Learning to Fall

Posted on by Natasha Salvo

After an hour and a half workout at the gym, a recent foray into cultivating embodied strength, I practiced falling. It was edgy. Asking my recently taxed 63-year-old body to drop intentionally to the ground—with grace—was not something I’d anticipated at our Contact Improvisation class. This dance form is something I’ve been gravitating toward of late. We work with rolling points of contact, sharing weight, embodied listening, and touch, among other things. For me, it’s been a very intimate practice of trust, surrender, and play. But falling?

We were on a hardwood floor, no mats or carpets, just kneepads, and the experienced dancers didn’t even have those. We started by lying flat on the floor and practiced dropping just a hand, then an arm to the ground. Flop! Next, we sat up and practice falling over sideways. OK, that I can do. Then we kneeled and practiced collapsing to the ground in all directions. OK, this is getting edgy. “Now stand up and drop to the ground.” You want me to fall to the ground from standing!? Much like plunging into the icy cold ocean, which I did for the first time a couple weeks ago in the company of my cold-immersion devotee friends, it took some mental rearrangement to set the intention to fall. “Oh, and by the way, you want to try to land without a sound.” Kathunk! I landed hard at first, then learned to aim for the soft parts of my body and then to roll out of the fall in a somewhat fluid motion. Alright, this isn’t so hard.

“OK, now jump up and fall.” No way! This I simply would not/could not do; my mind would not allow myself to be that vulnerable. “Now take it on the move and fall.” Huh, this feels better. For some reason, adding some forward and sideways motion to the fall made it easier to take the risk of aiming at the ground. “Finally, let’s walk around the room and accept other people’s invitation to fall with their gentle push.” Double no way! I announced to the group that I would decidedly not like to be pushed, but I was happy to do the pushing. Giving people a little nudge and watching them collapse like ragdolls to the floor was absolutely hilarious! After a few minutes of observing and joining others in their delight, I announced, OK, you can push me. I dropped into the playfulness of pushing, being pushed, tipping over, and springing up again like a clumsy penguin. It was laugh-out-loud funny and much to my surprise, the easiest exercise of all.

There is something about the unexpected that makes falling playful, as opposed to choosing to fall with the intention of landing with ease.

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As grown-up humans, many of us were taught to stand tall, stand on your own two feet, hold your ground, stand up to, stand behind, and on and on with embodied metaphors, as if verticality were the only way to be strong, to feel strong, to get things done. But what’s so magical about being upright that makes it so compelling? Or being strong, for that matter? Could it be that it’s because we’ve been conditioned to lead with our head, which sits atop this richly knowing body that we tend to overlook, override, and overrule?

What if it were precisely this conditioned embodiment of strength that was holding us back from moving more freely into what the universe has to offer? What if falling into, easing into, and dropping into were equally or perhaps more important to the program we call life, and the more passive qualities of receiving, allowing, and surrendering were on a par with strength? (Note again the aspirational name of this blog.) And what if the practice of landing softly, quietly, and with ease was critical for keeping us responsive, nimble, and resilient?

I don’t know about you, but the idea of moving with as opposed to pushing through is a relatively new concept for this Stanford grad, who spent nearly thirty years (read, way too long) sitting in front of a computer as a technical writer.

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In the last ten years, I’ve been experiencing a seismic shift in my life. It coincided with my discovery and practice of conscious movement, dance, and embodiment. It’s been a massive un-learning for someone whose head has been driving the bus for way too long, overriding her inner Emotional Authority, which resides in the solar plexus—the gut—according to my newly discovered Human Design. After more than ten years of dancing 5Rhythms and ecstatic dance, plus a deep dive into UZAZU, an embodied modality for re-balancing states of being, I’m beginning to feel lighter.

Lately, I’ve been practicing this flow, inspired by Dharma dialog: pause, breath, relax, open, and trust. I’m learning to trust my inner emotional compass. Contrary to popular belief for most of my life, the access I have to my inner emotional world is in fact a gift, not a sign that I’m broken. I’m learning to relax and open to the acceptance of change as the nature of things. And I’m learning to trust that I am already free.

Along the way, my engaged mind supported this embodied exploration with books such as Designing Your Life, written by the founders of the Stanford D(esign) School, which introduced me to design thinking principles applied life: “get curious, talk to people, and try stuff,” for short. Kali Rising was an important exploration into Tantric principles, including these memorable pearls: Everything is an experiment; and pleasure—and its corollary play—are at the heart of life.

These teachings haven’t always been easy for me to lean into, but I’ve gotten a lot better. I regularly get stuck in indecision until I remember that life is an experiment, then I don’t get so attached to the outcome. I often come up against my perfectionistic nature and want to control the outcome until I remember to relax, open, and trust. And when things go awry, I sometimes have that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that I’ve done something wrong until I remember that falling does not equal failing. Knowing this cognitively is one thing, but experiencing it in my body takes practice.

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By nature, we are carefree, like we were when we were children. On an intuitive level, we trust that our parents will provide us with what we need so we can explore. My one-year-old granddaughter is my biggest inspiration of late with her huge smile and engaged body. Her wonderful parents allow her to be herself and try stuff. She’s learning to walk and holds on to things as she cruises around the table until she falls, plop, with not a care. She allows anyone to hold her without hesitation. On her first birthday, she tasted cake for the first time, grabbing it with both hands and shoving it into her mouth with delight!

May I be like a child in my fearless abandon and limitless trust—in my myself, in others, and in the universe—and when I fall, may it be soft and without concern. May the same be true for you.

Not Totality, But Close

Posted on by Natasha Salvo

Yesterday was the total solar eclipse, the astrological event that had people scurrying across the country to get in the Path of Totality. Yes, the pictures looked amazing, and I’m delighted for those who fulfilled a wish to experience it. I kept closer to home, choosing at the last minute to drive to the beach ten minutes down the road where people are known to gather to watch the sunset in warmer weather. For me, it was a social event more than anything on the grassy point in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, and I used it as an opportunity to connect.

As a photographer myself, I chatted up Sean, who was there with his camera and tripod hoping to capture the 96% eclipse. Turns out he had been in the radio business in Massachusetts, back when there were local radio news stations. Now he works for Cintas, the uniform company, and only has time to use his camera when not working 9 – 5 and driving his son to baseball games.

Groups, families, and couples sat on blankets and chairs, bundled in hats and coats, which were insufficient to keep us warm at the water’s edge, despite the earlier temperatures in the sixties. Kids ran around and kicked balls as the moon eased its way across the sun without our notice. I didn’t have glasses, but my neighbor blanket said I could borrow theirs, and to my surprise, I saw that the moon had already begun to cross the path of the sun. Another blanket neighbor had made a camera obscura, which they offered a glance into. A mother with three kids had also made one out of a long tube, which projected a much bigger crescent-shape onto the tube’s round end. The coolest projection of all was through the lens of a colander, which produced dozens of tiny crescents huddled in groups on the blanket below, much like the gathering on the lawn.

At one point, a woman came around offering official sun-gazing glasses, courtesy of NASA, her employer. Gazing directly at the sun is a rare experience in and of itself, and watching our little sister eclipse its mighty parent was a strange juxtaposition. The miniscule eclipsing the G A R G A N T U A N was a powerful metaphor for what’s possible when things are in Right Alignment.

Generosity, kindness, and connection ruled the afternoon in a spirit of open-hearted communion as we all faced the mighty sun with varying degrees of awe, wonder, and perhaps a bit of reverence for the source of light, energy, and life on the planet we all call home. Whether everyone felt the connection that our cosmic neighbors were inviting us into I don’t know, but I felt it. It stirred me into a state of appreciation for being alive at this moment—a state of connected presence.

As I drove home, I took it all with me, back into my solitary life in a box, the one created by the hands and heads of man, the isolated spaces that both protect us and separate us, from nature and from one another—the totality and partiality of being, once again exposed to the light.