Julian And Mara Run A Workshop

Nate and I are at Julian and Mara’s new place. They have rented a large apartment accross the street from their office. The place is a bit fake fancy, with wood floors and a gas fire place. We’re on the fourth floor, and the living room has large windows with a view of Lake Merritt and the Oakland skyline. Julian and Mara live here, but their main plan is to use the space for workshops and events. Everyone is sitting on floor cushions, in a circle throughout the living room. I have the view of the gas fireplace. Nate who is sitting next to me is staring out of the enormous windows into the distance. 

We’re here as beta testers for their new workshop format. Today they are teaching a class on energy work for beginners. Except that the class is named “Bodywork for beginners”, dropping the term “energy work” in favor of “body work”. Because energy is objectionable to the modern mind. Bodies, however, are okay. Everyone believes in the existence of bodies. Julian and Mara are developing a plan for their new institute. There is an institute now. Five weeks ago there was no institute, just a bunch of us sitting on the floor, practicing energy work. We have yet to name the institute. I had always previously thought that things like institutes came with a certain gravitas. This one came with a bit of paperwork, and a plaque on the door. Except that the plaque is still in the mail and we’ve put up a piece of paper on the door as a placeholder. The paper says “Institute for the Science of Bodywork”. We’re still working on the name. 

Adrian and Ashlyn are here. At some point in the not too distant past I’ve started thinking of those two as actual people, rather than simply followers. Sean is here too. And a middle aged woman from one of Julian’s Tai Chi classes.  I feel good about the people here. Like they’re my people. Like we’re all here in this thing together, doing something that matters. I guess this feeling is a form of belonging. I make eye contact with the older lady. She is wearing a lovely pashmina scarf, in beautiful red tones, covered in oriental looking paisley patterns. She has the scarf wrapped around her shoulders, almost like a blanket. It looks cozy. 

Mara starts addressing the class. Her demeanour is a little shy, as if she isn’t fully sure of herself in her teaching role. “Welcome to the workshop”, she says. “I know that most of you have experience already, but I’m planning to teach this as if you were completely new to the subject. We want to have this class be beginner-friendly. So, forgive me, if I say boring things.” I smile inwardly. I like her style of teaching. It’s unpretentious. “In bodywork, what we’re interacting with is a person’s sense of self. Which sometimes takes exactly the shape of their physical body, but often it’s actually bigger or smaller than that. We’re all constantly reshaping this self-concept, according to the needs of the activity we’re doing. When we’re driving a car our self-concept may expand to include the whole car, or when we’re skiing, the skies. Tools, too. Or pens. When you write it’s kinda like the pen is part of your body, right? That’s what I mean. And there is a boundary there, between what the person thinks of as ‘self’ and what is considered ‘not self’. We’re looking for this boundary. Most of us have an implicit sense of that already. Like, we know how close to stand to someone in different contexts. What’s ‘their’ space. So that’s a starting point.” Adrian raises his hand and Mara invites him to speak. “What about people whose self-concepts are smaller than their bodies?” he asks. “Ah, yes, good question”, says Mara appreciatively. “Some people habitually leave parts of their bodies. It relates to trauma. Some psychologists call this a ‘leaving’ pattern. Or dissociation. We’ll learn some ways to work with that as we go. For now we’ll just focus on noticing how this is, for different people.”

A little bit later Mara guides us into an exercise. “Try to see whether you can feel the other person’s boundary,” she says. “Try sensing it. Then try to touch it, and see what happens when you’re on the boundary, vs. over it, vs further away. Notice whether what happens matches your expectations. Then debrief with your partner.” I am partnered with the lady who is wearing the red scarf. Her name is Gina. I take the first turn, working on her. I’ve done this practice a bunch and I find her boundary easily. She seems to be comfortable with my hand as it’s touching her boundary, which is located eight to ten inches from her skin, shaped vaguely like an egg. A fairly classical shape, indicating that she’s comfortable with her own energy field. If I move my hand beyond the boundary she tenses up ever so subtly. I can tell that it makes her uncomfortable, and that she seems a bit apologetic about that. I feel apologetic too, even though I’m just following instructions. It’s awkward. It always is. 

When it’s her turn she doesn’t quite dare put her hands on my energetic boundary. She stays well outside of it, moving her hands gently over the space around me, as if trying to sense where I am. Mara comes by and gently adjusts the position of her hands. Now Gina’s hands move in too close. Her jaw has a set to it, as if she’s pushing herself outside of her comfort zone because that’s what’s expected of her. I try to send soothing vibes in her direction, which seems to do exactly nothing. I glance at Mara, a silent plea for help. Mara glances back, a wry smile on her lips. I wonder if it felt similarly awkward to practice with me when I was first starting out. I guess if they could brave the awkwardness for me, then I can do the same for Gina. The thought is comforting, normalizing. I relax and almost simultaneously I can sense Gina relaxing too. We smile awkwardly. This is going to take some getting used to.

On our way home Nate and I finally get a chance to talk to each other about the workshop. “That was something,” he says. He sounds contemplative. I turn my head to catch his expression, only able to see his face at an angle as we’re walking next to each other. He walks fast and I’m a little out of breath. Sometimes I have to remind him that I have shorter legs. I let his comment sit. “What do you mean?” I say. With Nate I have to make sure to draw out his opinions, lest he stay silent. He tends to make a lot of space for other people to talk. But he often leaves his own perspective spaciously hidden. “It was scrappy,” he says. “But it has a lot of potential. They have something like technical depth. The way they’re engineering their material. Things feel more like tools than like instructions. It’s good.” I know what he means. There’s something about Julian and Mara that belies the casualness of their setup. Like a deep well of sophistication. No matter the question, they’re never short an answer that seems both attuned and illuminating. Listening to them talk to an audience is it’s own form of joy. “What do you think about the plan with the institute?” I ask as we follow the curving path around Lake Merritt. He takes a moment to answer. “It’s ambitious,” he says. “Could be harder than they’re expecting. Definitely a different feel from what we’re used to.” He means academia. Nate and I met in psychology grad school. He wrote his thesis  on the neuroscience of emotions, working on developing tools to quantify people’s emotional behaviors from video, audio and language. Hard science. It makes me wonder how much trust he places in Julian and Mara’s intellectual rigor. They’re not exactly scientists, despite the name on the plaque. 

When we make it to Guru Curry for dinner, Sara is already sitting at a table. I walk over to the tea station, snagging some free chai, giving them a moment to reacquaint with each other. Sara hadn’t exactly been invited to the workshop. I wonder if that bothered her. She hasn’t shown much interest in Julian and Mara’s work, despite my and Nate’s excitement. I think she doesn’t really like Julian, or something. But then again, it was a small group of beta testers, so not exactly an insult to not have been asked to come. But I’m glad I was asked. And I think Nate was glad too. When I return to the table my friends have ordered food. Lamb and chicken tikka masala, garlic naan, a salad, mango lassis for everyone. We basically get the same stuff everytime. They make a great tikka masala sauce here. The conversation has moved on to a fancy party in the city we’ve been invited to. I sit in the chair next to Nate, my thoughts still wrapped up in workshop content. Nate and Sara chatter comfortably. When the food comes, we all share the meals family-style. It’s what we do.