Ted Lasso, Twerking, and Levity

Making strength playful & lessons in balance

Wyatt, who reminds me to rest amidst my intense desire to move!

Hello again my friends, and welcome back to the table. Today’s post will be, uh, lighter than my last, shall we say?

When I first met Luke, I told him I was a patient woman, to which he replied, “you’re a passionate woman.” Neither of us were wrong, but he was more right than I realized at the time. This past week, passion was bubbling up inside me so strong, so hot, so clear, I just had to let it rip. There was no stopping the momentum. 

And then, THUD, my most recent post landed in your inbox. My inner nerd philosopher freak was quite pleased. But now, a bit of levity is in order. 

After all, life is about balance. Which, contrary to popular interpretations, is not about staying in the middle all the time, rather, going to both extremes in equal measure. Crests and troughs. Work hard, rest hard. What goes up, must come down, and so forth. Except when it comes to romance (crash & burn relationships? no thank you.) and food. Probably not in your favor to swallow an entire a cake then eat arugula for the rest of the week. Side note: arugula is my favorite green leaf to chomp on. So much so I often find myself eating handfuls of it while cooking. Other side note: gonna call it rocket from now on. It’s way more fun. 

Speaking of fun, I don’t drink, but I do like Deborah’s sentiment (from Ted Lasso, yeah… rewatching for the 55th time): when life gives you lemons, make lemon lavender mojitos! Though I’m pretty sure a lavender lemon mojito is no longer a mojito, Deborah’s got a lightness to her that I love. I’m wanting to bring more of that into my life, especially my writing. I should probably start bouncing around more, huh? A little twerky twerk to get the humor rolling? It actually is one of my secret weapons; I can’t twerk without smiling, and usually I burst into laughter even if I’m in the lowest of moods. It’s ridiculously fun to feel all that jiggle jiggle jiggle. And yes, you should absolutely try it. Should I make a tutorial?

Before we go on, lemme harp on that last post for a moment cause I think I’m onto something. When a big ‘ol dose of philosophy lands in my belly, I feel the need to pour it onto the page immediately, you know? The words are practically eating me from the inside. The intensity!!!! I tell ya. The urgency! It’s even more urgent than chocolate, which is really saying something, I mean, a plate of chocolate next to the keyboard and I didnt even touch it. That’s how dialed in I was. All this to say, I feel a responsibility to share what I’m learning. And I’m grateful you’re here for it.

Lots of good writers talk about editing, and writing something like nine or 67  drafts of their essays before publishing. Past me was like, Pish! Tosh! My first drafts are PURE GOLD. Absolutely without a doubt 100% engaging. Enthralling, even. Hahaha! I know that’s not true. Okay I lied. Often with a poem, it is. But not with a 2000 word philosophy heavy essay. Writing is the process. So are organizing and orchestrating.

Anyway, we’re all about movement here. Why not include the process of moving thoughts around to create something more useful for you, my friends and fellow movers, in the repertoire. I suppose it’s quite like choreography. 

This choreographing and reorganizing business has been one of the greatest challenges for me of late: how do I take something so engrained within my way of being and parse it out?  How do I put movement back into words? It’s different than dancing like nobody’s watching. It’s inviting you all to the party, where we’ll learn the moves and grooves and get strong and be super cool and we’ll all dance like nobody’s watching, but together. Wanna come?

bday panckes? Just add sprinkles!

Something I’ve noticed through my movement career is that the teachers who communicate most simply have always been the most effective. Not a lot of overcomplicated language. The goal is to make it so simple your body locks in with relative ease. 

As in any pursuit, at first we need familiar forms to work with, a foundation of awareness — something for the mind to grasp so the body can do its work. Beginning with metaphor seems silly. The body knows a triangle, a line, a circle - the body feels straight and curved, angled and arced, like drawing pictures on someone’s back (did you ever do that when you were a kid?) Ah, yes, a triangle. You’d be shocked how much you can learn from a triangle. Or a circle. 

Did you know that all body movement creates a circle or an arc? Cool right?

Try making some circles and see what you can learn in five minutes. I bet you’ll surprise yourself. 

I know I’ve already said it, but it bears repeating: movement is simple. Fitness is simple. Simple is empowering. Frills and bells and shiny things - these are usually the signs of a smoke and mirrors dogma show. I mean, look at cults with all their rules. They indoctrinate you by swirling your mind around in a bunch of jabbery nonsense.

And okay, I admit I maaaaay be trying to start a cult (psssst Luke I think it’s working!), but it’s a benevolent one and I’m not in charge. What I want is for each of you to become your own experiment. N=1. And yeah, it’s totally statistically significant. 

Movement Moments: 

1. Out of the head, into the booty.

I mentioned it above, and I really mean it. Start shaking your ass (and whole body) more, in general. Dance, bounce, wiggle, shake, have fun, be silly, let loose! Letting go of tension is just as important as creating it (which we’ll be doing plenty of in upcoming movement classes).

The popular hype says shaking can be great when you’re all overwhelmed or stuck in your head worrying about whatever it is you’re worrying about, since it stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system and signals the body to relax…

However; what I’m more interested in re: twerking is 1. the fun factor, and 2. the awareness it brings to the booty, which as you’ll hear me say often, is the literal seat of power of the body. Creating awareness of your ass is crucial to our pursuit of creating a strong foundation of movement skills. Plus, you have a great ass, and it deserves attention.

2. Make some circles.

If intentional movement is a new thing for you and you’re like… but where do I start?! Or if you just want some ideas to play with as a nice way to break up the work day, try this. 

Make a point to pause what you’re doing and explore movement a couple times throughout the day (set an alarm if you know you'll forget). A couple ideas to get you started:

• Arm circles: start by drawing circles with straight arms, one at a time. Just move your arm through its circular range of motion, like your arm is a propeller connected to your shoulder. Go 5 - 10 times in each direction, slow and intentional.  Focus on the sensations in your arms, shoulders and neck, notice if anything acts up or wants more attention

• Figure 8s: start by drawing a circle across the front of your body with a straight arm, continue the swooping motion across the back of your body to complete the figure 8 with another circle, then cross back around to the front and continue, like an infinity loop. It can feel like a bit of a puzzle at first. Use your imagination to help map the figure 8, but don’t think too hard about it - in other words, trust your arm, and give it  a little patience. And remember to try both directions.

• Hip circles: as it sounds, draw circles with your hips, like you’ve got an invisible hula hoop around your waist. But a little bend in your knees, then try 5 -10 circles in each direction. If you’re feeling good, repeat, maybe bending the knees a little further to feel the difference. While you’re at it, go wild, throw your hands up in the air like you just don’t care. Except you do care! You care very much and you’re a very serious student of movement. Just kidding. But this stuff is pretty important, as if you haven’t heard me say that enough at this point. Like the booty, awareness of the hips is crucial to our movement foundations. Hips don’t lie, ya know?

These are great to do between bouts of computer work or sitting or just whenever, when you wake up, before you go to sleep, maybe paired with  some shoulder and neck rolls. Have a ball. Let me know how it goes.

Thanks for reading! If you learned something from this post, won’t you take a moment to subscribe? And if a paid subscription isn’t your cuppa tea, I’m always accepting coffee and chocolate donations. I’m so grateful you’re here!
xx Faye

P.S. Notables from the week

1. A note that didn’t get nearly enough (actually zero) attention. I know. How can you choose?

2. In the name of making this blog more useful to you, I want to know what your current relationship with movement is. Do you practice intentional movement? Do you want to? How much time are you willing to set aside?

3. A popular post you may have missed

4. Just a little rant about the fact that we need to get in the trenches and try stuff. I know, I know, the inner perfectionist wants to get it right. Too bad! A little research never hurts, but what’s the point if you don’t test your theories?