In a class where I focused on the feet and legs, Davis repeatedly told us to stay within a 5 percent zone of reach and effort. It turned out that this was impossible. It’s like my muscles are laughing at me. Trying to do less is a harsh, humiliating act.
“When I say, ‘Now slowly tilt your legs to the right,’ what comes out of people is definitely not my idea of slow,” Davis later said. “We have to re-calibrate the stimulation and timing because this is the kind of work we are interested in the sensory details. If you slow down and take other care of yourself, it can really change things.”
Davis, who teaches at Movement Research (her next classes are in February) and has an online program, walks you through the physical instructions that in turn develop a skill: you listen to both a voice and your body. As she makes small, detailed movements, she invites you to release the eyes, jaw, and forehead – places of parasitic exertion where parts of the body don’t have to work. It’s a way to calm ourselves down so that the sensory details of our experience become clearer. It’s like relearning yourself from within, and the breakthroughs are beyond.
“When your weight doesn’t fall on your spine, on your skeleton – when you don’t fall on yourself, when you figure out how to use your feet to get your weight up and through, it feels so good,” Davis said . “You are lighter. Moving it takes less work. “
But it also takes work to keep quiet. At the start of the pandemic, I found Yin Yoga, a practice that focuses on passive poses, and Kassandra Reinhardt, who has been teaching on YouTube since 2014. It can ease the memory of any miserable day, as can yin, which is not about stretching muscles but relaxing to release ligaments, joints, bones and fasciae. The poses are held for at least two minutes and usually longer.
