2A. Breath Circle

• Stand in a circle. Focus on your breath. The air comes in, bounces out, pauses. Watch that. Observe your breath for a few minutes. Now, play with reordering the timing and dynamic, or power, of your breath: when and how it comes in, bounces out, and the duration of the pause. Mess it up. Disrupt its regularity.

• Now, let's start a game. Everyone stand in the large circle and breathe normally. At some point, any one of you can step inside the large circle and form an inner circle. The first person that goes in sets up a breath pattern using air sound, aspirant sounds. No voice. Continue that pattern for as long as you are in the inner circle. Anybody can join the inner circle by either setting up a companion pattern, or by mirroring a pattern that's already there. It's possible that everyone will be in the inner circle at the same time, either doing the same breath pattern or complementary ones. You can go in and out of the inner circle at any time, but every time you enter it, you must start a new pattern and keep it until you leave. After, maybe, ten minutes we add voice. All the rules stay the same.

Constantly, we practice a subtle sound and movement exercise by breathing. Our lungs expand with each inhalation, rib cages widen, bellies round, shoulder girdles float a little higher. If we listen, we hear a tiny wind enter. As it exits with a different sound, everything settles. We often forget this vital connection between sound and movement.

The Breath Circle has prepared us for the next exercise, which is a freer sound and movement exploration.

2B. Sounder/Mover

• In partners, one of you is the sounder, and the other is the mover.

• Sounder, focus inward. This is your journey. Don't focus on your mover. You don't even have to look at your partner. Concentrate. Listen to your voice and the passion it inspires.

• Start with any sound, an impulsive sound. Open your mouth and let something come out. Follow what you hear without judgment. Respond to whatever feelings or mind states come into your awareness. Avoid, for now, singing or rhythmic patterns.

• Mover, you're movement reflects exactly what it is that you hear; you're translating the sounds into movement. If that sound has a body, you are moving the way that body would move. If the sound pauses, you pause. If the sound speeds up, you speed up. If the sound becomes harsh, you get harsh. If the sound is soft, soften. Through you, the sound becomes movement.

• When I say, "Stop," have a little chat with your partner. Talk about how it worked for both of you, what you liked, felt comfortable with, sailed with, where you got bogged down, how you handled that, what you could have done to get out of a jam or into one, what you want to be aware of the next time you repeat this exercise.

• Repeat the exercise, this time reversing roles.

Often after partnering exercises, students are instructed to talk to each other about their experiences. Together, they develop a dis­criminating perspective, share a way of seeing things and talking about them. They tell each other what they noticed about each others actions, how they experienced them. Students are directed to not tell each other what they would have liked to have seen or what they think the other should do.

Before I started identifying birds with binoculars and bird books, I was a generic observer. I saw red bird, blue bird, maybe big yel­low bird with black legs. Identifying birds aroused my curiosity. I began to look for detail, not just so I could name species but because I could see more wonder, detail. I developed a language, a discriminating perspective. Other birders and I detailed our sightings to each other. Then, I could see even more detail.

Rhythm

One of our tasks in this training is to develop the body as a finely tuned instrument of expression. One aspect of this is the ability to consciously move or gesture while speaking. Too often, while speaking the body slips into regular timing, movement weakens and dies out, reduces to still­ness, or becomes habitual and lacks meaning. Irregular timing insists that students stay present in their body, that they make relevant choices as to when they execute the action, how long they pause between actions, and how long each action lasts. (Except for occasional exercises later in the training, irregular timing is always required.)

The sounders were directed to investigate non-rhythmic, non-musi­cal, irregular sounds. For instance, saying, "BA," in rhythmic time would look like this: "BA BA BA BA." In non-rhythmic time, it could look like this:"BABABA BA BABABA BA BA BABABABABABA BA," with no pattern repeating itself.

Try this: Clap at regular Intervals for a few minutes. Now, clap at irregular intervals. How do you experience the difference? Now, simultaneously, tell a story while you clap irregularly. Can you do it? It's difficult. It takes practice. Your attention is split: the clapping and the story. If on the other hand, you clapped at regular intervals, you wouldn't have to focus on the clapping at all. You could get into a groove and not even have to think about it. But, the action of clapping would lose its independent voice, becoming background for the story.

Spontaneity

Where does our material come from? The interaction of sensation, imagination and memory. Another goal of this training is to access all co-existing realms of expe­rience, even those our language can't describe—the states that can't be named, that at best, we call "states of spirit."

When we act from an open mind, with the various realms accessi­ble, and express ourselves through body, voice or language, we're spon­taneous. We can travel through primal and emotional states, states of cognition and exaltation, and dream or fantasy states that order phe­nomena in extra-ordinary ways.