Sharing "upness"

In this exercise we approach sharing support as a continuously varying dynamic, through sharing "upness".

Under Construction

Slight counterbalance conveys engaging with your partner in a fundamental way, so you are sharing balance together. This enables you to navigate together providing continuous, equal support. "Upness" is the notion that the amout of support can vary, while both partners are heading in an upwards direction together, preserving mutuality.

  1. Exploring log support. [Using log support for the opportunity to feel what is possible being supported and supporting, with particular attention to how alignment of centers makes crucial differences.]
  2. Exploring solo rolling using momentum to change levels. {Roll to varying degrees out of the floor - at first using your arms for support, then gradually finding ways to roll out of the ground without depending on your arms. The challenge of using momentum to bring yourself out of the ground, using all parts of your body and not just your arms, conveys what I call "finding upness".]
  3. Rolling with upness onto a stationary log. [Onto and off of the other person. Notice how aligning centers makes it easier.]
  4. Mutual upness. [Both roll around finding ways to use upness to roll onto or provide support for the other person. This leads to fluidly varying degrees of support in movement that goes in all directions, from ground to upright – moving together through spherical space.]

There are other essential dimensions to CI guidance, but this layer and the ones on which it is based constitute what I consider to be the foundational orientation for the physical practice.

  1. This is in contrast to a more static, dualistic way that CI support is sometimes taught, in which partners take turns where "you're the supporter now I'm the supporter...". This actively works against fluid mutuality, akin to framing an individual walking as "putting their weight on this leg then putting their weight on the other leg" and so on. That specifically misses the continual transition, losing the essential fluidity of walking.
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  2. There's also important pieces like consent and boundaries (which is key to the kind of physical mutuality I mean to convey – and conversely, that mutuality can help understand the principles of consent and boundaries), and also extending the physical principles to solo dancing and dynamic composition. For the latter I would invoke the Underscore. There are probably other things I'm not thinking of right now.
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