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\\SENSING,FEELING,AND

ONE OF THE THINGS THATI THINK IS ESSENTIAL WITHSENSING, IS THAT WE REACHA POINT WHERE WE BECOMECONSCIOUS AND THEN WELET IT GO, SO THAT THESENSING ITSELF IS NOT AMOTIVATION; T HAT OURMOTIVATION IS ACTION,B SED ON PERCEPTION.

r i ~ i l t a l l y ,,,, 'isl,, / ill CQ 6:2. Winter IlJSL

INTERVIEW WITH BONNIE BAINBRIDGE COHENby Nancy Stark Smith for CQ

Tht: following ;,zteniew took place in Northampton. Mass. Oil November 26, 1980.

CQ: You t,llk of 'embod iment' Dftenin your work. CDuld you say some-tbing about it?Be A good example is a newborn infant. Their hand goes across their faceand at first there is only a momentaryrecognition of something going acrosstheir eyes. After awhile, as they develop a little further, the hand will go a-cross their eyes and they ll follow it,but there s not the recognition thatit s their hand yet. One day, they follow it and they turn their head, andthey move their hand back and theyturn their head back and you seesomething in their eres when theystart really manipulating the hand.Another sense opens up that this hand

is me. And then comes the play between the two hands, and the play ofthe hands and the eyes.Embodiment is, in a wa} . separating out. It's feeling the force that isin this body. But in order to embodyourselves, we need to know what is .not ourselves. It's a relationship. Achild that only embodies its hand, forinstance, might be tonsidered autistic.(f it s carried too far there s self-absorption; there s a certain awarenessthat this is me, but not an awarenessthat you're you. If it s just aboutwhat s me and not what s no't me,then I don't think it works; there s nocounterbalance, no definition. WhatI would call balanced embodimentwould include, This is the end of me;this is the beginning of something else.

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/"", ( ~ T h e next stage will be mo(e mind-based, rather than body-based. Both:1 , will be there, but just as the mind isIT'S DIFFERENT IF YOU SENSE SOMETHING, THAN IF \' in the body area now, the body willYOU FEEL IT, THAN IF YOU SIMPLY DO IT." \.' be in the mind area.

CQ: What do you mean by mindbased ?CQI WhRt s the difference between 'BC: I f we didn't inhibit any natural"'-'. Be: Each individual goes into an area .- \the traditionalway of learning/teach i functioning, there probably wouldn't ): of study with a certain mind, and weing anatomy and the processofem be any need. In fact, you see that ; usually keep the same mind through-bodying it? people who don't have a lot of prob- out all of our explorations. What I'm

,.. Jems, who are fairly well integrated doing now is trying to help peopleBe: Generally, when anatomy is , ! (don't spend their time on integrating; Ii recognize the mind that they're aptaught as I learned it, u 1se; it \ \they spend t h e i ~ time jn some. action. f proaching something with, as com

~ u g h t e l s e ~ e r e , you re gtyen VlSUa 'yf.{ost of us m thIS work come mto it \ , pared to (the mind of] the materialpIctures of It. We have an wage of It, . ,''-'because we have problems; we're in-'\ ' itself. For example, some peoplebut we don't have the kinesthesia of " : hibited in some way that prevents us ' " might feel things more through theit within ourselves. Maybe we'll even! '. from functioning the way we feel we bones, another person more throughsay, 'Oh, I have this bone or this mus--

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,. me; e best, iliOrt iUtolfikdeatt"aHa .8 ' i.a',all, .. hen we -IlICWtquicJd:..with fluidity _... tite f t . ' n ~aiDa; jo tS nrCOIIIQlliUl a. the fh!t'dsako ~ : W . tban BOP iHR'uwuLewl,. wi: h 8 e n l i ~ . It happensover and over again. People are surprised that they feel safer under thisfast moving than when they are sensing where each person is. And they'reless likely to bump into somebodyand have an accident. Now if youtake a group of people who have never sensed, and have them runningquickly, they'd probably be bumpinginto each other all the time. They'dbe running into each other becausethey don't know where they are.

S you re using the senses as asupport for the fluids and i f the e n ~ e shave never been developed they can tbe a wry stable support?BC: Then the fluids have never beena support for the senses. It's a balance.It's not to choose one over the otherbut to have this balance. We have atendency to get one-sided.CQ: You said something about ' s e n ~sing, feeling, and doing'. What's thedifference lIetween sensing and feel-ing? WoN , '6 me pel om?BC: The ftcrids. I f >,outre ~ : t n e ' ; ' t r snat such aa 'lIutiM1ei s p a e t . ' < ~you!te.jul...,the1t-ym.pthe-emo A lot of the sensing work is anescape from the emotions. it actuallyrepresses emotional integration if it's, not b3.Ianced. Personally, having beenso chaotically emotional at one point,like lava just flowing one way andthen the other, not able to handle it,Ifound sensing was a haven from that.And a way to get insight.the ' tAl ' l l w e get insiBlM. Bat tJieft~ O o l e d on.;: .aad.dlatbecamc:.an.imbaJaa.r;e, Because of thework I'in in and the sensitivity of mysystems, I can swing vety far from oneend to the other, it's not minor changes. So Igot into a lot of fluid problems. Then had to go back into thefluids which was fqr me going back into the emotions. But with insight asa balance, as a supporting structure.CQ: Are the senses able to functionmore easily as a support for the fluidsin a familiar envi1'onment rather thanin unpredictable surroundings?BC: ,Wired : t0U lt iii tmfamilm surroundings tire firsnhiIlg,ott l tb is

i s s - w i ~ y . e u t ' - s e M e S r y o a l ' p ' t l ' C e p nOM 88M' eli"l at Ii peift' "hcze 1 INdQU', kD$W wlret the i m i t ~ ' ' l ' t e . Youretard the fluids in order to be on the

alert. But if you're in an actual moment of danger, if you stop too longto perceive it, you'll be exterminated,you'll die. You simply must act andat that point the perceptions go unconscious. Hopefully you've gainedenough perceptual ability as a supportthat you can survive.CQ: It's a beautiful distinction o u ~ r emaking bet'Ween the fluids being tbeflO'W, the action, and the brain andnervous system being the perceptions,the senses. Contact Improvisation isinteresting in this reSpect because itseems that you re called upon to actas yo u '1 e sensing..,BC: That's when its the most beautiful. In terms of 'Watching Contact,it gets long and tedious unless youhave these moments where someonebreaks out and that's when you fIndyour good contacters. Yoa see t tJellfl.breH e_ . , en_t l l alld h o y ~are acting: It's very exciting and youget a rush from watching it and I'msure you get a rush from doing it.You only see it with people who feelsecure, who've sensed enough to knowthey canlet the senses go. Certainly,if you get me out there, in the beginning there's no way I'm just going torespond because I don't know howto respond. I'm going to go veryslowly and I'm going to want to feelevery little part of my body andwhere it is and then at some pointI l l just go and ro)) with it. There'sno holding back.

"A LOT OF SENSING WORKIS AN ESCAPE FROM THEEMOTIONS, IT ACTUALLYREPRESSES EMOTIONALINTEGRATION IF IT'S NOTBALANCED,"

CQ: At that point you d be flippings y s t e m ~ , from sensing to acting? fromnerr10US system to fluids?Be: Things are not seesaw-like, withone end here and one end there.WInrt'impptM I;tlletl >' 00 go ill'S . 'R~ . . , . u f t t a l ' d ~ - b r e a ~respiration, becltl'l5e you're ietltftHfigIIlefttrtdf. no ilApWtllaec0. thebIcoe i s 1 : h a t i t ' & ~ ' ~ t oalhlte-'e'ellS"itn'ltttkitigi."nft1:tte '\iVattes.it'S' basically about oxygen, which isbreathing. So here you have anothersystem coming in, respiration, to bestudying in relation to the blood. All

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of I: suddell SOIhfi?WiIt ' f a R n ~bteatil illd 1"U 1m"w tlre''fluids>.JmreIiI 'Ett rt!ft!i!!ft. !IIefttl'ttt!l'art''ffiemUlna! lapiIaEiol1 as t : o l 1 i p a : t e d ~ ex...temalrespiratien;1:he-llir;>Wbiclrwe-nermaHytbit1kttf'lS'breathing: The

e x t e ~ n a 1 r e s p j r a t i o h - 1 s ' t o e r x t e d b'1d H t - b l a o t t f t o w i n g ~ l y .CQ: Often in doing sensing 'Work,gt'a'Dity and relaxation 'Work, at e.achlet1el relaxation a deep breath 'Willcome, a release ofsome sort. I''De'Wondered 'What that was about.BC: By sensing, we release the restriction, whether it's muscular or whatever, which releases the blood. Thebrea.th follows. When you feel thatdeep breath, something has been repatterned into the nervous system.CQ: Do you feel that in 'Workingwith one area, such as the eye, thatyou are also 'Working directly witheach of the otber systems?BC, I'm trying to do that with thevision class 9Cimhilltlc AteMat'1mdllld5C!l laE " SWill ef ., t tiUt 81 t ...

VCiHl . SI_, . eec . We do a lot of perceptual work, but what I've been tryingto bring out is that vllft'Jn iIt _thilrtlTtt'r-IDSfT1OW'tfie e y c w a s ~ c i e V e l oped It was tot de.el""ed C