Gurdjieff Movements:
Why are they beneficial to performing artists? 
(Amiyo Devienne)
 

Many actors, dancers, musicians, public orators find themselves limited by self-consciousness, so concerned are they by the public’s opinion and response, whether they provoke or soothe their audience. They are not conscious about themselves, but rather, others are conscious about them. This state of self-consciousness can be felt like a disease. It is a humiliating state where they feel closer to the beggar than the emperor. Their own evaluation is slave of an outside evaluation. And the outer reflections replace the reality of the moment.

If the answer does not fit their expectations, it triggers the usual chains of miseries, anguish and tensions. If the answer does fit the expectations, then the tensions will still be. How to preserve this in the future? Self-consciousness is a constant pressure between you and the world.

Yet, self consciousness is part of the excitement, and can become an addiction- But what price to pay for some hit of adrenaline!

The practice of these movements help the transformation from self consciousness to consciousness of the self Becoming more aware, more totally involved, being at the centre while still conscious of the periphery, the stage, the lights, the public, but without being shattered by it

This is the point of self-remembering you function out of awareness, so total in your act that you don’t depend on anyone’s attention. The energy that was confined in self –consciousness will be released and transformed into alertness, easiness, and flow.

Here are a few important themes:


More presence in the body:

  • Body awareness in its smallest details;

  • Coordination between the upper and lower part of the body, the left and the right side;

  • Opening of body vocabulary in movements;

  • Awareness of time and space for oneself and in relation with others members of the group;

Awareness of the inner sensations in the body in stillness and in movement, of the deepest source of every movement, of the energy, inner force inside that activates all movements outside

Learning to have as Gurdjieff would say: »One eye inside, one eye outside » in all activities

Strong connection with earth and centring in the hara

Learning to be both: relaxed and alert at the same time

    If the movement is sharp in its manifestation, (ex: dervish dances), inside the dancer must remain quiet and detached

    If the movement is slow and round and fluid in its manifestation, inside we remain very clear, crisp and alert

Economy of movement


More presence in the feelings 

The dances strengthen the « inner fire ’, personal longing and motivation necessary for all creativity to be born and actualised;

They help gathering and crystallising the courage necessary for self exposure;

More sensitivity and connections with others beyond words, as the teaching happens mostly in silence and music. The participants are connected, not through their personality, but through their essence, a communion, of presences;

Balance between feminine and masculine polarities, action and letting go of action. 


More presence in the mind

Clarity of vision. Development of insight and quick initiative;

Involvement of the mind with the body, the part of the mind that is intelligence, and not reference to past and future, but that lives in the here and now

 Necessary to remember sequences of movements, counting sometimes, lists of words etc...

 Necessary to understand the patterns of the dances, the rhythms, the compositions

 Necessary to register the different effects of the movements inwardly, and in this way, re-discover the ancient meaning of these  movements

More awareness in listening others and being one with the music

Increase of focus and attention

Clarity of presentation of oneself in front of a public

The dances require an execution that has to be done without hesitation, but very precisely and with totality

 The movements require a participation of the 3 centres of a human being: physical, emotional and mental, and are meant to create a harmony and synchronicity between these 3 centres, when they are done with the correct approach, thus creating unity of being.

First, we learn to BE, then we are able to DO

 As a group work, this process reinforces strongly the cohesion between participants

Each one, alone, and yet together. If one person makes a mistake, it has effects throughout the whole group. Each is responsible for oneself, and for the whole group

It reinforces then the feeling of responsibility during a collective creation. 

The movements open the participant to a higher state of consciousness, a very active and vibrant state, in every little action that he has to execute.

The body, better known and lived, feels more free, as if it was lighter, animated by a more subtle quality of energy, usually not felt in our daily practice

The movements were not created for their beauty, even though they are very charismatic, but they were meant to open up the participant to this higher quality of energy, and help them to reach to a higher level of being, in their daily life.  

(Amiyo Devienne)

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Live Watchfully.
(Osho, The Dhammapada vol 11 chap.4)

Whatsoever you are doing -- walking, sitting, eating, or if you are not doing anything, just breathing, resting, relaxing in the grass, never forget that you are a watcher.

You will forget it again and again. You will get involved in some thought, some feeling, some emotion, some sentiment -- anything will distract you from the watcher. Remember, and run back to your center of watching. Make it an inner process continuously.... You will be surprised at how life changes its whole quality. I can move this hand without any watchfulness, and I can also move this hand absolutely watching from inside the whole movement. The movements are totally different. The first movement is a robot movement, mechanical. The second movement is a conscious movement. And when you are conscious you feel that hand from within; when you are not conscious you only know the hand from without.

You have known your face only in the mirror, from the without, because you are not a watcher. If you start watching, you will feel your face from within -- and that is such an experience, to watch yourself from within. Then slowly, strange things start happening. Thoughts disappear, feelings disappear, emotions disappear, and there is a silence surrounding you. You are just like an island in the middle of the ocean of silence... just a watcher, as if a flame of light at the center of your being, radiating the whole of your being.

In the beginning it will only be an inner experience. Slowly you will see that radiation spreading out of your body, those rays reaching other people. You will be surprised and shocked that other people, if they are a little bit sensitive, will immediately become aware that something has touched them which was not visible.

(Osho, The Dhammapada vol 11 chap.4)

 

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Once you are centred.
(Osho, Vigyan Bhairav Tantra vol 2 cha.31)
 

Once  you are centred you can move to the periphery but you will be totally different.
The quality of  your consciousness will have changed altogether. Then you can move to the periphery but you will never be the periphery again -- you will remain at the centre. 
And remaining centred at the periphery is beautiful. Then you can enjoy it; it will become a beautiful play.

Then there is no conflict; it is a game. Then it will not create tensions within you and there will be no anguish and no anxiety around you.

And any moment that it becomes too much, too heavy on you, you can go back to the original source -- you can have a dip. Then you will be refreshed, rejuvenated, and you can move to the periphery again. Once you know the way....

And the way is not long. You are not going anywhere else than into your own self, so it is not long. It is just near. The only barrier is your holding on, holding to the periphery, afraid that if you leave it you will be lost. The fear feels just as if you are going to die. Moving to the inner center is a death -- death in the sense that your identity with the periphery will die, and a new image, a new feeling of your being will arise.

 (Osho, Vigyan Bhairav Tantra vol 2 cha.31)

 

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A witnessing consciousness.
(Osho, Dhammapada vol 4  chap.10)
 

Only a witnessing consciousness can really sing, dance and taste life. It will appear like a paradox -- it is! What is a witness? A witness is one who participates yet remains alert. A witness is in a state of WU-WEI. That is Lao Tzu's word: it means action through inaction. A witness is not one who has escaped from life. He lives in life, lives far more totally, far more passionately, but yet remains deep down a watcher; goes on remembering that, "I am a consciousness."

Try it walking on the road: remember that you are a consciousness. Walking continues -- and a new thing is added, a new richness is added, a new beauty. Something interior is added to the outward act. You become a flame of consciousness, and then the walking has a totally different joy to it; you are on the earth and yet your feet are not touching the earth at all.

That's the meaning of the Eastern symbol of the lotus. A lotus is a flower that lives in the water and yet the water cannot touch it. The lotus does not escape to the Himalayan caves; it lives in the water and yet remains far, far away. Being in the marketplace but not allowing the marketplace to enter into your being, living in the world and yet not of the world -- that is what is meant by a "witnessing consciousness."

That's what I mean by saying to you again and again: Be aware! I am not against action, but your action has to be enlightened by awareness. Those who are against action, they are bound to be repressive -- and all kinds of repression make you pathological, not whole, not healthy.

Where can you be a witness if you move away from the world of action? The world of action is the best opportunity to be aware. It gives you a challenge, it remains constantly a challenge.

Either you can fall asleep and become a doer; then you are a worldly man, a dreamer, a victim of illusions -- or you can become a witness and yet go on living in the world; then your action has a different quality to it. It is really action. Those who are not aware, their actions are not real actions but reactions; they only react. Somebody insults you and you react. Reaction is dependent on the other -- he pushes a button and you are only a victim, a slave; you function like a machine.

The real person, who knows what awareness is, never reacts; he acts out of his own awareness. The action does not come from the other's act; nobody can push his button. If he feels spontaneously that this is right to do, he does it; if he feels nothing is needed, he keeps quiet. He is not repressive; he is always open, expressive. His expression is multidimensional. In song, in poetry, in dance, in love, in prayer, in compassion, he flows.

(Osho, Dhammapada vol 4  chap.10)

 

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The different types of intelligence
(Selim Aissel)

There is a moving centre, an instinctive centre , a sexual centre , an intellectual centre, a centre of emotions; there are also a higher emotional centre and a higher intellectual centre. These are intelligences that are existing in us and they are different from each other; up to the day when they are unified. In the meantime they are manifesting often when it is not the appropriate moment. When the intellectual intelligence manifests itself and it is the moment for intelligence of the movements, for example when a thought interferes in the movement, even in someone who knows perfectly the movements, there is interference, there is chaos. And the chaos will manifest somewhere, even if only in the little toe that is moving. But if you allow the intelligence of the movement, this intelligence knows exactly what to do.

 This is what is important to understand: You free yourself from others intelligences which act in your body and you leave the moving centre free. And the day when you are able to let it be totally free, there is some chance for something higher to manifest through you. But as long as others intelligences are manifesting in you, the movement will be imperfect. Or it will be technically perfect but uninhabited. Some are able to practice without being disturbed by the interferences, because they are dominating the technique, but the spirit of the movement does not inhabit their movement. For the movement to be inhabited, time is needed, repetition is needed, and also an inner transformation that can only happen little by little.


Erase then rewrite in the Limbic Brain

If in you, for example, some emotion is registered in the emotional centre, something that you have experienced one day and that created suffering in you, even if you forgot it totally, your emotional centre — what scientists call limbic brain- leaves a corresponding mark in the physical body, it writes there a particular program. So, this memory strongly anchored is registered not only in the limbic brain, but also at the same time somewhere in the body, as every part of the limbic brain is in relation with an organ and some body part. As long as you didn’t free yourself from this element of the past, often registered in the childhood, technically you will be perfect but at the smallest occasion, some interference will come up in your movement practice.

But there are techniques, body techniques, and movements, which act directly on the brain. If you combine the catharsis connected with this place and the re-structuring of the brain, through another type of movement, it is cleansed.

 

Two types of practices

Two types of practices: For ordinary people, there is the preparatory practice called cathartic. They can free themselves a little bit, psychologically, but unfortunately, it does not reprogram the limbic brain. The painful event is registered in you, and through a form of catharsis, of unwinding, through movements or other ways, you free a certain physical tension connected with this imprint in the emotional or limbic brain. In the physical body, the energy of the tension is liberated by the catharsis, but the information remains in the brain, As you don’t restructure the place in the brain itself, it goes on being active as long as this place in the brain has not been reprogrammed, reshaped, reformed, through other types of movements, as Gurdjieff movements.

 Some movements have a very precise signification; they are writing on certain groups of neurones, so they are writing something else on the brain. If at this particular place of the brain, you carry a vestige of the past, you must re write on it with a particular movement- erase- that’s the cathartic element – and rewrite a new structure. From this moment, your brain functions again properly, it is freed; at the same time, the place in your body that was hurt is freed. So it is about both, to free the tension and to rewrite, so the void at the spot that has been erased does not exist any more. Otherwise, if the void remains, there is a break in the transmission of the information, break that will provoke another disturbance, whose dervishes were saying that this a born from an energy void. That is why all structuring movements are fundamentally important.


 
A Real Science...

Gurdieff used to say that the 4th way is characterised by the fact that we develop at the same time the physical, emotional and intellectual centre. Often, you don’t have the mastery of movement beyond the physical movement; you don’t have the mastery of the movement of thoughts, the movement of emotions. There is a specific work to accomplish for each centre: a specific technique of thought, of speech, and emotions. If you don’t follow at the same time the totality of an evolution, step by step, the work will be unbalanced. This is the origin of your imbalance: the work has not been done in a balanced way, on the thoughts, the emotions and the physical body.

(Selim Aissel)

      

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Slow-Fast Movements
(Selim Aissel)

First, the slow movements allow us to put ourselves in a state of receptivity. And a real question that we may ask ourselves then is:” What is the real sentiment which is at the root of this state of receptivity, of this possibility for receptivity? The answer has to be searched for inside us

 Then the fast dynamic movements. They are not based on agitation. They are born from an inner connection with something higher. In fast movements as well as in our worldly activities, it can be named:” I affirm myself”. This is why fast movements have truly their meaning when “I’ affirm myself, because of an inner connection with a higher quality, not from an ego statement that gets triggered.

 The basic principle is to practice in quietness and receptivity. It allows the first connection to happen: the connection between the body and the spirit, through the ability to be attentive to what the body is doing. In this way, we create the connection between the spirit and the body. If this is done with enough intensity, then the other higher connection may happen, because in you the centers are connected. The higher energy becomes your own higher self . It is the real self, your real self.But you naturally have no connection with that. For this connection, a fine substance is necessary and needs to be generated, because the energy of the body is too low to make contact with that higher energy which originates from above. You need to persist....

(Selim Aissel)

 

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Behind the (visible) movement...
 (Jeanne De Salzmann)


Behind the visible movement , there is another movement, one which cannot be seen , which is very strong , on which the outer movement depends. If this inner movement were not so strong, the outer one would not have any action.

You must constantly divide your attention between something which is higher than yourself and your movement. You always loose yourself in one or the other. As soon as you stop making this effort, you become identify with the movement.

You must consider these movements as a condition, an exceptional one, given to you to work on your attention. In so, dividing your attention, you are filling the place that you can fill. One day, you may be capable of more, but today, this is your place. You do not realise enough that attention is your only chance. Without it, you can do nothing.

Usually, you think about your movement, but you do not DO it. You maintain your thought on the movement, and then, when it is time to do it, you give up, and the movement s done, no matter how, without you.

The thought must have its own centre of gravity; it cannot just be either here or there. We must find this centre of gravity> It is the same for the body. If it is not centred, no movements will be possible. It is the same with the feelings

These movements enable us to pass from one centre of gravity to another; it is the shift that creates the state. The gesture, the movement is what is important, not the attitudes.

(Jeanne De Salzmann)

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