was transcribing, re-turn, as in go back to or do it again, and this returning as in to turn it over, to retest it, or do it again, and then to notice anew. And maybe some things re-emerge or feel familiar or not. The turning over and over, the testing as in with more circular or folding quality or perhaps settling back into something that is more familiar in order to test out how things are happening in this new situation. So now I am returning, I am repeating in a different way, what you said. I am turning what you said over and over in my mind and sometimes it comes as an image, sometimes it triggers a memory of what I was doing yesterday. It is interesting – to turn over things that you were saying, which as you say, not trying to grasp at them but seeing what emerging, and how some things have been absorbing. Absorbing what you were saying and them resonating with me. And not finding the language immediately. It is interesting – the more we talk, the more I can’t hold on. So much builds on and accumulates and fills our space in this conversation. It is nice, abandon any sense of where it is going, or what is being said or what would be useful to say now. I keep having a sense of how might I move this conversation forwards which is interesting – how might I move this conversation backwards. Turn it around.

Yes it is so interesting, as you are talking, so many things almost like vapours or clouds are forming. And then it is just like passing through a door and they have disappeared. Yes, completely disappeared. I have my notes in front of me and I am trying not to get too drawn into them, but I can see a couple of things that I suppose … one of the things last time was thinking about etymologies or common place words even that I am not sure I really understand. I mean, as you are talking today, I really want to explore nostalgia, I don’t think I have ever looked up the origin of nostalgia. I don’t think I know where it comes from in a sense. But one of the things that was, the words that were in my mind were ‘coming’ and ‘going’. Go and come as words and what they mean. And actually, as I have thinking about them there is something temporally unsettling about them, almost it is unclear whether going is towards or away from, or whether coming is going away from or going towards. Even using one to describe the other. So the inflection of those directions and orientations that are present and how they are embedded into language. Even inflexion, that feels interesting. Flexion was something that I was writing down and reflecting on – all these flexes and -flects, flexions and flections, even the relation between flexion and reflect. I am curious about. So flexion, one of the things that I was exploring was this coming to the ground as a way of releasing the back from uprightness. So lying down is a release from the pressure of uprightness, but as I was walking, maybe connected with some of this yoga training that I am involved in at the moment – this sense of flexion also being a way of releasing the pressure of uprightness in a different way. So exploring or bringing to mind, or experiencing the relationship between coming to ground in these two different ways. One of coming to the back as a way of releasing the pressure of verticality, but also flexion in the curling down to crouch as a way of releasing uprightness and also coming to the ground. And this flexion of the spine, coming down to crouch was really interesting as it also brought my eyes close to the ground. So there was this closeness to the ground in both of these practices, but really very different. So something about flex and -plex, complex, simplex, coiling and curling and folding through this gesture of flexion. Also this because my tendency is extension, this arching of the lower back, particularly when walking. So this exploration of flexion when out and about. And yes, something about trying to do things undercover – this exploration of how to do things undercover, to not look as if it is performing something. So just bending down as if I am interested in something on the floor, or I am tying my shoelace or this turning around towards the back, also folded into something that could be an everyday functional movement in a way. Yes maybe I have also been thinking about functional movement, especially through this training with Peter Blackaby, a lot of his emphasis is on functional movement. This question in my mind of the functionality of backwards walking, and the functionality of the articulation of our joints of the body being oriented towards this forwards faciality. Thomas Hanna writes on this in terms of the evolution of movement, as having this push towards uprightness, and faciality and frontality. But it feels not, I think it is strange that moving to the back in all kinds of ways, whether physiologically or psychologically, brings such a lot of release and joy, how can that not be programmed into our being in some kind of way. And the way that you were describing this abandon, this sense of abandon, the joy of abandon, felt really vivid. How can that not be functional, no, not how can it not be functional … but how can it not part of the fabric of being human and having a human body. It can feel so amazing, and expansive and liberatory. And then, as you were talking there was something about this emotional texture or tenor of dorsality. And it was really strange because the sense that came to mind, or even the word that came to mind, is sorrow. And I have experienced this in the practices, I feel as if it is almostthis sorrow, yes, sorrow feels very close for it, a real, not quite sadness, but the sorrow that this is a fleeting experience, and I am experiencing it as I am turning round or I am lying in the park on my back. But they feel brief interludes in a life which otherwise feels very frontally oriented. These pockets of abandon, and the joy and the ease, and the relief feel momentary and there is a sorrow with that. The fatigue of frontality, the tiredness of it and this fluid, pleasurable, joyful, easy experience just experienced in these very slight pockets of exercising and of testing something out. And the sorrow that this is how it seems to be – encountered in a brief exercise. I mean it doesn’t need to be a brief exercise, why could it not be more, why not live life more dorsally? Maybe there is a provocation there or an interest there –does this sense of the dorsal give ease and release because it is the unaccustomed. Its easiness comes from being opposite to how I might ordinarily practice, so there is a unfamiliarity to it. And if I was more accustomed to this dorsal way of being would it somehow become normative, or have its own constraints in a way. And then something about this breaking of habit and the instilling of a different nature, a second nature, through this practising to be more in this mode. And then, yes, yes, it is complicated, no, complex, what is it that is being explored and whether there is something to do with this about expanding the sense of dorsality into more aspects of life, or whether there is this complementarity between frontal and dorsal and they each have their own characteristics which can cooperate. So whether this description of noticing the change moving from frontal to dorsal – whether this is something that is to be preserved, that there are these distinctive ways of operating: frontally and dorsally. And they can be complementary and the noticing notices the difference rather than to make them more equivalent.

Picking up from where you, from what you were last saying, it made me think, maybe that is why we keep coming back to the turn, the turn, it is the turn that can move us around. To navigate the frontality and the dorsality. That is right, if we became too familiar, if that became as natural as our frontal mode, would we be having the same sense of release. And I suppose it is the turn that keeps, the possibility of always being able to turn, we also have this flex, to bend or curl or twist, we also talked last time about this capacity to sway. I suppose physically, the spine and the joints can move us this way or that way. It keeps a sense of possibility to move in another way, to see things in another way, to perceive things in another way. Yes, it is what keeps some possible, not static, not fixed, not so familiar, that it becomes static. And maybe this is the joy, I was thinking when you were talking … I love this idea of the undercover researcher in the park. And doing these testings out. I think also when I am in the kitchen and I am moving around, I think I am also doing a lot of undercover stuff. When you sort of … finding of these different ways of going to the fridge to go down to the window, or between … I have quite a small place, so how to manoeuvre from one room to another room. Trying to find ways of turning around. There is a playfulness in that. Yes, full of joy and being fluid and finding different ways of moving and ease and being able to crouch down into the fridge rather than bend at the hips and having to pull myself up. How to keep fluid, without even thinking about how you might do these things, there is a childlike joy or curiosity or playfulness in wanting to sometimes move to the ground, to crouch and to crawl. To find different ways of doing things. What you were saying made me think, it is lovely these exercises and the similarities to how children are operating a lot of the time. Seeing what happens if. How does it feel if? Yes, and these words, nostalgia and sorrow. When you said that word sorrow it almost brought tears to my eyes and in the context that you are talking about it, there was resonance. And yes, it is not sadness, and I think that there is a link to nostalgia.

Yes this sense the fluidity and the options. Ah yes, the turn. I was also bringing to mind what you said, what you were reflecting on from David Wills’ text about the turn is always dorsal, as I was walking and some of this was to do with noticing which shoulder I turn back over as I am turning backwards. No, then there was this experiment with keeping the head forwards and turning the body, so almost like the head stayed a bit longer facing forwards as the body turned; and then turning the head quicker than the body. These experiments on the turn, and also this feeling of whether the shoulder was moving, whether the shoulder was moving dorsally. And actually it felt like the other shoulder was going forwards in order to go back, so I was exploring this turn that lets the body roll back, rather than forcing the shoulder forwards which is how it felt at times. I think I have a simplistic image of what a turn looks like at times, it is as if the body is a solid, almost cylindrical axis, almost in one plane. And then, more and more thinking about and exploring the complexity of what is involved in this turn to the back and one of the things that has been interesting is that in walking backwards I have injured my knee. Or at least I think part of it has come from being inattentive to the turn, and in this turning from walking forwards and turning whilst walking to walking backwards in my experience there can be quite some pressure on the knee joint to rotate. And yes, it is interesting, I am seeing this therapist for cranio-sacral therapy but last time I saw it was for Feldenkrais, one-to-one session, and she was manipulating my leg, and she was saying that the lower bones did not rotate. They were not moving. So she was manipulating to move the bones and this felt strange because I don’t think of the skeleton like that, having this movement capacity. It can feel rather solid and static at times but that range of movement, is dependent on these micro movements within the skeleton itself, the capacity of the bones to have rotation. And then almost like all of these turning upon which the turning to the back is contingent, like the reliance of the hips and the legs and the shin bones having this micro capacity for movement, to enable movement. And I got interested – what is at stake in not practising, in the stiffening and solidifying of the body into more of a sense of a single form without these micro capacities for movement. It just felt quite urgent really –what closes down as movement possibilities through lack of practice or through habits, habits of holding really, yes, habits of holding. And the potency of release as a principle, of letting go of control seemed very present in those experiences. And then something about deprivileging of certain things like the frontality of the eyes, and just thinking more in terms of lessening a dependence on them.

Something about the immediacy of the turn, from walking forwards into backwards - how quickly the body could reconfigure but also how immediately the difference felt. These pathways - there are these trees, with their branches coming over the path, so my attention was also being drawn to be looking, sometimes on the ground, sometimes straight ahead, but also sometimes up. Being free to be able to look what was ahead of me while I was walking backwards. I know I am walking backwards and the body sorts that out, seeing is given permission to look, and a light feeling in the neck, that I can just look while the body takes me back. It is almost, it is almost releasing the seeing from responsibility. Normally, if I am moving forwards I have a feeling that the eyes are responsible for guiding me, for making sure I know where I am going, for not bumping into anything. Then walking backwards it feels that seeing, the sense of seeing and the actual receiving of visual things, feels it is allowed to happen or it is being taken for a journey or is allowed to wander. And the looking upwards, this revealing of or this unfolding of the view, rather than moving towards, or moving into what you are seeing.

The releasing of the eyes, releasing, releasing the eyes from orientation, from looking where one is going to. This sense of easiness in the eyes, the sense of what the pressure feels for the eyes to be always orienting, always looking for where one is going. Two ways of attention, so narrow attention and wide attention. And it felt that the narrow attention was much more concerned with this finding of a way, you know, pragmatic, looking for the route. My eye is very busy, it is darting, it is looking around, it is one the one hand looking forward, but also trying to get a quick map of the bigger picture. Surveying and busy, cognitively busy, sussing out what is happening in the space. And then turning around and walking backwards, the eyes do not have that role to play, so it is releasing them from a particular role of orientation, or searching or protection or route-finding. And this sense of the eyes being able to inhabit a different kind or mode of being in a way, where they are released of their usual function. Just allowing the eyes to be, and moving from an upright position to a horizontal position. Just that letting in of the sky and the clouds and yes, moving the orientation of the eyes from looking backwards or being oriented backwards, but still in an upright position, to a horizontal position. A quarter of the view, as you move from the vertical to the horizontal. And, I then was experimenting with moving backwards, walking backwards with my eyes in this more receiving mode. Or taking the pressure of them needing to look forward or needing to look where I was going, and then when I turned to walk forwards, having my eyes closed. It was much more possible to walk forwards with my eyes closed having been practising walking backwards. Letting the eyes being released of orientation in a different way, this time by closing them. Surprised by almost the confidence I could feel walking forwards with my eyes closed, having been practising walking backwards. My balance and sense of orientation felt much more possible in a way.

Coming back to this territory of low orientation, with a dorsal orientation. In a different way, although there is this 90 degree tilt, there is similarity in how the eyes are released and how seeing has to reorganise itself. I suppose with lying down the sense of touch is coming, is coming up much more. The surface area of the body being in contact with the ground.

Yes, backward away, I wrote it down here, some sort of nostalgia or almost poetics. You have that sensation and you are totally in that situation, but there is also something, like an outside eye, that imagines that you are in also watching a film, or that you are in a film. Maybe a heightened awareness of being a particular situation, in the midst of it, but also a sense of the particularity or the specialness of that situation. Yes, back away from people, leaving something behind, it is very different to turning you back on something, and walking away from it, forwards. Like the turn is a kind of recognition of I am leaving, and then you go. But this is, perhaps a suspension of leaving. And at the same time, maybe it the suspension of leaving something behind at the same time as this viewing unfolding or unravelling along the edges. And things appearing, from behind, suddenly there were these pink petals that had come from a Rhododendron or Azelea – so this patch of pink and how that gets revealed as you walk through it, so you walk through it, and discover yourself in it, rather than seeing it before and walking into it. this being in the midst, it puts you there, amongst, present, amongst the other things in that situation or environment. The things around you but also the sounds, you are in the middle. Yes, you are in the middle of it all. And also the sound, the sound of my feet became much more pronounced, a different kind of rhythm. A kind of rhythm and for me it felt louder, it might just be how the toe or the ball of the foot has to find its way first.

Approaching people walking forwards and then once they have gone past, turning to walk backwards, as if I had turned to stay with them for longer. This idea of wanting to stay with something, or look at something for longer, or allow something to remain in view for longer, remain in view for longer, this has felt very present in walking backwards. In walking forwards, things are endlessly passing, and going behind, disappearing into peripheral vision and then no longer being in view. Or the eye line feels as if what stays in view is the furthest horizon, the far distance. Yes, So as you are walking forwards, the near distance is endlessly passing, and disappearing from view, and the far distance stays in view for longer. However, when you are walking backwards, this is not true at all – the near, the middle and the far view, all stay in view, all of the time. And in particular, the near or proximate sphere of space does not disappear behind you, like when you are walking forwards – it really stays. And then gradually, starts to become the middle ground. But this idea of staying with something for longer has felt very strong with walking backwards. Keeping something in view. this idea of reflection, in the sense of turning back. In its etymology, re- and flectere: to turn, to turn back again. And I was thinking how we often talk about reflection in this sense of looking back on something, turning back on something. And in this act of turning whilst walking, there was this sense of re-flect, in the sense of turning back. This action of reflecting, in the sense of turning back, simply turning back, but that it stays in the present. And this staying with something for longer, remains in the immediate experience, rather than bringing to mind something later, after the fact. So this weird temporal confusion that starts to arise through a focus on dorsality, or temporal stretchiness or elasticity, how attention and movement through the world feels as if it has this tense to it.

So yes, allowing things to remain for longer in view. It kind of suspends, it suspends a sense of, I am trying to recall that sensation, I am repeating myself, the moving forwards has more functionality, the moving backwards it does, there is a different sensation. Dropped into a different way of experiencing what is happening around. So in a way it feels a timelessness, almost like if I am walking forwards I roughly know how long it is going to take me, half an hour to get here, or five minutes to get there. There is a measure of time that just clicks in automatically if you are walking forwards. Whereas with walking backwards, it is not really important.

That is because of the pausing and the rotating, it gives a difference sense, because you are not travelling. You have a more radial sense of space, feeling my body as a centre of rotation and in moving around – maybe my ears are scanning around me and I am listening to the shifting sounds. I am bringing attention to the immersive nature of, the immersive quality of being in the space, sounds close and far, and different volumes. frequencies – picking up or listening in a different way as well. So temperature and air are combining with different senses of listening, listening through touch and through the skin as well as through the ears, to sound and noise.

I walked forward and actually tried to pull my mind back to where I had just been or to the person I had just left. it is a real pull back. It is useful in a way, it is a very different, it is a very different manoeuvre. It is not really to do with the dorsal manoeuvre that we are interested in, in the pulling back there was almost a weight to it. it actually pulled me out of the body. Maybe these different kinds of re- and some of them have more resonance, there is a mode of dorsality that we are trying to explore as an embodied practice.

But trying not to grasp to strongly, not to pull too tightly into order in a way, that idea of release, releasing of this tendency of organising and coordinating and finding the route, also applies cognitively as well as with the eyes. And this idea of release, this idea of temporal release, was it this, temporal releasing. Being released of the sense of time, or maybe even time being released and it opening into this atemporal timelessness in the act of walking backwards. Strong experientially, from this small shift of orientation. How it has such a transformative effect in the sense of how time and space and body and surroundings are experienced, very radical in a way. And this sense, I think that this is almost present in the scores, the two dimensions of that, one could be recorded as a score for action – so turn the body and then walk backwards. And then the other is a score for attention – so notice the change, notice what happens. So these two aspects of affecting an action or changing an action and noticing.

What is it that I am exploring here, or even this feels too forceful, so what is it that I am noticing here? What do I notice? What am I aware of? This noticing of the change between walking forwards and walking backwards and then doing it again, and doing it again. Testing in a way, or exploring, testing again. Is this my experience? Is this my experience? It feels like it opens up? Is this my experience doing it again? Confirming through experience, is there something that changes? How is that? How can I bring, not bring more notice to it, but what do I notice, how can I notice in a fuller way what is changing or what is transforming? To retain the quality or extend the quality of moving backwards into moving forwards. So almost inhibiting the change back, this carrying over of a backwards quality into the forwards direction? This moving forward into frontality but keeping this quality of the dorsal.

That sense of disembodiment that comes from that. This disembodiment of being in the past. that our explorations are very much concerned with staying in an embodied experience of dorsality, even if that might also include an awareness of memory. That the memory is embodied rather than being a departure of the mind back in time. So there is this disjuncture between the past and the present. And again there is this temporal elasticity, listening to what is either going or coming. But very in the present at the same time. It brought that to mind, this disturbance of linear time in a way.

There is that emotion of smiling and that is to do with releasing, release of, permission to lose control I suppose. I think that there is something to do with control, expectation, responsibility, control, the sense of ourselves or how we think to present ourselves in the world, to ourselves and to others. And that is allowed to shift, it is a psychological and emotional shift as well, a twist, and a turn and a drop.

Even a desire to let go, to actually totally let go, to abandon, leaning back, which also links back to this sense of trust, trusting oneself. Trusting that you won’t fall, and if you do fall, that is also fine. There is an interesting relation, of the psychological and emotional entanglement I suppose, in relation to trust, the relation of control and trust and the rebalancing of that in the dorsal mode, which I also experience in the simple way of walking, of walking backwards. Reorientating my relationship to what I am afraid of in life, whether that is fear of falling, but also a fear of failing, fear of embarrassment, fear of change. it does reorientate one’s relationship to oneself. Yes, trust, fear, control.

The re- of reflection and the testing, the testing of things re-turn, as in go back to or do it again, and this returning as in to turn it over, to retest it, or do it again, and then to notice anew. And maybe some things re-emerge or feel familiar or not. The turning over and over, the testing as in with more circular or folding quality or perhaps settling back into something that is more familiar in order to test out how things are happening in this new situation. So now I am returning, I am repeating in a different way, what you said. I am turning what you said over and over in my mind and sometimes it comes as an image, sometimes it triggers a memory of what I was doing yesterday.

The more we talk, the more I can’t hold on. So much builds on and accumulates and fills our space in this conversation. abandon any sense of where it is going, or what is being said or what would be useful to say now. How might I move this conversation backwards. Turn it around.

The words that were in my mind were ‘coming’ and ‘going’. There is something temporally unsettling about them, almost it is unclear whether going is towards or away from, or whether coming is going away from or going towards. Even using one to describe the other. So the inflection of those directions and orientations that are present and how they are embedded into language. Even inflexion, that feels interesting. Flexion was something that I was writing down and reflecting on – all these flexes and -flects, flexions and flections, even the relation between flexion and reflect. Coming to the ground as a way of releasing the back from uprightness. So lying down is a release from the pressure of uprightness, coming to the back as a way of releasing the pressure of verticality, but also flexion in the curling down to crouch as a way of releasing uprightness and also coming to the ground. And this flexion of the spine, coming down to crouch was really interesting as it also brought my eyes close to the ground. So there was this closeness to the ground in both of these practices, but really very different. So something about flex and -plex, complex, simplex, coiling and curling and folding through this gesture of flexion.

This question in my mind of the functionality of backwards walking, and the functionality of the articulation of our joints of the body being oriented towards this forwards faciality. The evolution of movement, as having this push towards uprightness, and faciality and frontality, that moving to the back in all kinds of ways, whether physiologically or psychologically, brings such a lot of release and joy, how can that not be programmed into our being in some kind of way. Describing this abandon, this sense of abandon, the joy of abandon, felt really vivid. how can it not part of the fabric of being human and having a human body. It can feel so amazing, and expansive and liberatory. something about this emotional texture or tenor of dorsality. The sense that came to mind, or even the word that came to mind, is sorrow. This sorrow, yes, sorrow feels very close for it, a real, not quite sadness, but the sorrow that this is a fleeting experience.

Brief interludes in a life which otherwise feels very frontally oriented. These pockets of abandon, and the joy and the ease, and the relief feel momentary and there is a sorrow with that. The fatigue of frontality, the tiredness of it and this fluid, pleasurable, joyful, easy experience just experienced in these very slight pockets of exercising and of testing something out. And the sorrow that this is how it seems to be – encountered in a brief exercise. I mean it doesn’t need to be a brief exercise, why could it not be more, why not live life more dorsally?

We keep coming back to the turn, the turn, it is the turn that can move us around. To navigate the frontality and the dorsality. If we became too familiar, if that became as natural as our frontal mode, would we be having the same sense of release. It is the turn that keeps, the possibility of always being able to turn, we also have this flex, to bend or curl or twist, we also talked last time about this capacity to sway.physically, the spine and the joints can move us this way or that way. It keeps a sense of possibility to move in another way, to see things in another way, to perceive things in another way. Yes, it is what keeps some possible, not static, not fixed, not so familiar, there is a childlike joy or curiosity or playfulness in wanting to sometimes move to the ground, to crouch and to crawl. To find different ways of doing things. Seeing what happens if. How does it feel if? Yes, and these words, nostalgia and sorrow.

The turn is always dorsal, as I was walking and some of this was to do with noticing which shoulder I turn back over as I am turning backwards. These experiments on the turn, and also this feeling of whether the shoulder was moving, whether the shoulder was moving dorsally. this turn that lets the body roll back, rather than forcing the shoulder forwards which is how it felt at times. I don’t think of the skeleton like that, having this movement capacity. It can feel rather solid and static at times but that range of movement, is dependent on these micro movements within the skeleton itself, the capacity of the bones to have rotation. All of these turning upon which the turning to the back is contingent, like the reliance of the hips and the legs and the shin bones having this micro capacity for movement, to enable movement. What is at stake in not practising, in the stiffening and solidifying of the body into more of a sense of a single form without these micro capacities for movement. What closes down as movement possibilities through lack of practice or through habits, habits of holding really, yes, habits of holding. And the potency of release as a principle, of letting go of control seemed very present in those experiences. And then something about deprivileging of certain things like the frontality of the eyes, and just thinking more in terms of lessening a dependence on them.

PART 4

06.06.2022

FOCUS/PRACTICE: Reading as distillation

- Reading practices using the conversational transcript from 13.05.2022 as source text.

- Take time to tune into the transcript, marking phrases and words that strike you or that resonate

Moving between 2 practices:

Reading (Noticing Attraction)  – Have the transcript to hand, allow gaze to be soft and glide/roam the pages. Practising simultaneously. When a word draws your attention speak it outloud. Allow for overlaps and also silences.

Conversation-as-material distillation – Have the transcript to hand.

When the time feels right read aloud some of the words and phrases that have been highlighted - these could be single words, phrases or a cluster of sentences. Or alternatively, identify words and phrases live and read them aloud.

(1) 5 mins

(2) 15 mins

PART 5

17.03.2023

FOCUS/PRACTICE: Fields of Association

- Tuning into the transcript, marking phrases and words that strike you or that resonate

- Each selects a cluster of single words to explore through conversation and etymological exploration, live within the conversation), as a field of association.

(1) 3 mins (e.g. ECs choice of words)

(2)  3 mins (e.g. KBs choice of words)

(3)  8 mins (e.g. ECs choice of words)

(4)  8 mins (e.g. KBs choice of words)

(5)  5  mins (e.g. ECs choice of words)

(6)  5  mins (e.g. KBs choice of words)