May 7th - June 18th Session: Courage

Here are the notes from our April 30 potluck and the overview for this session:

When: 7 Mondays, taking us through 6/18. Our next potluck will tentatively be on 6/25. The space is open for personal warmup from 6:30-7pm. Focused lab starts at 7pm sharp, which is also when we'll stop chit-chatting.

Who: Mike, Liz, Cyrus, Roel, Michal, Cody, Scott, Kaitlyn, Sheila, Nate, Christian, Lisa

Cost: $20/person. I vote that we just standardize this and put any excess into a fund that will go towards a lab retreat / special event.

Facilitation: Cyrus is facilitating week 1, all about being upside-down. Mike is facilitating week 2 (audits! whoah!). The rest are TBD.

 

The big theme: COURAGE

 

Underlying research questions:

• Where are the places that we stop ourselves from going in the dance (physically, emotionally, intimately, narratively)?
• What would it look like to find the courage to go to these places?
• Is protecting ourselves from these scary spots necessary? Are we actually in any sort of real danger?
• Are there any skills we could learn/exchange/develop that would make it safer to go to these spots?
• Is there any way to find more ease or comfort in in scary or uncomfortable places?

Structural considerations, ideas, and requests:

• More direct feedback: People have voiced that they'd like more opportunities to receive direct feedback/advice/direction about their dancing. We talked about building in audits, or places where people can take stock of specific habits or tendencies and receive direct feedback and direction around them from other labbers.
• ...but less talking. While processing and reflection is important, folks weren't sure that talking and processing actually affects the course of the lab or how any of us dance. How do we reflect in meaningful ways, and in more varied ways than just a talking circle?
• Focused collective warm-up time so that we drop into the dance, physically and mentally. Folks reiterated that they like to have a clear, focused, and extended warmup that allows us all to arrive on all levels together and "drop in."
• Less "classy," more "labby." Folks wanted to see more possibility of lab participants actively changing the course of a lab and being more actively involved in engaging the research questions. Cyrus had the idea of introducing counterfacilitators, designated folks whose role is to actively check and redirect the facilitator to reflect the needs and interests of the group, or just keep things interesting. Other folks suggested coming with more open structures or setups that allow the full group more active input in a developing flow for the night.