Comments | aquaeri: But is that three?

aquaeri

But is that three?

Jun 11, 2005 22:42

mrissa made a much-commented-upon post about naming three things you like about your body.

( I've held off writing anything about it, because I feel weird after reading all the comments )

mental health, body image, body, anxiety

Comments 26

corivax June 12 2005, 02:13:54 UTC

I admire your attitude; I hope I can manage a similar one myself someday. :)

aquaeri June 13 2005, 00:57:44 UTC

Well, this is a long-term project for me, and part of the reason I talk about it in this way is because it is an ongoing process.

I've done dance classes with "real" dancers - people who just are, and always have been, in their bodies. They don't know how to talk about some of this stuff, partly because it's a self-evident experience and they rarely know what not moving regularly feels like, and partly because some of them are not very eloquent verbally. If you spend time with them and learn to "read" bodies you understand why they don't really need to be, words are not terribly good at communicating a lot of this stuff.

(The comment has been removed)

aquaeri June 13 2005, 05:11:52 UTC

But words were the only way to let someone like me come close enough to their world to be able to see it on the horizon, and for a long time I was terribly frustrated that no teacher would be precise enough about what and how you were supposed to do things to even allow me to start trying.See, I was pretty much the same for a while. I wanted to be told what to do, and I wanted to think about how to do it and control my body doing it. And I tried very, very hard, and made a bit of progress, but mainly felt like a complete klutz. And at some point, I decided to try the other way - the dive into unnamedness and unthinkingness and just watch and copy. My first attempt is never right, but the mere attempt makes me aware of what I wasn't even seeing before, and after a few tries, I'm usually happy with how I'm doing it ( ... )