What I’ve learned from my time in the anatomy lab is that every time, the lessons I take away are as applicable to life as they are to dissection. This was my fourth time coming , which means I kind of know my way around ( both the lab and the human body) and Jules Mitchell ( my teacher) had reached out to me ahead of time asking if I’d take a particular body as that table needed someone with more experience to help guide the first timers. Everyone in Jules’s classes comes in with their own strong background of knowledge. Just because someone has never held a scalpel before doesn’t mean they don’t have their own wealth of experience that they’re bringing to the table and in truth, those of us who are put in the positions of “leaders” don’t have much to offer than the fact that we have a better hunch about what lies ahead. Every body is different, and there are no wrong decisions, only choices that require a commitment. As in life, every decision you make requires that you remove another option. Some are low stakes : like changing lanes on a freeway, or buying tickets to a concert. Easily reversible, and ultimately having little impact on your life. Others are more impactful, like the choice to begin or end a relationship, or enrolling in a course that may impact the direction of your career. Some, like having children, we aren’t even aware of as the initial change is made, but once you choose to carry the pregnancy to term, you effectively have cut off the life you led before becoming a parent, and that decision will forever alter your destiny. And that’s been the lesson that I’ve taken from this lab. Every decision is a commitment, and it comes with the elimination of other options. Sometimes the decision leads to where you wanted to go, and other times you wind up going in another direction. Either way, the choices you made brought you there and all there is to do is be present, and ultimately, you must remove what is there in order to reveal what is coming next. Allow me to walk you through highlights from this past week, viewed from this lens of decision making:
Fast forward to Thursday:
There were a lot of things on my to-do list, including filming a short video celebrating one of my teachers, Debra Rose. After packing, I searched around for an appropriate backdrop downtown Colorado Springs to shoot the video, but was unsuccessful, and chose to punt that task forward, sacrificing the opportunity to check something important off my list for the choice to arrive with some breathing room before the lab began. Day 3 in the lab ( Thursday) is always my favorite. It’s the day we get to do the eviscerations. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, evisceration refers to the removal of the internal organs. But before that happens, there is the revealing of these sacred organs, or as Gil Hedley refers to them, the “ artifacts of our existence”. For me, this experience is sacred. You get to meet the entities inside of you that literally give you life. So different in quality and texture than the muscles - the “Rock Stars” of anatomical focus - given so much of our attention, and glorified in our versions of the “ideal” human body, the organs live inside of our abdominal walls- protected by the bony armor of our pelvis and ribcage, and living an existence that in my opinion resembles more the rhythm and texture of Sea Life than the dynamic form of human movement that is so embodied by muscular body.
The trade-off for this lesson? I had to leave the table where I had been assigned, and had been carefully working on separating out the nerves of the Brachial plexus, following them through the upper arm to where they disappeared into the nest of the elbow on our tiny donor, a woman who we’d nicknamed “Flo”.
There are no mistakes, only different decisions, leading to different lessons. And in the end, it’s how we learn from those lessons that stays with us throughout our lives.
I’m finishing up this email to you from my balcony in a hotel in Albuequerque, where I’m attending a conference and leading some wellness/movement classes. It’s been a whirlwind this week and consequently I was not able to film you a short movement video for your Sunday morning. So instead, I’m offering you the option of renting as many videos as you like from my ( extensive) On Demand class library at 50% off this week. Just use the code Supreme at checkout. You have 30 days to watch any video, and it’s good for 72 hours after you press play. Vibes for All is filling up! Class price raises to $100 on 07/01 and registration closes on 07/05. Registration opens soon for the Gyrotonic “Progression 7 Sessions”. This learning experience offers 7 “On Demand” classes available from the moment you sign up until 12/31/24 as well as 3 live online intensives in July, August and September. It’s a deep dive into the advanced exercises of the Gyrotonic Level 1 curriculum that will vastly expand your understanding and execution of this powerful work. Your choice to sign up for either class will transform your professional acumen. An exchange of your time and money for expanded reach, and the ability to share your knowledge with a broader range of students at every level of ability. These are the movements that direct the course of our lives and define who we are. Talk soon, Domini Anne |
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