Moving Toward Life. Anna Halprin

and loosening the skin. Use your fingernails and lightly scratch until your head tingles. Use your fingertips to vigorously stroke your forehead. Use the heels of your hands to press into your cheeks. Explore with your hands, moving them into all the parts of your head and face until you have wiped away all expression and your face becomes relaxed, neutral and ready to receive.

      Lie down. Keeping your eyes closed, slowly lower your body to the floor, touching one vertebrae after the other, sequentially. To do this movement slowly and smoothly, you can use your arms to counterbalance your movement. When you sense your lower back on the ground, contract your lower abdominal muscles and slowly unroll your spine with control, letting your legs, arms, and head touch the ground simultaneously. Sink. Sense the full weight of your body letting go. Breathe out—let go—relax.

      Breathing. Open your palms; place them above your breast, just below your shoulders, and breathe deeply into your hands, with the movement of your breath rising into your hands as you inhale. Rather than being cupped, your palms are now touching and resting on your body. As you exhale, breathe out and let your chest fall. Soften your rib case. Make room for your lungs to expand as you breathe in and to empty as you breathe out. Sense your movement passing through your body and into the ground. Keep breathing, drawing air through your nostrils and exhaling through soft relaxed lips.

      If you are aware of your lower back arching off the ground after you’ve extended your legs in front of you, then it would be better to bend your knees and draw your legs back so that your entire back can rest on the floor.

      Now, pass your hands over your rib case to the sides and continue breathing. Sigh as you breathe out. Slide your hands over your abdomen, bringing them to rest on your lower belly just above your pubic bone. Let your diaphragm softly press your viscera into your lower belly so your belly swells and fills your hands. Breathe out and let your movement pass through your lower back and rest on the ground. Let your sigh become a low relaxed sound of your voice. Now let your arms slide off your body and drop to the side.

      Be still and quiet and spend as much time as you need to concentrate on how your body feels. With your inner eye, scan all the parts of your body and be aware of any holding on. Breathe into any areas that feel tight, and let go.

      Here are suggested ways you can use the transition ritual of palming. You might consider doing these movements with a friend reading them to you and checking you out.

      Does your body feel light or heavy?

      Are your eyelids quiet? Heavy? Or are your eyes quivering?

      Has your breath slowed down? Is your jaw loose or locked?

      Do you have any impulses to stretch, twist, change positions?

      Follow your impulses.

      Do you want to cry, yawn, go to sleep, curl up?

      Do it.

      Do you want to shout, adjust your clothing, change your location?

      Do it.

      After you have done the transitional ritual, remain in this altered level of consciousness and begin a private fantasy. Imagine yourself in a place that you truly enjoy. Imagine that you are looking into a blue sky. Now begin to imagine the ground you are lying on. Imagine each part of your body in contact with the ground. What does the ground evoke in you? How does it smell? What is its texture? Its temperature? Can you melt into the ground, be absorbed by the ground? Can the ground hold you? Can you yield to the ground?

      Now come back to yourself. Start with your feet and slowly go through each part of your body until you have covered every part and have felt your whole body in this space. Now breathe from your chest into your belly and when you breathe out, exhale from your whole body and into the ground. Breathe in, and this time imagine your breath turned into flowing movement that goes past and beyond the limits of your physical body and streams through your body and out. Connect the space above and around and below. Breathe through your body into these open spaces and let that energy move back into you and into the pelvic area.

      Another possible fantasy is to imagine that the breath movement is like the movement of water—flowing, gathering momentum. Think of your breath as the ocean, gently swelling, and feel your breath rising slowly, gathering volume, then slipping back like a wave. Feel the tides of your breath rhythmically creating the flow of that movement. Let your breath swell slowly and gradually, then passively recede, moving effortlessly in a continuously self-generating motion. Let your mind observe this movement restfully.

       Suggestions for Movement Ritual

      Movement Ritual is meant to be performed slowly, smoothly and with ease. Always breathe into your movements. Closing your eyes helps you internalize and concentrate on what you are sensing when you move. You will notice that you have a limit to your range of action. Find your limit and then go to the edge. This skill will help you increase your flexibility. Avoid forcing the edge by pushing, pulling or bouncing into your stretches. Breathe out and let go each time you want to stretch further. Avoid pain, seek pleasure.

      Use your voice. When you breathe out let sighs and hiss sounds out. Color your breath with vocal sounds. Listen to your sounds and notice how the sounds reflect the movement. Notice where the source of the sound is coming from: the chest, throat, belly, head. There will be times when you will want to be quiet, when you want to withdraw within yourself. Be able to choose to go either way rather than limit yourself by cutting your voice off. Keep an awareness of your movement occupying space, consuming time and being performed with a degree of force. Continuity and phrasing involve the way you connect one movement to the other. I call this the flow of movement. Get in touch with the muscles in parts of your body that need to contract as opposed to the parts that are released. Learn to isolate different parts of your body.

      These are a few ways to perform movements on a daily basis, and as you become more familiar with your own movements, you will discover the way that works for you.

      Undesired tension and resistance in the muscles take a long time to release. Do not expect any visible results right away in terms of limbering up. However, do expect immediate results in how you feel and respond after a movement session. You may have released a great deal of pent-up tensions and feelings, with the result that you feel tired or sleepy. Sometimes just the opposite may occur and you feel “high” and full of energy. You may feel flooded with emotional states, or unresolved situations may come to mind. You may become sexually or sensuously stimulated. Or perhaps you will feel very calm and centered. Linger with your feelings as long as you need to. Reflect on whatever sensations you are in touch with in your body. Reflect on how this feels. Be present. Let this reflection be your closure.

      STRUCTURE NOT PATTERN

      It is vital to your own creativity to realize that what I have suggested are organized and structured movements rather than formalized or personalized patterns. There is no single formula for movement. The intention or objectives of the organized and structural approach are rooted in the understanding that there are universal laws that do govern all movement. Let this notion be paramount in your attitude when you learn and perform these movements. You could take the same principles and in response to your experience arrive at a totally different series that would be equally sound and valid—perhaps more so—for you.

      The four Movement Ritual series (of which Movement Ritual I is the first) derived from my own personal response to needs in my life for ways in which my body could “feel good.” What I seemed to need most urgently was to replenish my energy, restore my sensibilities, relax my mind and rest my body while in motion. I have been developing and practicing these movements for many years. I continually alter, refine and change them as my life, my needs, and my body change. Movement Ritual I has served me well in a variety of ways: as a form of meditation, as a way to build a strong and flexible body, as a catalyst to get in touch with myself emotionally as well as physically, as a time set aside to “let go,” as a means to measure development within my body range, as a way to claim my body as ME, as a form of self-healing of impaired and injured body areas, as a gift to myself of time and space to do something for myself. I hope and desire the same and more for you.