Sorry su-nami, I probably should have been more explicit on my webpage, and probably will in the future when I actually offer the book and paid courses. At the time I wrote some of the material, it didn't seem quite as important.
However, I have studied shiatsu massage for four years in the Iokai Shiatsu school founded by Shizuto Masunaga. This school places a great importance on learning to feel the meridians and acupuncture points, something which isn't always the case in other schools. We also practice a lot of Qigong and Do-in self-massage and stretching, and enter into the theory underlying Chinese medicine, yin/yang and the five elements in some detail. I have also been studying the Taoist classic texts for quite a while, and found the 11th century book on internal alchemy, "Understanding Reality" by Chang Po-tuan, to be particularly enlightening. I sometimes prefer to talk about Chinese medicine instead of alchemy, since this calls to mind images of robed figures stirring cauldrons in the middle of the night. My current contact work is centered around the cycle of five elements ("movements"), and I spend quite a bit of time working with people through the phases of Earth -> Metal -> Water -> Wood -> Fire -> Earth. I combine the use of the senses with specific movements, as well as advising people to notice where there are zones of excess tension or insufficient tension; and I work on all areas of the body, emphasizing the use of both peaks and valleys in the body's surface in order to develop an overall balance and fluidity in the body's movements.
As far as dance goes, I have studied what the French call "rock dancing" for two years (as well as all the ballroom dancing that went with it), Lindy Hop for a little over a year, African dancing from the Côte d'Ivoire for about a year, folk dancing for one year, and contact improv for well over a year. There might be another class or so that I'm forgetting right now. However, I don't think your question was about my studies in dance.
Although I may not have mentioned it on the webpage you're quoting from, I also apprenticed for several years with some Toltec shamans from Don Miguel Ruiz's lineage. I suppose the apprenticeship isn't entirely finished, although my move to France cut our personal contact down to almost nil. If I choose to do so in the future, I have their blessing to teach to others what I've learned from them.
As far as ball contact goes, I learned it on my own through trial and error, experimenting with the concepts and trance techniques I had learned first during my shamanic apprenticeship, and then through my training in Qigong and shiatsu massage. The year-and-a-half date you refer to was the length of time I learned on my own without any contact with contact jugglers. After this time, I decided to see what others were doing, and realized that it was wildly different from what I was now regularly practicing myself. So after this year and a half of learning on my own, I decided to compile a list of notes about what I had discovered and ideas that came to me during my practice sessions, and eventually these began to take on a semi-structured shape. This list of notes, derived from application of my shamanic training to practice with a ball, eventually began to resemble a book, and I continued to add first what I discovered from the Taoist classics and my shiatsu and dance classes, and then from my extra research into Chinese medicine, trance states and neurochemistry, and general health. I'm not the greatest expert in all of these subjects, and I don't claim to be, but I do have enough experience to understand some of the basic principles that underly not only ball contact, but all life as we know it. That's what I teach, and not just with a ball. As far as teaching with a ball, I've been doing Lightning Contact now for five years, and have introduced enough people to it to be able to recognize where people are going wrong and offer them helpful advice.
And yes, I wasn't sure about the wording on that page. "Laying claim to health benefits" is dangerous ground to walk upon, especially without proper research and testing which would probably be impossible without a huge laboratory with a control group learning "false contact" and another one learning "true contact" (if these two ideas even had any meaning). And yes, I may be liable to be sued if I don't cover all the scenarios in which someone could hurt themselves, and honestly, many of us do risk wrist or shoulder injuries if we don't take necessary precautions. This is one reason that the publishing of my book has been delayed for over a year: I've managed to sustain mild injuries of various types through my own trials and errors, and I want to warn people of as many of these dangers as possible, while giving them some basic ground rules to avoid them.
"A sense of unity with others"? Well, perhaps that is a lot to promise, but it's based on my own experience with the "Impulse" phase of Lightning Contact, in which I begin to feel a "connection" with the ball, which then widens and opens up into a feeling of unity and harmony with not only the ball, but with my surroundings as well. This state, which is one of "exactly right" automatic reactions to external stimuli, tends to last for quite a while after my sessions are over, and bleeds over into my contact with other people. I tend to know just what to do and say in almost any circumstance, as if I were naturally gifted in whatever it is I'm doing at the time. So maybe you're right, and that I make great claims which people will have to find out for themselves if they're true, but from my experience with teaching others, a lot of what I've said here has been confirmed without any prompting on my part.
So to sum up, yes I make a lot of claims, and most of them have been confirmed by others. However, as I am the only person I know who has gone as far as I have in what I've personally learned, it's hard to say if it's all true for everybody or not. I hope to change that when I publish my book, and that I'll be able to learn from those who've learned from me. Generally speaking - and I state this in my book - almost nothing is true for everybody, so each person needs to find out for oneself what works for him or her individually. This is the main difference between mystical schools and orthodox schools: mystical schools tell you to learn for yourself what is true for you and place you on the same level as others, whereas orthodox schools tell you what is true for everyone and place you in a hierarchy where teachers and qualifications are more important than personal experience. And in the end, what does it really matter to anyone else where I got my ideas? From my point of view, what is most important is whether or not they work. If what I teach doesn't work for you, then do something else. If it does work for you, then use it to develop your own unique style. I don't want everyone to copy my style; that has been done ad nauseum with others' performances, and I prefer people to develop their own means of self-expression based on their own body types, personal preferences, and creative pathways.
Does that answer your questions?
- RollingThunder
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