Today in class we practiced the back massage blindfolded. It was a wonderful experience to actually feel the body and really move with the muscles. It certainly helped me be more in the moment and consequently I moved deeper into the movement, the flow, the feel, the art of massage. The massage felt far more intuitive. With the eyes open you tend to work more with the mind, the skill and the technicalities. Blindfolded was far more sensory and perceptive. I slowed down more than usual and really moulded my hands round the body. There was a lot more depth to the movements.
Some of my class mates found it quite disorientating and one person who likes being in control experienced some discomfort and couldn't really find his space. I think experiences that take us beyond our comfort zones in such a positive way, really helps us gain perspective and insight into ourselves and what we are really doing. It challenges us to use touch in a deeply intuitive way which ultimately feeds back to our core and how we orient ourselves.
2 comments:
Ours is a very visual world... and we strive to "see" more, closer, further and deeper... hence Xrays, CT scans etc. How much wiser to ;earn to "see" with other instruments apart from the eyes. I think our muscles are quite under-rated... how much do we understand our muscle memory, for example. Brian Eno says: " I'm struck by the insidous computer-driven tendency to take things out of the domain of muscular activity and put them into the domain of mental activity... the transfer is not paying off... sure muscles are unreliable but they represent several million years of accumulated finesse." So to massage without visual/eye sight opens up posibilities to "seeing" with ones fingers instead.
Yes - exactly! It's amazing how much we are driven by sight and not necessarily insight. And our bodies / muscles have a lasting memory - long after events/causes we can still feel the effects.
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