Working The Pulley

Once a challenge to perform correctly, Working The Pulley is now my favorite movement. When I was able to properly coordinate the movement of my arms in opposite directions while creating the ovals at the side of the body, I could feel my arms naturally being propelled by the turning of my waist. Now, with all of my body fully and gracefully engaged in the movement, I truly have the feeling as Justin Stone says, “… of swimming through heavy air.”

As I love to swim, I can relate to this feeling of the energy (water) being pushed by my hands and flowing along my body. It is a lovely and joyous feeling. I enjoyed using the expression “swimming through heavy air” with my students as I thought they could relate to it too. But I was surprised to learn that the vast majority of my students (who are mostly 50 years young and older) had never learned to swim. I asked some students to give me an expression of the feeling that they could relate to. I laughed when an 80-something student said, “it’s slurpy,” since that’s an expression I would have expected from a child. Maybe the joyful feeling of the movement made her feel like a kid again.