somatic exorcisms

grotowski and loud yoga and the gym as specter

I started experimenting with somatic exercises in college, doing mandated contact improv in a class of legging-clad fellow anorexics (and a few men, including one who I never saw with less than a 25% boner in any movement class). We studied Grotowski, writhing and cavorting until our exhausted bodies could not withstand holding up emotional walls. Exorcise the inhibitions until the only thing left is raw emotion. The trick with this was that at the end of the river, as it’s called, you were then to direct that emotion towards a character or piece you made or whatever we were doing in experimental theatre school. I remember it being difficult to funnel that explosive emotion, that tapped well of feeling, into something as removed as a character. The emotions were mine, and I was learning where they lived.

The past few months have been intense — both beautiful and difficult. Unexpected heaviness and fear, contrasted with my wedding, which was one of the most magical, heightened days of my life. Some hard situations I’m not ready to explain yet, but that have left me with my nerves fried and my capacity down. And the only thing that helps is the gym.

For years, I tried to convince myself to work out. I wanted to be strong, but I couldn’t get myself to go. It loomed as I watched TikTok videos about how you lose bone mass every decade after your 20s. Gym as specter, health ghosts. I think my priorities were at least minorly fucked, since for years it always came back to how I looked. These past months, as my nerves fry and my capacity shrinks, the only thing that has eased the barrage of anxiety has been the somatic exorcism of lifting something heavy and putting it back down, or walking up a never-ending staircase until sweat beads on my forehead. The gym itself is a work of science fiction, machines that repeat and repeat, people wandering with headphones on, invisible rules. I put on my moisture-wicking clothes and assimilate.

On Fridays, the local yoga studio has something called “loud yoga.” My friend Mel invited me, and we’ve started a routine where we go to loud yoga and then get drinks afterwards, negating the health benefits of the yoga but exponentially increasing the spiritual effects of friendship. A few Fridays ago was a hip-opening class, which meant that as soon as we started stretching I had silent, heavy tears streaming down my face. As I learned in my college movement classes, a lot is stored in the hips. The class was 80’s themed that week. The teacher builds a different playlist each week — the week before it was “girly EDM.” Sometimes it’s all Brian Eno. But this time I wept to New Order and Prince, stretching and reaching. The tears would come and go, dripping off the end of my nose onto the studio-provided yoga mat and blanket. I balanced, staring at one of the plants at the front of the room as a focus point. By the time yoga concluded, I felt like I used to at the end of a Grotowski class. Exorcised.

xo sp

grotowski

all my friends know i love to contort. this was referencing the movie The Bride btw