I was fading out on the train. The rocking felt boat-like. I drifted into to studio early and tried out the magical foot machine that I had heard praised. In particular, it squeezes the feet and calves with surprising pressure. It is delicious, indulgent, a little naughty even.

Exhaustion enhanced the relaxation, a mellow state that transferred over to the Pilates machine. With eyes closed, verbal instructions came out of the ether or felt almost internal, as if they were not instructions at all, but a series of hunches initiated by the body. Doing arms circles (or was it leg circles) with eyes closed, the shuttle glided back and forth. With the entire body in slow, circular motion the boat-like feeling was back - a wonderfully groundless space.

Having muscle-memory of a sequence allows reallocation of the concentration pie; More can be focused on the minutia. Muscle memory creates the broad strokes of the ground while the effort of concentration works on minutia-as-subject. Maybe the exhaustion/relaxation helps that reallocation. With less bandwidth to go around, we have no choice to let some spheres be navigated by instinct?

Written by Alec B
Body Banter