Essential Companions

The effort of no effort. Swimming through very heavy air. Slow motion in a dream. Softness and continuity. “What would it be like to practice with one of these qualities as a companion?” I asked my students. “Pick one,” I encouraged, “…. actually don’t worry about picking one. It will pick you, like the Harry Potter sorting hat.” And off we went practicing together, having identified one of these qualities through which to move. We attempted to find it, embody it, feel it internally and externally, through the movements and even when simply standing and breathing. What follows are some of my high school students’ responses to this exercise:

“Softness. Softness was easy. But staying with it, really feeling into the nature of softness was difficult. Softness was easefulness; it was the perfect smoothness and contentment of each passing moment. Even when my knees were hard against the movement, there was still a soft space between that sensation and myself. It was always here, with and without me. And I had never before noticed the immediate, almost distracting beauty outside the window….” [At this writing, grey snow clouds are billowing over the Sandia Mountain range in New Mexico.] – Cole Helsell

“I tried the ‘effort of no effort,’ which was something that I’ve never really focused on before. In the backward/forward movements, I found myself getting out of sync easily, because I was concentrating on being ‘effortless.’ However, I fancy myself a bit successful with the side-to-side movements. I was thinking about the hip swivel, and then I realized that I shouldn’t be thinking about it; I should just be doing it. That shed light, for me, on the concept of the effort of no effort. It was effortless just to do it, without thinking about it, and the effort came from the act itself.” – Haley Maness

“When we started to do Rocking Motion and you told us that ‘the idea will pick you,’ I automatically knew that it would be ‘effort of no effort.’ As I focused on it throughout the set of movements, I found that my body was almost moving on its own. I was aware of my body but not necessarily telling my body to move in certain ways that I normally do. I also noticed that the air around me seemed almost non-existent. It was very easy to move through. I liked this idea because it let me focus on the finer points of the movements.” – Kriti Prasad