Author: Francine Walls

Krista was an amazing leader, as usual.  Her theme was nurturance.

First, before the Warm-up, we stood in a circle, and she had us close our eyes and feel our feet relax and open the top-of-our head chakra.  She said, “Take a few minutes to move in any way you want” which we did.  She shook a shaker style noisemaker to give us a beat.  After that, with our eyes open, we went around the circle and made a shape to show how our energy felt at the moment.

Krista put on some music, and we did a Walk/Stop/Run in which we connected with others in the room.  After this, we let a partner happen.  Sara was my partner.  We made shapes with our partner both slowly moving to a shape, and then moving quickly to a shape.  Sara and I had a great time doing a ballet together.  We made VERY unusual shapes.  Delightful.   She has a dance background that showed through.  (Also, she once took a welding class at Seattle College in order to work in the shipyards years ago.  Rosie the Riveter!)

We did the Follow the Leader form with partners.  Partner Number One made faces that Partner Number Two imitated.  Then we went back and forth making face-shapes at will with the other imitating the face-shape.  I played with MaryAnn.   Lorraine said during the Noticing that it hurt to make faces due to her Parkinsons.

Krista took the “I can talk about “ form and used it in an unusual way.  This time we talked in gibberish.  We kept the same partner as before.  We went back and forth saying, “I can talk about (fill in the blank with gibberish),” but not talking about it at length.   Then, we “talked” with our partner at length about a topic we had mentioned in gibberish.  After this, we took the topic that we had “talked” about in gibberish at length, and we danced it with our partner as a witness.  I did the gibberish and the dance about reading my poetry tomorrow evening as a featured reader at a poetry venue.  Afterward, we did Noticing with our partner.

Then, the entire group divided into groups of three.  First, in our small group, we went around the group using a word Krista gave us and singing about it individually.  Then, Krista had us do the same thing with different words but for the entire group.  She had us sings about words like Homelessness.   (I sang:  “The Jungle.  The Jungle.  The Beast in the Jungle.  Amen.”)  She gave other groups words like “Politics,” “Urban Planning,”  “Nail Polish.  Our group played with the word, “Body Piercings.”  I sang, “When I lived in Africa, many did body piercings.  They pierced this (pointed to my ears); they pierced that (pointed to my nose) and, they pierced … (I threw up my hands), “OMG, you’re kidding!”

We ended by doing a toning song.  As usual, she had us start incrementally by trying out different ways to tone.  Then, she set up a rhythm sound sequence (form:  foundation sound, decoration sound, decoration sound), and we started to make tones.  We really got in the groove and kept it going for about eight or so minutes.  We really sounded wonderful!   Terrific morning!!