There was a step intructor named Sam. He was a kind of lanky black dude with a degree in pschotherapy. He had an extremely popular step class and I for a short time was puzzled by it.
I have always been a left brain driven anaytical task natzi, despite my right brain urges to be artistic and just play freestyle in the realms of free association and creativity. I was always afraid that I could not pay my dam bills if I launched into some "I am an artist" "I am a singer" crap that LA and high schools and city colleges were rampant and buried in with a waiter at very cafe muttering the same dogma...
So even in fitness, a very expressive movement based forum, I was a kinesiology, anatomy, 3-dimensional space and motion task master. So watching Sam teach, I would begin by going, uh,this dude has most all non specific highly repetitive short range movements that make me crazy. Then I realized the psychology of his message that drew all the members to his class.
His message was
permission!!!
It was brilliant.
The way he grinned at each participant and freely, kind of an African Freestyle, led movement - he often said irregardless. It's not a word but it had meaning. It meant no matter how screwed your day was, how bad traffic was, whoever died yesterday, the date you didn't get....
whatever just have fun right this second and experience joy!
He had the recipe for pleasure.
The members would have a cow and a kaniption fit if he changed the music track he used ever single class. It frustrated even him! But the group and the following had a ritual that basically guaranteed their group endorphin release and they didnt want a hair touched on the golden gooses nobby head.
Permission.
All day and maybe their entire lives, people experience constraint. They are corrected, admonished, yelled at, confined, charged money. They suffer disappointment and frustration.
For a hour a week or whatever, they wat to move, smile dance and gain vicariously in the umbrella of another person's aura permission to just be joyful liberated endorphin producing living creatures.
And sadly most peope are unable to do this without chemical assistance, structure, a guide or external guidance
So, if you want o be a commodity...bottle the shit.
Permission.
No comments:
Post a Comment