{"id":1860,"date":"2008-05-30T10:55:30","date_gmt":"2008-05-30T16:55:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/2008\/05\/30\/flipside-fragment\/"},"modified":"2008-05-30T10:55:30","modified_gmt":"2008-05-30T16:55:30","slug":"flipside-fragment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/2008\/05\/30\/flipside-fragment\/","title":{"rendered":"Flipside fragment"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m not sure I can sit down and squeeze everything I might want to say about Flipside<\/a> into a single blog post\u00e2\u20ac\u201dor that I even want to commit all those thoughts to print. I may wind up dribbling out a few more posts on the subject over the coming days.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, here’s one tidbit. In a conversation with someone I met at Flipside, he asked me about firespinning\u00e2\u20ac\u201dspecifically, if I had noticed any physical benefits. I think my answer might make a good blog entry.<\/p>\n

I’ve always been a klutz. I attribute this in part to being left-handed, partly to a growth spurt when I was 13 that left me a stranger in my own body. But I think that a big part of this klutziness was a form of learned helplessness<\/a>: I had learned that I tend to break, or scratch, or knock over things, so I accepted that as normal, and never made an effort not to.<\/p>\n

With firedancing, there’s an obvious need to be precise in your motions. There are also strong incentives to practice\u00e2\u20ac\u201dpracticing is enjoyable in its own right, and it’s easy to make rapid progress by practicing, especially as a beginner. Firedancing also forces one to be more aware of the spatial relationship between one’s body and its surroundings.<\/p>\n

So a lesson that I learned at an intuitive level (and later at an intellectual level) was that I didn’t necessarily need to be a klutz. I was capable of using my body the way I wanted if I put a little care into it. I became more aware of how my body related to my surroundings, and more conscious of how I moved in general.<\/p>\n

While I wouldn’t go so far as to claim that I’m graceful today, I’m more mindful and precise in my movements, and that has been a benefit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

first in what may be a continuing series: a benefit of firedancing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,17],"tags":[94,180,182,184],"class_list":["post-1860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fire","category-personal","tag-burning-flipside","tag-firedancing","tag-firespinning","tag-flipside"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1860\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}