JoyList: Things that make me go OH!

I haven’t done this in a while so here are some things that are making me happy or feeding into my curiosity or making me go OH! in a big way. I hope some of them do the same for you.

This tai chi guy is one of my fave movers right now and his shorts on YouTube (and TikTok) are just the right bit of info to give me something to play with or think about with my movement.

We often think of “exercise” (not the movement play you and I do together) as activating of the fight or flight response on the brain level (and it is), but now research is showing the vagus nerve can be active too. I’m thinking that what you and I often do together is activating all kinds of safety in the body so I find this research interesting.

This podcast is delightful on many levels. The Movement Movement is hosted by a guy who talks in a way that totally reminds me of Jeff Goldblum. Same sorts of rhythms and phrasings. HY.STERICAL. BUT he also has a lot of great guests and he’s pushing the ideas around movement in ways that I appreciate and you will too. This particular episode has a section about healing touch that is compelling on an neuroscience level. They don’t call it healing touch but that’s what you, my woo sisters, would know it as. ((smile)) Here it is on Spotify and here it is on YouTube.

Speaking of Tai Chi, here’s one of my favorite choreographers whose work is grounded in Tai Chai, working with one of my favorite companies. When you’re watching, think about the body’s weight and gravity. It’s something we can all play with more.

I’m really digging this dancer who is currently in residency at the Baryshnikov Arts Center in NYC.

Pilates is notoriously NOT body inclusive. (And yes, there are exceptions…I’m about to talk to one…) THIS instructor on Instagram is working to change that (and here’s another with whom I’ve actually taken classes here in Columbus).

If you love earrings and art and artful earrings, please go and check out and support my friend Brandy Morris. She’s an amazing human doing beautiful work.

What has been bringing you joy? I’d love to hear! Please send me clips, links, whatever as you come across them. I love collecting all these shiny bits.

JoyList: Interesting research and other schtuff

I have a bunch of tabs open with research so here we go…

FIRST I will start with a request: any time you come across any kind of research or anything interesting about the body and movement, can you please email me a link? THANK YOU!

They’ve created vibrating haptic suits for deaf people to experience music on a new level, but I also want to try these! How amazing.

You know how I feel about the word exercise, but this article is certainly worth a read. Replace “exercise” with movement or play, and I think it makes the findings even more DUH. And I sure love the name they’ve given myokines — “hope molecules.” Perfect.

This study shows even more clearly that muscle weakness as we age is associated with all cause mortality. And they observed 1200 individuals over an 8 to 10 year period.

Remember that to get really strong you don’t need weights. You just need to use your own body weight really well, considering alignment, mobility, and chageability of task. (Which is a lot of what floor work is about in Peony Method classes.)

And this study looked at 80,000 people (yep… 80,000) and it shows that strength training is more effective than cardio in terms of cancer prevention.

If you’re not yet clear on this, the new Barbie film is not just some fluff piece but rather a strong feminist film. So maybe, if you’re thinking NAH…, consider going. In the meantime, the music lists are super fun. Here’s one.

An 11 minute butoh video that is recent. I think if you just jump around in this randomly, you’ll come upon some idea to work with in your own body.

This article about the neuroscience of dance is filled with links to other studies. This is a field that is not new to me and my students, but it’s finally getting the serious research it deserves.

Re/Joy in this shitty time

Name one era when you think things were better, and I’ll be 100% correct that it wasn’t, no matter what time you name. History repeats itself, for sure. If one group isn’t marginalized, a whole host of others are.

When I was in college in the late 80’s/early 90s, things did feel like they were somehow shifting. Yet even that was an illusion: the economy was tanking, poverty was rising, homelessness was worse than ever (thanks, Reagan), incarcerations were on the rise and wouldn’t stop (and won’t stop), the war on drugs was targeting the wrong thing and the wrong people (for the most part), people were banning music (remember that?), the excess of the few was the leap off of the cliff that would start the real climate spiral, and I could go on.

Today things feel worse because they’re so much more on the surface and in our face pretty much 24/7. We had a toxic idiot of a President that made all hate acceptable in a very public way. (Some would argue we needed to see that … that too many of us were still living in denial… I kinda agree.)

So all times have, technically, been shitty times. For someone. For groups of someones.

And yet humanity keeps trying to move forward. Honorable or stupid? Some days I go back and forth depending on how exhausted and angry I’m feeling.

Most days… most days, I feel like we’re to be admired for a seemingly bottomless well of hope and effort and optimism.

Most days, I understand that those of us with access to hope and effort and optimism have to hold on to those things, if not for ourselves then for those who just can’t anymore.

To do this requires a certain kind of mental, emotional, and spiritual musculature. It’s easy, in this world, to allow that to atrophy, and then when we need it, to act surprised by its weakness.

In other words, we have to use some of our effort muscle to keep our hope, effort, and optimism muscles in shape. The world needs them.

How do we do this? What is the “gym” of this sort of workout?

It’s the very world that we can find so utterly reprehensible.

But we need to take that world in our hands and turn it every so slightly so we’re looking at it from a different angle: we need to look at it in better lighting so that we can see the beauty and love there. There are days that no matter how much we adjust the angle or the lighting that the beauty and love we find feels just about… microscopic. But that doesn’t matter.

It’s in this noticing and then in the naming that we work out. This is our gym. These are the weights we lift over and over for strength. The treadmills we walk and run for stamina. The stretches we use to maintain mobility.

And these sorts of workouts for emotional, mental, and spiritual musculature need to be as consistent as any we do for our bodies. You know full well that you can’t run a marathon if you’ve been sitting on the couch for the entire year leading up to it. You’re not surprised that you can’t deadlift some crazy amount if you’ve never picked up anything heavier than a soup can.

But we act surprised by our own exhaustion over the work of the world when we’ve done very little to maintain our healthy connection to that same world. We wonder at our anger and our rage that is paralyzing when we’ve done nothing to feed our joy that is mobilizing.

Start small, just like you would with any exercise program. Small steps, small amounts, build slowly but be mindful and intentional and persistent to the point of stubborn.

Start today: go outside with a small notebook and just make lists of everything you see that you love. Do this for… five minutes. Then do it tomorrow and the day after and the day after…

Gut bacteria and motivation, tripping and genes, grip strength and aging, and more studies to inspire you

I thought I’d start an occasional/regular post here where I share interesting studies that I come across and maybe some dance/movement videos that I have found inspiring in some way. Just a collection of insightful/cool/funny/inspirational/helpful links sort of post.

Here we go…

I’ve known a lot of students and friends who tell me they don’t get that happy chemical kick from movement that so many of us talk about, and well, there might be a reason that’s all about gut bacteria. To quote from the top of the article: “A compelling new study has identified a gut-brain pathway in mice that connects specific gut bacteria with an animal's motivation for exercise.” Read the whole thing here.

For those of you who feel like you’re constantly running into stuff or tripping or whatever… like you have zero control over your body… or maybe you’ve been called clumsy your whole life, well, it looks like there’s a genetic component to that. Read about it here.

This article is preaching to the choir about what movement does for the brain but what’s great about it is the resources list at the bottom. Check it out.

We know that strength is important but a new study directly links weak muscles to increased biological aging. The study was based on 8 to 10 years of observation of over 1200 people. This sentence really caught my eye:

"One study even found that (grip strength) is a better predictor of cardiovascular events, such as myocardial infarction, than systolic blood pressure – the clinical hallmark for detecting heart disorders."

WHOA. Read the whole thing here.

And if you ever doubt that your attitude toward aging affects your health, read this article, which also talks about a study that I used to talk about a lot… Check out the paragraph about the Counterclockwise study.

And finally, you know what a FOOT FREAK I am so it’s no wonder that that’s what I want you to focus on when you watch this short but beautiful video by Tao Dance Theatre, a company that studies Tai Chi and Ballet every day in equal measure.