Figure 8 Navigation

        ...more soon! 

 

  Weaving and tipping, darting around, “navigating.” Like a fish. Actually, the imagery we all picked out one year was of the “Stevie Wonder fish,” because of the head sometimes swaying back and forth in a figure 8.

 

    As it applies to the Barrels class, I like to use the basic “weave” in introducing a moment of limbo (or redirection), wherein you can take the momentum from a spin or “roll” and send it off in the direction of your choosing. The weave is good for this: shifting one way and the other: clockwise, counter-clockwise, clockwise, counter-clockwise (relative to you body, not the space). And the redirection of the “8” is portrayed very directly in the weave. You can find it in other movements as well, however, that share this undulation and can similarly ride the tail of a barrel roll and branch out into the transitional space.

 

     Where it really interests me is that by understanding how to slightly adjust your body to accommodate these patterns, we can learn how to essentially get “out of the way” of the redirecting momentum and “navigate” the space very smoothly.

 

    And once again, the smoothness can be alternately used as a catalyst or a measuring stick for toward better understanding of your body. Sometimes a simple drop of the shoulder or shifting of weight can change everything. Asymmetry plays a roll; observing gravity. It all fits together in a woven combination of elements that we can choose from an reconnect in riding these “waves of flow.”