Mutually Evolving Gaze (Patreon)

• If you’re new to LMA, start with our table of contents

Introduction

Mutual gaze and evolving play encapsulates the spirit of the Liberation Martial Arts (LMA) approach in one activity. Even with the same partner, it is impossible to play the same game twice. Change is not just the core of this activity; it is inevitable. Change is the only constant. The game evolves over the iterations, reflecting how our movements and interactions with others are constantly in flux. The one rule for this game that never changes is mutual gaze—the partners must keep looking at each other, continuously maintaining connection and alignment throughout the game.

As the game progresses, new conditions are added, causing the game to organically evolve. Like our ancestors, we learn through iteration and play rather than rigid standardization. One of the most fascinating aspects of this game is how it can start to resemble folk dance or folk martial arts traditions. This isn't by design but by the nature of learning from the same "teachers" as our ancestors—our bodies, the conditions, movement diversity, and the environment. These influences shape our movements, which belong to us and no one else. We own our bodies and our movements.

Games can be top-down

Doing games alone doesn't equate to practicing LMA. A helpful analogy is the difference between how top-down parents and gentle parents approach play. Gentle parents use play as the primary mode of learning, where what is learned remains open-ended. There's no specific outcome in mind, only the potential for discovery. By contrast, top-down parents treat play as something "earned"—a commodity within a capitalist paradigm. Play becomes a reward, a break from learning rather than learning itself—but it's still under the shadow of surveillance and judgment. It exists in opposition to work and development. Rather than deconstructing the colonial stick-and-carrot model, it reinforces it. The intent is ultimately not about fun but control and correction, where learning is segmented into rewards and punishments.

Similarly, movement instructors, especially in martial arts, use games as a break from learning or as a carrot for diligent learners. Despite using games, games are never the focal point of learning itself. Instead, games are presented as a counter or a distraction from learning rather than its fundamental feature. This is why they are rarely sustained or used in a "serious" learning context.

Another example of this top-down structure is when games are used to lead practitioners to a pre-determined, instructor-centered outcome. Who then owns the movement? Instead of being learner-centered and fostering exploration, they manipulate participants into practicing specific movements, reinforcing a colonial, prescriptive approach to learning. It's backward-looking, zoomed in on one precise outcome rather than forward-looking, zoomed out on the learner's conditions and evolving movement landscape. The real question becomes: is the goal to "perfect" a specific move or to become a better, more adaptive mover?

In this game, we are moving like our ancestors—not because that's the intention but because it's emerging from the same soil. The descriptions of this game come from after-the-fact observations. It is a retrospective explanation rather than a pre-set goal. Practitioners aren't told to think about any of this; they are simply encouraged to be in the moment. However, understanding this background helps training organizers demystify the LMA process and eliminate the startle response practitioners often have toward unfamiliar experiences.

Priming for play

We begin by swaying our arms and then transition to walking, feeling the sensation of weight and momentum transferring through the body in a continuous loop. This flow of energy, a core aspect of LMA's wu wei, is derived from the natural forces of gravity and body weight. I prefer to practice this activity without shoes to heighten sensory input and enhance perception. The ground itself becomes a teacher, providing invaluable feedback about balance, posture, and energy distribution.

In LMA, everything starts with executive control—composure and ease. When we are at ease, we can see opportunities for movement. A clearer perception leads to clearer decisions. Perception and executive function give us the cue for movement. From there, movement begins with the trunk, flowing downward through the legs, allowing gravity and body weight to initiate motion (wu wei) rather than forcing muscular effort.

Energy isn't wasted on tension but conserved for movement and perception. When we are internally at ease, it radiates through the body into our limbs. This isn't something to be understood intellectually—it's something to be felt in the body.

Moving without the trunk

Walking without swinging your arms or leading with your trunk demands far more muscular effort. This is because, when you lead with your legs, you're constantly lifting the weight of your legs and extending them forward to pull yourself ahead while your trunk (body weight) lags behind. This results in a constant struggle as your muscles work overtime to maintain balance and resist gravity's backward pull. Since your arms aren't swinging, you're more rigid, lacking counterbalance and rotational momentum. The body becomes a system working against itself, as your energy is spent not only on forward motion but also on stabilizing your weight.

However, when you slightly lean forward and allow your arms to swing in sync with your legs, walking becomes almost effortless—gravity does most of the work. In this more natural alignment, the forward lean initiates movement, and your arms help balance the transfer of weight, allowing you to ride the momentum instead of fighting it. Muscular effort is only required when you resist the natural flow of gravity.

Walking and swaying release built-up tension and "lubricate" the pathways for natural energy—momentum generated by gravity and body weight. This energy is what we call "flow" in LMA and refers to a type of action rather than a psychological state. When energy moves seamlessly through the body, you're in flow. This is not only efficient but also pleasurable. Flow as actions provide a surplus of energy. When combined with the natural music of our movements and the pleasure that comes with it, we can achieve a "flow state." Our actions shape our feelings, and our feelings shape our actions.

Consent and feedback

In this game, a simple slap of the hands signals consent and cues action. We always begin our games with a physical sign of consent, often accompanied by verbal acknowledgments like "safe training" or "good training." However, since this game is no-contact and primarily about vision, we were comfortable with silence throughout the activity.

Without explicit consent, there is no "go." But communication is rarely limited to verbal signals; much of it is implicit. This means we must rely on our perception, not just spoken cues, to pick up on feedback from our partners. Remember, in LMA, perception and executive function are what cue our movements, reflecting the principle of "how you do one thing is how you do all things." This is why we cannot afford to be checked out during training and why perception is paramount. Our attention needs to be partner-centered, not self-centered or self-conscious. Silence does not mean an absence of communication.

Reading your partner's body language, movements, and non-verbal signals becomes essential in creating a safe and mutually respectful environment. Often, what is unsaid is more important than what's verbalized. Actions frequently outweigh words in significance.

Sometimes, words mismatch actions, revealing unprocessed or inaccurate feelings. Consent can be withdrawn without a single word uttered—sometimes even without the practitioner's conscious realization. The body speaks first, often offering the most honest form of feedback. Yet, despite all this, we can only do our best. Err on the side of caution.

Nice culture

"Nice culture" encourages practitioners to vocally acknowledge each other's movements by literally saying "nice" or "good job." Practitioners should constantly give each other props. This simple act not only fosters a supportive and non-competitive atmosphere but also keeps everyone engaged and prevents practitioners from mentally checking out. Constantly acknowledging each other sharpens focus and executive control, ensuring everyone stays present in the moment. If you're checked out, nothing is learned or gained, but risk increases.

However, in the Learning Lab, fostering a "nice" and healthy environment means avoiding the word "perfect." Rather than doing anything perfectly, just move as yourself.

Nice culture also helps to maintain psychological safety while encouraging kinship and community. Regular check-ins are also part of this culture, allowing for ongoing feedback on comfort, safety concerns, and fatigue. These explicit, open channels ensure that all practitioners can express themselves freely and make necessary adjustments.

In addition, nice culture means that anyone can call a time out, pause, or HALT. At the LMA Learning Lab, activities are often conversational since learning is conversational. We communicate and do. As a training organizer, I recognize that when I talk, practitioners will often respond with their bodies. While we speak less than in commercial gyms, the information exchanged is richer and more relevant.

Gaze

Gaze also evolves over the iterations. Initially, practitioners focus on each other's eyes. Eyes direct the trunk, wu wei, and flow. However, as the game progresses, a new condition is introduced: avoid locking gaze. At first, this may seem contradictory. How can you focus on your partner without locking eyes? Yet this reflects LMA's wu wei and Taoist principles—movement through non-action, balance between something and nothing. Rather than contradictory, these ideas are complementary and dialectical, working together to generate new forms of movement and awareness. Without the tension of direct focus (or tension in the body), movement becomes more fluid, embodying effortless action. Gravity flowing through space creates harmony between action and non-action, allowing for natural motion without unnecessary muscular effort.

Two-eyed cyclops

When you look without locking eyes, you end up looking with one eye or the other. Since you have two eyes, you can alternate between them. Everything grows from that seed. Rather than limited to two dimensions, suddenly, you are moving in three. Not just forward and backward, you're exploring lateral, circular, diagonal, and endless other combinations. These evolving conditions guide you to new, diverse patterns of movement.

Maintaining the spirit of the tree sapling, your stance staggers as your gaze alternates. When your gaze sways, so does your weight. In LMA, movement is shapemaking. When you're in the sapling stance, your legs are split, and the gap between them forms a triangle. Whenever you walk, your legs form moving coordinated triangles. As you look with one eye or the other, your entire body transforms into coordinative triangles, shaping your movement. Your perception shapes your body, and your body shapes become movement. Seamlessly transitioning from one shape to the next allows energy to flow smoothly through your body. Keeping the momentum going is flow in action.

Flow as triangles in motion

When you stagger your eyes, you naturally stagger your stance. As you shift your weight with your lead eye, you form distinct triangles with your entire body. By moving your arms, you sharpen your lines and the transfer of body weight. Explore your triangles. For instance, try experimenting with wide and short triangles, tall and narrow ones, or triangles of different angles. Each shape opens up new possibilities for movement, allowing you to move dynamically while maintaining your gaze. We even explore turning in this video, though this can take many iterations to develop.

Respecting the land

Notice how we are not sliding, spinning, or pivoting on the balls of our feet. The hard gym floor acts like the dirt, the soil for many folk movements. Grinding our bare feet on the dirt not only damages our feet but disrespects the ground, which exists to support our feet. We move by occupying space rather than spinning on our feet and moving in place. We are deliberately and skillfully stepping. This naturally makes our movements light and silent. Consider movements where we spin and their origins. European footwear and Japanese tatami mats. How did these conditions spread? What altered non-European and non-Japanese movements? Colonialism.

We must respect the land and our feet. Stepping and walking maximize balance and stability, reducing the risk of slipping or falling. Slipping and falling to the ground has a consequence. Many folk martial arts, especially outside of colonial contexts, were never about self-defense or the military but were instead playful, off-balancing games that fostered kinship, community, and fun. Consider even the coloniality of projecting Western conceptions of the self and the Other to non-European communitarian societies. They didn't innately have Western libertarian/suburban paranoia about fighting their neighbors and did not view their neighbors as the Other. These games were about viewing neighbors as partners in play rather than enemies.

Planting, not uprooting

Plant your feet for balance rather than uproot them. Movement is a connection with the land. Review the sections in our table of contents and consider our tree-sapling analogy. We plant, water, nurture, and grow—this isn't just true for trees but for things that dwell on land. Tree and water analogies are also common for non-European societies.

When you step, you're balancing on the ground and aligning with your partner. Your movement is partner-centered and informed by your partner's position. This doesn't mean you should never spin or pivot. However, these are adaptations to stepping and walking—an evolution from the more grounded practice of moving with a connection to the land and your partner. LMA movement begins with walking. When you spin, you are afforded a specific movement. When you step, you have more movement opportunities. Movement diversity means moving to maximize movement opportunities.

The feet are sensors, not blunt objects

No shoes on a hard surface while tracking your partner does more to guide movement than a million words. Direct feedback from the ground is crucial for fine-tuning your movements. Rather than relying on verbal cues, the feedback from the floor can tell you if you're off-balance or planted. I use simple phrases like "I can hear your feet" or "Melt your feet into the ground" to offer sensory-based feedback.

Triangles are the most stable shape

When force is applied to a triangle, the stress is evenly distributed across all three sides, making it highly resistant to impact and able to bear significant weight without changing shape. In architecture and engineering, triangles provide foundational stability, and the same principle applies to movement. Three points are the minimum requirement for stability. When we walk, each step establishes a new triangle in space. This sequence of triangles occupies the room, carving out space for fluid, grounded movement. Colonial conditioning often limits our capacity to take up space, yet in LMA, occupying space through movement is a radical, restorative act. The more we experiment with different triangles, the more energy we can generate. Shifting through triangles is ultimately about shifting our weight.

Flow through interlocking triangles

The sway of your weight creates energy for movement, and the more dynamic your triangles, the more momentum you generate (e.g., chain wrestling or marching into kicks and knees). Flow arises from this interplay between shifting weight and triangular stability. We go where our weight goes, and our trunk leads the way. As your eyes alternate, your triangles shift, and this constant reshaping powers movement with minimal muscular force.

Flow always begins with ease—ease in the mind, ease in the eyes, ease in the trunk, and ease in the legs. This efficiency mirrors the lever principle: pull at the top for maximum effect. In LMA, you move from the eyes to initiate flow in the entire body. You can't see yourself in motion. Instead, the movement of your eyes directs the rest of your motion. This balance between stability (through triangles) and fluidity (through gaze and movement) allows for coordinative (structured and adaptive) movement.

Soften your gaze

As the practice deepens, you'll transition from focusing on each other's eyes to softening your gaze and directing it toward the trunk. I wait until practitioners have become attuned to their bodies and the ground before introducing this shift. At this stage, visual feedback moves from direct and precise to more indirect but expansive, blending sensory feedback with broader environmental cues.

In softening your gaze, you are no longer fixated on details, allowing you to take in the whole picture. Sometimes it helps to squint, which can also reduce the impulse to close your eyes. Just as jugglers don't track each individual ball but instead focus on the empty space between them (something and nothing—wu wei), or how landscape artists soften their gaze and observe the horizon to capture the entire scene, you soften your gaze and look at the trunk to see the formation of shapes rather than details. This gives you the fastest and most accurate information about your partner's movements.

Whether a mover knows it or not, movement begins with the trunk. By observing the trunk, you can track the movement of their limbs since they are all connected to the trunk. In the same way that a juggler who focuses on a single ball will inevitably drop it, a practitioner who focuses solely on a fist will likely miss the big picture and get hit.

It's like a dance

People often observe our movements and say it's "like a dance." But let's unpack what that really means. At its core, it reflects that we are moving in harmony with our partner—partner-informed and partner-centered. When we base our movements on memorized instructions, we move independently from the information landscape before us—out of sync, breaking harmony, and disrupting flow. Our attention shifts away from the present, and tension builds in our bodies. Instead of being responsive to the actual environment and our partner, we become detached—our executive control is stuck in the past. This is the opposite of flow but instead a startled psychological state.

Contradiction isn't about action versus non-action (wu wei); it's about trying to control your present while sending your executive control back in time. Being in dialectical harmony means using the current landscape as your information source rather than spending time and energy recalling past idealized, irrelevant, and disconnected instructions. Imagine being in a relationship where, despite your physical presence, your attention is elsewhere. The other person feels alone, and the relationship deteriorates. This is the dysfunction that Western hegemony replicates in all practices.

When your attention is on your thoughts or your instructor's past instruction, it's no longer on your partner or the environment. When you're lost in thought, you lose perceptual, executive, and motor control. It cuts you off from sensory input and connection. You're in an isolation tank, alone with your thoughts. Whether you're processing something your instructor yelled at you or replaying their advice in your head, you're no longer engaged with the moment. You're essentially shutting down. Like in a deteriorating relationship, your attention has drifted away from your partner, your shared environment, and the present experience. Your internal monologue becomes the only thing you're aware of. Western individualist society encourages self-centered attention—conditioned to focus on yourself rather than the present or your connection to others.

Universal folk patterns

The movements we foster in this game naturally begin to resemble various movement arts. This game can benefit every movement practice or become a scaffold for developing a specific movement discipline. LMA is not tied to a particular practice; it's an approach, a lens through which we explore and expand our movement repertoire. We aren't trying to be better fighters but better movers. Like our ancestors, by rooting ourselves in the environment and our community, we tap into universal movement principles that transcend any single practice or style.

Shining a light

In this condition, we imagine that our hands emit a bright beam of light. Without touching each other, the aim is to shine this light into our partner's eyes while avoiding their beam.

We move with flow, not aggression. There are no stakes; we are not attacking. Instead, we act as our partner's guide. Our hands direct our partner's movement, helping each other become more perceptive and adaptable movers. Notice how when you leave your hand extended, you're essentially stuck in a pose, which restricts flow. For the sake of fluidity, we don't want to hold positions. Extended poses create tension, and tension disrupts movement. As long as both participants continue to move, each will naturally have opportunities to shine. The light becomes an extension of the swaying of the arms, helping both partners remain in motion.

What naturally emerges from this game? Evasive movements, and sometimes even striking or grabbing motions. Various martial arts will emerge since we work from the same bedding as our ancestors. However, this isn't the goal. The purpose is to explore movements. Reducing this open game to specific movement drills will stifle growth and limit discovery. Practitioners should move as themselves.

It's not about the game but the approach. When you understand the approach, the games naturally appear. The focus is on creating psychological safety and supporting practitioners in exploring how they move. Our method for achieving that is called "games." This activity isn't about memorizing specific techniques but rather about responding to tasks and the environment in ways that feel organic. Practitioners are naturally attracted to movements resembling boxing, wrestling, or various South Asian and African martial arts because that's how these movement disciplines emerged. We don't think about movements as techniques to catalog and memorize but rather as responses to conditions and cues. Colonial teaching methods teach backward: identifying a "perfect" endpoint and working in reverse. LMA fosters growth more like a tree—nurtured and forward-moving.

In the Learning Lab, practitioners—many of whom have trauma or chronic pain—become adept in grappling or kickboxing within days because the movements they develop are compatible with those rulesets. The commercial model is often inaccessible by design. LMA, on the other hand, allows the oppressed to flourish by removing barriers to intuitive movements.

Stepping over tall grass

This is an example of how we evolved this game over the iterations. You do not have to try all these conditions on the same day. Feel free to adapt or create your own conditions based on what emerges (and let me know how they work out). In this condition, we pretend the room is covered in tall grass and reeds, and we must step over them while maintaining our footing. Meanwhile, we continue shining our imaginary lights at each other. After a while, our hands drift higher because this gives us easier access to our partner's faces, shortening the trip and reducing effort. As a byproduct, blocking emerges.

Striking emerges

From simply responding to the conditions and the land, movements resembling kicking, punching, or obstructing kicks with the legs emerge. These kicks and strikes don't happen because you're consciously trying to kick; they arise from your body placement and your partner being in the path of your movement. Moving informed by your partner and moving trunk-first gives you the kick or punch for free—this is wu wei. We're moving to get past our partner, and everything else happens along the way.

Every movement is total-body, initiated by the trunk. For instance, as you avoid your partner's beam of light, your trunk moves, and your leg trails behind, making a kick a byproduct of your positioning rather than the primary goal—your partner is caught in the trajectory of your kick as you avoid their beam of light. As your body moves out of your partner's line of sight, your trailing leg ends up closest to your partner. The distance from the shin to the partner is a short one. In other words, for your shin to be closest to your partner, your body has to get out of the way. When your body gets out of your partner's way, your shin automatically lines up with them.

This illustrates the importance of exploration over rigid outcomes. If we were to set kickboxing as the objective, participants would likely revert to familiar techniques and miss out on organic movement discovery. They would simulate kicks they already know, closing themselves off to new information and their information space. Creating kickboxing as the objective not only limits their learning but also introduces competition and tension since they are pretending to strike each other—creating the conditions to erode psychological safety and flow, returning us to a colonial model of movement.

Flowing forward

LMA's open-ended approach flips the usual method of instruction. Instead of working backward from a pre-set goal (e.g., teaching kickboxing), we allow movements to emerge naturally and let people surprise us. At the Learning Lab, practitioners quickly became proficient in kickboxing, not because that was the goal but because that's what emerged. If getting good at kickboxing was the goal, it would take years. Why is open-ended better? Through experience, you're acquiring answers before the questions come up. When you've thoroughly explored your solution space, there aren't many questions left to ask. Knowing their solution space means practitioners can move intuitively—which gives them a head start when they compete against people from commercial gyms who move through rehearsed patterns and recall disconnected from their present information landscape. Instruction begets confusion, which begets lots of questions. When practitioners explore, there are hardly any questions. Why do kids not ask their parents about a video game they've been playing? Because they already know all the answers. Giving them lots of instructions before they even get to play would only raise questions because nothing you say would make sense, their questions won't make sense, and your answers won't make sense. What is the solution? Just let them play the game. What is a question anyway? An expression to get more information or context. A question means information is lacking. If you have access to the information landscape and context, you are no longer lacking.

What is a "clean" strike

Only by emerging movements and working forward rather than backward can we understand what a "clean" strike is. When you seek the nebulous idea of a clean strike, you lack both a map and a destination. However, when you see it emerge, you see exactly the ingredients for what made it "clean." For example, a "clean" kick arises when you've moved out of your partner's line of sight. The effect is the shot lands cleanly—your partner doesn't react. What is the cause? Your partner doesn't see it. They can no longer track you when they can no longer track your trunk. A kick is a result of trunk movement. As your body moves, your trailing leg swings up, following the flow of the rest of your body. This movement feels effortless because all your weight is on the opposite leg, freeing the kicking leg to swing naturally. Meanwhile, your arms swing down, creating slack and momentum, allowing your leg to rise smoothly—like a seesaw.

This fluid, total-body movement aligns with the principle that nothing is isolated. Each movement is a coordinated action that starts from the trunk and extends through the limbs, following the path of least resistance while respecting the natural flow of gravity, weight distribution, and balance.

Shining light from our feet

In this condition, we imagine beams of light emanating from the balls of our feet. We aim this light at our partner while they evade its path. Just like with our hands, we move our feet in a way that avoids contact but is still close enough to guide movement. We continue working with the previous conditions, but through experimentation, we discover that the light from our hands can guide our partner toward the light from our feet and vice versa. Rather than merely reacting to each other, the light serves as a tool to shape and co-create movements between us and our partner.

What's fascinating is how dramatically our movements evolve from simple conditions over the course of a few minutes. Without conscious thought or effort, we no longer stand directly in front of one another but shift to each other's sides—outside the line of our arms and legs. Our movements are no longer aimless; instead, they have clear intent—to track our partner while staying outside their line of sight. The efficiency of these adaptations naturally conserves energy.

The principle of wu wei—effortless action—guides this process. It becomes easier to move when we harness our body weight and flow with the situation, positioning ourselves to access our partner while they cannot track us. This isn't about the nebulous idea of footwork or rigid footwork drills. Instead, it's about perceiving where you need to be and placing yourself there. Achieving that requires two things: executive control and perception. In LMA, 90% of our practice revolves around cultivating ease (executive control) and perception. Perception is developed through experience, and so is ease. When ease, control, and information come together, movement flows effortlessly.

The art of snuggling without snuggling

Over just a few minutes, without any formal instruction, our movements begin to naturally evolve into more circular and angular patterns. We also start orbiting each other more closely. The further we are from each other, the easier we are to track. Distance means a longer, more predictable path to access our partner. But when we close the gap—getting snug without touching—it becomes harder for our partner to track or anticipate our movements.

At this proximity, we move almost shoulder to shoulder. Being close allows us to evade our partner's legs and arms more efficiently and makes it harder for them to track us. Even if you try to evade at a distance, your partner can quickly adjust by tracking with their arm or turning toward you. However, by staying close—nearly shoulder to shoulder—you deny your partner access to you while still having access to them. If you're positioned behind or beside them, you can move freely, and they can't track you as easily.

Elusive movement isn't about being fast or racing from a distance. If you're far away, your partner can see all your movements, no matter how quick or complex. But when you're close and snug—where their visual field is most restricted—even slow and subtle movements can allow you to effectively "disappear" from their perception. Test this concept yourself by standing far away from a mirror: you can see your whole body. But as you get closer to the mirror, especially so close that your face almost touches it, your reflection becomes distorted. Suddenly, you can only see your shoulders, and everything else disappears.

Music and continuous play

Music has always been intertwined with various folk arts, including folk martial arts. The costumes, movements, and rhythms emerged from the same cultural roots. I often use music in the videos because movement has a natural tempo. Our steps have music to them. Folk movements that emerge from the land have music to them. You will never know that music if you reduce movement to standardized isolated drills and endlessly repeat them. Colonialism fragmented our sense of movement in the same way it fragmented our connection to our bodies, cultures, communities, or the land. We still categorize our bodies and movements as isolated pieces (ourselves as isolated individuals). We've been conditioned to think of the body as separate from the mind, a Western Cartesian paradigm that's non-native to non-European cultures. Westernization disembodies us.

Music means continuous. It represents flow and uninterrupted play. If our ancestors had trained the way we do now—with isolated and segmented movements—why would music have accompanied their practice? It only makes sense if they learned through play rather than drills. Learning was holistic, integrated, and rooted in harmony with the environment, their partner, and their own bodies. Isolated movements are movements removed from harmony. Today, even when music is present, it serves as background noise and is independent of training other than as a vibe or a distraction so learners can check out.

Shared orbit

Like two stars drawn into each other's gravity, we become one. We are koi fish circling in a pond or yin-yang in motion; our movements express adaptation and flow, collaboration without force—naturally and without intent. These observations come only in hindsight. At the time, we're not consciously thinking about how we look—nor can we know from our first-person perspectives. We're simply flowing and vibing, embodying wu wei—effortless action.

Flowing is easy. What's hard is releasing tension and fostering ease. The difficulty lies in the unlearning—releasing ingrained habits and constraints that prevent fluid motion. For adults, it's about developing the courage to play, something children naturally possess. They haven't yet been conditioned out of it. Once play becomes second nature again, as in childhood, courage is no longer needed. What remains is simply you, your partner, and the environment in an infinite loop.

Your eyes face out, not inward. Center your partner and your environment. Distribute your weight and become a stable triangle. Respond fluidly to each other and the conditions. You and your partner in harmony are no longer separate individuals. Together, you are stars in your own universe, moving as one with the rhythms of the space around you.

– Sam