Mothertongue at Bonne Esperance

Bonne Esperance Reflections:
Eve Wilensky, Mothertongue Intern

***Saturday June 5 @ 2pm

The workshop today was held outside in the courtyard. This gave us much more space to run around and play!

The Clap Exchange that Jazz led was a fantastic choice of exercise to play. It required a high level of concentration and so the group became quite focused. Unlike all the other exercises we played, it was also a competitive exercise (where you have to sit out if you mess up the rhythm of the game) thus, it gave the women more incentive to concentrate.
With the women’s concentration operating on such a high level we were able to follow the Clap Exchange game with two excellent rounds of Faces. In Faces, everyone stands in a circle. One person starts by turning to the person on their left and making some sort of movement accompanied by a sound. That person then mirrors back the sound and movement simultaneously. Once they have finished the second person turns to the person on their left until everyone in the circle has had a turn. Normally, when I facilitate this exercise I need to remind the participants to “get out of their heads,” try not to plan what their movement will be and let if just flow through their bodies without thinking or planning. It was entirely unnecessary for me to say this though, in fact, it was practically impossible for me to say anything as the women were moving through the game at a break neck speed, with many unique sounds, actions and body movements. It was beautiful and also fun to watch with lots of laughter.

During the break, I was casually doing a few yoga positions but as I progressed, many of the women joined me and were very eager to get into the moves/positions. I would demonstrate a particular position and as the women would get into the position with me a quiet would come over the group. It was also nice to watch how when/if someone couldn’t quite get into a position, others would assist and then when they succeeded, everyone would cheer!

After our vocal warm-up, we asked the women if they had any songs that they’d like to share with the group. It was difficult at first to find one song they all would know, as the women explained that they are all from different parts of the continent, with different songs. Eventually one woman said she knew a Kikuyu song she could offer and teach us. She sang the main part and then taught us all the chorus. By the end, with all of us singing together, it was beautiful and such a nice way of allowing them to share knowledge with us, illustrating how we can all learn from one another. 

***Thursday, June 10 2010

The next week Jazz and I decided to focus our program on relaxation and de-stressing exercises and techniques. We facilitated a number of breathing exercises, yoga positions as well as energy tapping and massage exchange, in order to stimulate blood flow and wake up the whole system. Some women really got into the exercises, committing to the experience, while others struggled and laughed through them. This is the case though in any group workshop. When the women were committed, a certain calmness came over the room despite the cramped quarters, the limitedness of the space and the seemingly countless crying babies all around us. After we did a series of the yoga asana, Sun Salutation, we played Follow the Leader. This is one of the women’s favourite exercises, with each person getting the chance to offer up a unique move to the group and have everyone reflect it back. Near the end of the game, one woman did a cartwheel in the middle of the circle. Exclamations went round the group: “we can’t do that!,” “the room is too small!” but after a few moments another woman did a cartwheel and everyone cheered. After that, each person in the circle attempted a cartwheel with the whole group cheering and applauding afterwards. If someone’s cartwheel was a little off or they couldn’t get their feet in the air, the women just cheered louder. Personally, I was standing there thinking, “I have never done a cartwheel in my life and there is no way I’m going to be able to do one now,” followed by “maybe no one will notice if I just don’t do it”—but eventually my turn came, the women called out my name and without thinking I went straight into the perfect cartwheel. The women cheered and the next person took their turn. Afterwards, when the workshop was over I thought about how the cartwheel had just flowed through my system, coming out naturally, I realized it was because of the encouragement and support of the women all around me. They had utter faith in me that I could do it and hell, if I couldn’t then—who cares! – they’ll only cheer louder! Even when someone “failed” it was a success. This, to me, means, that there had been a certain amount of safety created in the room. It had become a space where people are not afraid to “fail;” in fact, “failure,” as a concept, ceased to exist. I will always be grateful to them for my cartwheel liberation. 

After the break and another round of voice warm-up exercises, we were led in song again. Even though the language of the song was foreign to most of us, all of us singing in harmony made the actual meaning of the words irrelevant. The song is also quiet and lovely and contributed to the relaxing atmosphere that Jazz and I were aiming for with this particular workshop. By encouraging the women to teach us a song of their own, it emphasized how we can all learn from another, and that just because we are the facilitators of the workshop, Jazz and I are not the only ones with knowledge to share. To close the session, we played a game of Mirror. The group was in a languid; calm yet concentrated space so Mirror went very well. By the end, most of the groups of two had stopped and were watching the few remaining couples. It was a nice atmosphere—where we could all appreciate what some of the others in the group were doing, watching their movements, seeing how in sync they could be. 

We finished up by standing in a circle and holding hands, thanking each other for the evening.

***Thursday, June 24 2010 @ 6pm

As Jazz had already left for the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, I led this workshop on my own. I decided to concentrate on doing yoga. We started out on the floor in a circle, doing some light breathing exercises. By the end of the Sun and Moon Salutations, the women were following me and we were all sweating and breathing a little harder. I was really touched by this because to me it meant that they were willing to trust me and commit to the exercises I was offering them. From there we moved on to a balancing series of yogic exercises. Many of these were challenging positions, but the women tried out each one. When they were able to hold a position, and especially when the group could hold the position together, I could tell that they were proud of themselves. After the first week that Jazz and I came to do a workshop at Bonne Esperance, whenever we would arrive the children would all run around, yelling, “exercise, exercise!” and Jazz and I became known as the exercise leaders. Although, this is certainly not what we intended when we decided to start giving workshops in Phillipi, I think that it is actually a good thing. Exercising not only works your body but it challenges you mentally and spiritually. It challenges your whole system and wakes up parts of you that had perhaps been sleeping. In Phillipi there are not many opportunities for the women to get out and be active, additionally, most of them have a minimum of one child under the age of five and need to be focused on their needs rather than their own. A number of the women, during particular exercises, exclaimed at how flexible they were, and what their bodies could still do even after having children.

After the yoga exercises we had a break. When we came back together, we played a few theatre exercises. Our game of Faces was especially successful. I think that Faces is always such a big hit because it allows the women to offer up their own sound and movements, which is essentially song and dance. In the future, I would highly recommend that there be a focus on song and dance as the women respond extremely positively to it.

I asked if anyone remembered the vocal warm up that Jazz normally leads. As a group, we pieced it together and were able to run through it from start to finish. This was really fun because it had us all operating on the same level, with none of us leading the exercise and just trying to figure it out together. 

I closed the session with a yogic floor series, each position increasing in intensity. By this time in the session, the women were all trying out each pose. When they were unable to get into a particular position, they sat and watched as others did and where they could, they assisted others in getting into the position. The children also were very involved in this part of the workshop, with kids as young as three and four trying out positions. 

Amazing!