discoveries from body language
a sensory experience by world of play
hey y’all,
i’m back at yonder; i can’t stay away. this time, for a happy hour and co-work session with my beloveds, hillary and megan. we’re all in pursuit of some creative projects, and when i feel like giving up entirely on mine it helps to have some mutual inspiration. we all got something different to drink, which means i got to try three things on the menu. i ended up sipping on the following:
KCBC (NY) - Vicious Crush - $10
Sour Ale, 5.2% ABV, 14 oz.
Watermelon Margarita, Jolly Ranchers, Kool-Aid
it was a serendipitous experience walking in and hearing “take this to your grave” playing on vinyl. i’ve been percolating on an essay about the fall of aughts pop punk to commercialism, and how clinical it all sounds now. hearing “take this to your grave” in public, pressed and spinning, gritty and raw with an unpolished 17-year-old patrick belting at me reminded me of what inspired me to be an artist in the first place.
the right soundtrack can make all the difference for me. one of the things i was sad to leave behind in new jersey was my spin class. i have always struggled with my relationship to fitness and to my own body. i found a home in alexa’s 45-minute monday night rides. i had never been able to commit to a regular movement practice before finding her class, and i was worried that i’d lose all the progress i’d made when i moved.
not 3 weeks after i arrived in durham, my dear friend joelle brought me with her to a pilates class at a newly opened studio called flow corps in brightleaf square. before you roll your eyes, know that i did too. i thought pilates was pseudoscience, and a slippery slope into white supremacy. alongside that, i was really scared of being judged by the same girls who had been bullying me all my life. i was scared of being the biggest one there, of being the only fag, of being noodle-armed.
sometimes those things are true, but what i’ve found over the last 8 months is that it doesn’t matter. i’m not there to impress anyone, or to be thin, or pretend i’m not gay. i’ve been going twice a week, every week, since january. it’s the first time i’ve ever actually bought a membership somewhere. i do think that there’s some truth to pilates being an entry point into the alt-right pipeline, but like anything else, it just depends. it depends on why you’re doing it, and how your instructor shows up in the space.
i’m not doing it to be thin. i’m doing it to make my arms and chest stronger and to combat the last vestiges of dysphoria still sitting low around my hips. getting stronger has actually made me more confident about being fat. i’m a little muscle bear these days. i guess we probably call that a cub... the point is that i am beginning to feel good in my body.
my instructor, josé, makes me believe pilates is for everyone. they are extremely knowledgeable about anatomy, and explain every shape with such specific detail that i am able to make real adjustments and feel where the work is in my body. in the past, when i would reach a challenge in fitness, i would just give up. it never felt worth it. josé’s instruction style makes me want to do hard things. it makes me believe that i can and that it’s worth it for me to try. (i can do a 90-second plank now! can you believe that?)
i’ve discovered something else in their friday afternoon pilates class that is deeper than just working on my gains. i am a shame-filled being. i am terrified of my own authenticity because i fear there won’t be a soul alive that still likes me. it’s a wound that i’m patching all the time. i didn’t know that about myself until recently, and maybe it’s only become true recently. it hasn’t been an easy few years.
i am also a professional crisis manager. i’ve worked in violence prevention, sexual trauma advocacy, and now in leadership training and labor relations. one thing i have incorporated into all of my work is the mind-body connection. we store what we’ve been through inside our tissues, and we have to move through it to release it. i have obstinately refused to apply these practices to myself. i don’t need healing, i am a healer. right? RIGHT?
i started my own somatic exploration and EMDR therapy in march of this year, because it was recommended to me that i take a “bottom-up” approach to my mental well-being. i am too self-aware, but mostly as an observer of myself. i know all the reasons why i am the way i am. knowing is not the same as feeling. it’s not the same as processing. it’s not the same as grieving. in the past 8 months, i have opened a valve that i cannot close. it’s spilling out of me. i’m humiliated, but the mess is necessary.
my new therapist says that i’m a walking contradiction. we’re doing parts therapy, and i have diametrically opposed parts. i want to be a more spiritual person, but i’m a skeptic. i want to be a free-spirited creative, but i went to manners camp in the third grade so all the rules matter. i believe everyone should live their lives authentically, but that excludes me. i want to follow my dreams, but risk feels impossible. i just want someone to help me, but nothing i do counts if i didn’t do it all by myself.
it snuck up on me, but my friday ritual with josé has become part of this bottom-up approach. every week, i prove to myself that i can do hard things by showing up to class. every week, i feel like we’re doing something deeper than pilates. and i was right.
last weekend, josé launched their immerse fitness experience, titled body language.
it was at the fruit, an artist and events space directly across the street from my house. i wasn’t sure what it was at first. i didn’t feel like the target audience, but i wanted to support them. i was excited to see them launching their own project. so, i entered their instagram giveaway for a free ticket. i didn’t have any real intentions of going, but i actually won a ticket. i had no justifiable reason not to go, yet up until 10 minutes before it started, i was trying to talk myself out of it.
i must have failed because i found myself sitting on my yoga mat on the floor of a warehouse under soft pulsating neon lights. insecure, but eager. i felt like the least confident and competent person in the room, but that didn’t mean i shouldn’t be there. i reminded myself that if i want to meet people and try new things, i have to actually do things. imperfect and scared, i still have to go.
i was doing my protective ritual in my head: sit up straight, but relax your shoulders so you don’t look uptight. eyes up, but head forward so you don’t look like a snob. do some light stretches, but not so much that it seems like you’re doing it for attention. suck your stomach in, but not so much that you look uncomfortable. unaffected but approachable. dignified but kind. over and over, checking, always checking.
josé’s sibling adelina came up to me to introduce themself. they’re my friend joelle’s favorite instructor, and we had a sweet chuckle when we realized our favs were related. adelina said, “i’ve seen you a ton of times, and i thought ‘enough of this, we should know each other.’” i was struck by how gracious they were, and how honest. how true, we should know each other.
for this next part (which probably should be the point of this whole thing), i can’t bring myself to tell you what i specifically did during body language. when the house lights went down, and josé took the stage, i felt the compulsions quieting. the gentle rolling waves of the neon show and the binaural remixes of pop queens past and present made me feel like i was all by myself.
josé’s ethos is about radical togetherness, so this might seem paradoxical. being in a room full of mostly strangers and feeling as free as i do when i’m home alone was radical togetherness. there was another person less than 2 feet from me, and i didn’t once consider what they thought of me. not because i didn’t care, but because i was totally transcendent.
now i understand what somatic relief can do; not intellectually, but intrinsically.
so that’s why i can’t tell you what i did in those 2 hours. not because i’m ashamed, but because it was intimate. there is nothing more intimate than being inside of myself. i have spent so little time there, but i’m visiting more often lately. body language made me sink all the way in. it was uncomfortable at first, being that immersed. for a moment i thought it was going to be a bit much for me. and then i remembered what i learned from pilates: you have everything you need inside of you.
and i did.
xoxo,
kuya von
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sincerest thanks to josé for the giveaway ticket. it is such a privilege to witness someone doing exactly what they are meant to be doing in this world. everyone wants to be a creative, an innovator, a waves-maker, but no amount of templates and social media virality will propel you if you don’t actually have that something. josé has it. body language was unlike anything i’d ever experienced, and i left wishing i knew when the next one would be. i’m certain i’ll look back one day and say “yeah, but i was at the very first one.”
i showed you my gooey center, please respond 👉👈
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