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“Don’t Move At Your Own Risk” – Shira Yaziv @Movement Exploration Retreat, Costa Rica

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Its been a while since I dedicated some serious time and effort to my movement training. A nice tax return (thanks Dad!) and a last minute opportunity led me to join a week long movement retreat in Costa Rica facilitated by Shira Yaziv. What the hell led me to wake up at 5:30 a.m every morning? Read on for more.

Andrey’s balls!
Photo by Shira Yaziv

The first time I interacted with Shira was at Erratic Dance, an open dance party in Oakland. I vaguely knew her name and that she too was originally from Israel. When I saw her on the dance floor I was filled with a deep craving to play fight with her. Her, smooth movements, speed and strength were evident. It took me some time to gather the nerve and initiate this type of contact but it was well worth it. Within a few minutes of some dancing we were going wild on the dance floor and she surprised me with an amazing leg swipe that totally floored me. It was great!
I have never taken a class from her but I was curious, here was a dancer/mover who is just as tiny as me and could also kick my ass. More please!

Shira (left) Andrey (right) and Cha chi (back) in a typcal pose.

After a week I can say Shira embodies the best qualities not only of an instructor but of a teacher. She has such humility, there is no Shira Yaziv “method”, and no flashy branding name of what she is giving, just practical titles for her workshops. She doesn’t endlessly drag on and on with lectures like many instructors I encounter who seem to enjoy their sound of their voice more than anything.
In fact she is a person of few words and when she talked it was always from such an authentic, honest and even vulnerable place.
My Karate instructor always warned us of the guru effect, “Don’t turn me into a guru” he would say, “That’s when I will stop growing”. In Shira’s classes it is very evident that she is trying to learn from her students and grow with them and not become their guru even as it is obvious that some of the students want to put her in that role. She was incredibly attuned to what was going on in the group and kept improvising and saying “yes and” to any suggestion. For instance when she noticed I was craving some more violence and high energies she initiated some hand release games. As she explained it, she teaches improvised movement and takes what she learns out into real life. In fact, that’s probably what I enjoyed most in her classed, I don’t really care about dance or performance but it felt like we were training in general human to human communication skills. How to listen to each other and support each other’s freedom and creativity.
On the technical side she teaches using great visualization techniques and games with little goals (turn your hands into your feet, or air climbing an imaginary tree) which according my research thesis are likely to be a lot more natural for the brain than movement instructions such as move your hand to a 90 degree angle.
Practicing my handstands with her I felt like a 12 year old kid again in front of my karate teacher, excited and nervous and wanting her to be happy with my progress. She was extremely perceptive of my unique body and limitations and I came back with a set of exercises to practice that will improve not only my handstands but my general posture which is something I’ve been trying to improve for many years. In one week my shoulders opened up as well as my chest and I finally am starting to understand this “round back” my karate teacher kept talking about. A big part of what I have to work on is updating my brain that my left hand is strong enough and healed from an old injury and can be used as a support structure for this body.
Cha Chi (who is running her own retreat in the dominican republic) and Andre the other two instructors where extremely unique and proficient, these are people that live and love what they do. Cha Chi is one of the strongest women I’ve ever met and I don’t mean that only in a physical way and her imagery of zipping up the body before starting a hand stand was magic for my clueless brain. Andre was just poring with creativity and strange fun innovation. He introduced us to these crazy bouncing balls that would be extremely useful to train for a mission to mars or some other low gravity situation.
The group was very mixed in level, some very experienced in various backgrounds and some total newbs. It was very impressive to watch the newbs progress and openness to try thing.

Just a body in motion (photo by Shira Yaziv)

One of the most rewarding things for me to notice was how throughout the week the men’s movements and interactions with each other turned from awkward to extremely playful and even vulnerable as they slowly shed the social stigma’s around men touching each other. Speaking of gender issues, in the first morning session with about 110% humidity, men started to take their shirt’s off and obviously I wanted the same freedom. So I asked the class if they would be ok if I and maybe other humans with breast take our shirts off too. There was no objection and I was very grateful for the freedom to just be a moving body.

Easier to wake up at 5 when sunrise looks like this!

Our schedule was pretty packed with training from 5:30 – 7:00 then 9:00-11:00 and 3:00-5:00. In between there were other lessons some of which were no less valuable, Jen, a with a degree in movement science and an experienced personal trainer gave a class on breathing and separating the movement of the lungs from the muscle structure around it. Try putting your hands on your ribs, breathing in and then breathing out with out letting your rib cage collapse. I discovered a bunch of new muscles that day.  There was also a surprise class by Marlo, a professional pole dancer and a truly amazonian women on hip mobility. We all agreed the class should be mandatory in sex education. I discovered my butt that day and just about managed to twerk by the end of her class.

I found it relatively ok to wake up in that hour possibly because we were in this jungle cabin with only nets watching the beautiful sun rise over the ocean.

Created an app to help Winny compare the mobility of her injured hand with the healthy one.

I also came with the goal of being a productive programmer and working on my virtual reality apps. I’m happy to report that was indeed the case. When you wake up at 5:30 even with 6-8 hours of training a day I usually got 4-5 hours of extremely focused programming and came up with some ideas based on the material we practicing in class. I was really happy when Shira and the other’s tried my demo’s and enjoyed them.

Making chocolate the traditional way

We had a break day on Wednesday which I used to visit an awesome organic chocolate farm, the small family farm was meant to educate people on the origins of traditional chocolate making including making your own chocolate. The owner’s 10 year old son joined us to practice his English and was showing us lots of edible leaves in the jungle.

Least evil bugs, these tree eating ants

From all this you might think jungle life is paradise but there were definitely some hardships. The weather included crazy storms and I heard the loudest bang of my life when lightning struck just a few meters from my cabin. We had 3 earth quacks throughout the week but the real enemy were the bugs. Between the mosquito’s and sand flies I might have lost half a pound of blood, I seemed to have been their favorite. One of the locals told me it was worse because of the full moon and told me to use vinegar to calm the bites. The harsh environment probably helped us integrate and band together, nothing like a common enemy.

In conclusion, whether you are a mover looking for new tools to improve your usual practice or a totally newb craving a better connection with your body and the body of others, or even if you are just looking for an adventure holiday I’d highly recommend you join this. This isn’t just a movement workshop it is a social experiment that installed in me some hope for humanity 🙂 Prices are not cheap but after some minor calculation most of the money is going to cover the 5 star jungle accommodation and probably the supporting teachers. If you want to get a test of Shira’s work there is a mini workshop coming up in Santa Cruz and a mobility jam she is leading

Non Violent Communication Meets Park Security

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For the last year I’ve been doing most of my training in Presidio park which hosts the Lucas Film offices. Specifically I spend lots of time in this tree that has branches low enough to the ground for me explore my movement boundaries safely. This week private security guards started interfering with my training. This is the story so far…

Still in the tree! (photo taken Feb 18 by Myrte Hamburg)

I was doing some stretches on the tree Friday when some security guard passed by “No hanging” he said and kept walking. The interaction was brief and surprising and left me filled with anger because I didn’t have time to react the way I would like to. I continued to train just as I would but ran a simulation of what to say if the guard returns.

I used everything I have been practicing in nonviolent communication. First put on my giraffe ears to try and hear what the person is really needing? You see, without my giraffe ears, all I could think about was crushing this guy’s skull. I do not react well to authority figures trying to take things away from me. Years of religious schooling cause me to be triggered that way.

With my giraffe ears on I could start seeing that this wasn’t about me, this person was not out to specifically harm me. I noticed how when my brain went into lizard mode I couldn’t calculate “theory of mind models” any more. With my giraffe ears I considered if the guard was just looking for respect from his pear/friend because he was walking together with another person.
(Vid from 14th of april 2017)

I went climbing on the tree on Saturday, this time with no altercation, but on Sunday a different guard came up with a similar request “not to climb on the trees”.

This time I was prepared with my giraffe ears and politely asked for clarification. “Those are the park rules.”

“Oh really? Can I see those rules somewhere? Who decides on these rules?” I asked while explaining I’ve been doing this for over a year and telling the guard I don’t want to make his job harder in anyway. “It’s on the park sign, want to come with me and see?”

“Sure” I told the guard and as we walked to the entrance explained my perspective on the danger of people following rules blindly trying to insert some NVC memes when he was apologizing that he “doesn’t have a choice”.

“You always have a choice, and its ok to choose your job, it’s seems like pretty fun job walking around the park, but it is your choice”.

Anyway to make a long story short there were no rules against tree climbing on any sign and the guard went to consult his manager who referred him to a federal regulation regarding “harming natural resources in the park”.

I asked the guard based on what does he think my training is harming the tree and assured him that I would never do anything to harm my beloved tree.

I could feel the guard getting increasingly frustrated so I stated clearly what I wanted.

“I want someone I can negotiate with about what it means to harm natural resources in the park.”

The guard left and the security team manager showed up a few minutes later.

Some legal advice about climbing trees.

The few times I’ve successfully used NVC there has been a very specific turning point in the conversation, a moment in which both sides suddenly make that human connection and see each others needs. With the head of security it happened when I allowed myself to be vulnerable and communicated how this tree was specifically important to my training. At that point I think the he realized I wasn’t being stubborn for no reason or trying to rebel against his authority. He stopped trying to convince me that there were other more specific rules and regulations that he had that were not written down anywhere and stopped threatening to call park police and started a real negotiation. He didn’t want the tree harmed and wanted to be able to tell his bosses he was taking care of the park and I didn’t want the tree harmed and would like him to have an easy time at his job so the negotiation was easy and we agreed that I wouldn’t climb high into the thin branches of the tree that might break. This is something I never did anyway so I just asked him to communicate this to the rest of the guards because I will be back training again.

Despite the success I was pretty drained by the interaction. Being vulnerable to unknown authority figures is not something that comes easy to me. So I did what recharges me most and hung upside down on the tree for a while.

 

 

 

Tooth Fairy In Mexico

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This story starts with a part of this brain being brave enough to go to the dentist… I mean actually get control over these legs, which shiver and whimper when they think of those beings with white lab coats and their machines that drill in the mouth. Is anyone free of childhood trauma and fear of dentists and if so how did that happen?

Times square of the dentist world. (copyright to dawn 😉

Anyway the suggested price of the treatment plan the receptionist provided was enough to induce a more mature economical fear. For me these are still first world problems, meaning I can use my relative status in this world and get out of the fucked up U.S health system. Some googling on dental tourism and I came up with Los Algodones, a Mexican town on the border with Arizona known for its dental tourism. After more googling I chose one of the big names, SANI group.

Some emails, phone calls and flight tickets later and I get picked up from Yuma airport in Arizona and share a ride over the border with two elderly African Americans, the man is getting treated for something that sounded a lot worse than dental problems. Except for hundreds of dentists you can also find a bunch of optometrists, pharmacies and some other medical facilities including stem cell therapy.

Drugs and alcohol known to go well together!

What does a town focused on dental tourism look like? Well for one it has restaurants with  “soft dish” options in the menu.

Instead street solicitors offering you drugs solicitors are trying to get you into pharmacies. Yeah, small difference I know.

This is all mixed in with the “normal” tourist markets selling trinkets, poncho’s and jewelry.  

There seem to be only 3 hotels in this town. Most tourists seem to come for day trips, get a treatment and go back leading to massive lines at the border in the evening. But I needed crowns which take a few days to make and fit so instead of crossing the border again and again I decided it would be more interesting to stay for 5 days and get to know this town a bit.

The dentist office I chose was factory and we were the cattle being moved from room to room from Dr to specialist but I was treated well, with honesty and courtesy and patience even if not with the most efficiency. Although part of the efficiency problem was miss communications regarding what time zone the town operated on. I was happy to discover their root canal specialist was a young women with tiny hands. The procedure was a lot less terrible than previous ones. One of the crowns, the original diagnostic dentist thought wouldn’t need to have a root canal started exhibiting pain after the treatment. The specialist explained the root had gotten inflamed due to the trauma of treatment and there was no telling if it would get better or worse at that point. Since I only had one day left I opted for another root canal. Oh what joy.
The treatments did offer opportunities to deal with fear and trauma in some creative ways. Like every perception, pain is a combination of top down predictions with incoming bottom up sensory data. Specifically the prediction of danger seems to be highly associated with perceived pain. In moments where the brave part of this brain was able to correctly predict that I was safe, that the people digging through my mouth were not out to hurt me or cause damage but instead where there to heal me and help, much of the pain subsided. A specific neat trick was to actually imagine the dentist hands were “mine” activating my mirror system in this way shifted the whole perspective of my worldview and I saw the scene from the outside. “I” was the dentists performing the treatment. “I” was in control. Other nice tricks involved imagining people I love and also playing with this imagined body size, imagining it bigger and stronger. Body scanning techniques also helped, focusing on breathing or relaxing the very strained neck muscles.

Border patrol behind this v2 bouldering problem.

Between treatments I explored my surrounding.  I walked along the u.s. border fence, I could almost but not quite fit my head through the bars. Many of the people in this town were born here and never crossed the border into the u.s. A waitress told me that once when she was 10 they managed to get the papers and she had a day in san diego zoo. I wish there were something more intelligent or helpful I could say about this except expressing sadness.

Not a postmodern art piece 🙁

From Yuma, Arizona. People were super nice!

The town felt very safe despite obvious economical issues. Some houses where no more than dirt shack while others had fancy gardens and expensive cars. Local’s were very nice and chatty and seemed mostly a bit board. Well with a church and a fitness gym being the only attractions in town can you blame them? Only one tourist place stayed open beyond 5 p.m so I  ate there often, getting to know the staff. Prices for food were on the low end of u.s. prices. 5-15$ depending if you go for the tachos or the steak.
Only the main roads are paved in town… the outskirts are just dirt roads that lead out into sand dunes where people bring their jeeps and dirt bikes for some joy rides. I went out there searching for some nature but under every tree there were endless broken beer bottles and a pile of garbage.
Only after I got back into arizona I headed to the other side of the colorado river to a beautiful nature park and fulfilled my craving. While waiting for my couchsurfing host to get home I wandered around the city and got offered food by 2 different people. I must have looked very homeless and miserable after the morning’s root canal but I do wander if statistically you are more likely to get offered help in small towns?