Omega II: Visiting with the Sages
Day 2 - Morning Session - Part 7

by Alisa Joaquin

To introduce his "Nine Psalms" exercises, Rob Moses, he first had us spread out. He stated it was a traveling format. He had people move things out of the way because he wanted us to have a ways to walk (meaning he wanted us to be able to use more of the floor of the main hall). As you can see, this place is pretty large.

Main Hall Interior

He wanted us to give ourselves a good twenty paces to move with. While everyone was clearing the floor, he was joking about the fact that only one side was clear at the time. But as soon as that was done, he introduced his Nine Psalms.

"I call this Nine Psalms Praying Mantis. Reason is I'm a Praying Mantis Martial Arts instructor. With Praying Mantis Martial Arts, the linkage is infinite with what you can do with your spirals. Or a lot of the other systems they will either be a fist-handed or a tiger or some kind of a crane thing." He stated that these fixed posturings have a tendency to be stuck kind of stagnated hand positions while the mantis is really fluid. Spirals, they wrap and they get smaller and larger (at the same time he spoke, he was moving and twisting in all kinds of spiral motions). He said it was infinite as to how far you can go with it.

At this point he introduced the first psalm. He called it LINE MANTIS (1). He stated that the analogy was easy to see here. It's a lot like pulling a rope. He told us to give ourselves a little room, put one foot in front of another, and grab a rope. He reminded us to think of the spiral and to feel our body weight. Think of a mountain climber. As you pull, rotate that rope as you slide across. He reminded us that how we step as we are pulling that rope was up to us. He had us gather on one side of the room so we had nearly the width of the whole room (avoiding where the small stage was set up with the chairs, microphones, and speakers. When we were about to begin, he recommended having an "eye-line" as a guide, an "eye-line" being a point out ahead of ourselves where our imaginary rope might be attached. He suggested that the "eye-line" be located between the wood and the paint area (otherwise near the ceiling meets the wall) so the "rope" had a slight angle to it. This really is not an easy thing to imagine, especially the resistance. The tendency for people to do is to go quickly across the floor with no effort, but if you can try to add resistance, you get a better feeling and develop better awareness.

After we crossed one side of the room, we had to "let ourselves down." We had to go backwards down that rope (and believe me that is harder to do than it is to imagine). He stated we have to make it real. After we did this, we did the same exercise but we did it where the "rope" was attached between where the wall meets the floor. He said that is was almost going down a tunnel and you start to get smaller and smaller (for the second, perhaps third or even fourth time that day I wished I had a video camera). As we went backwards on this one, he stated that it was almost like sticking a giant knitting needle into something as you're stepping back. We then used an "eye-line" on the same plane as our eyes, just straight across, but this time we used a string. We had to pinch it. It could be a fishing line. He said to work on our spirals, right into our third eye and work toward our center. He stated when we got to the other side, that there were a couple of ways to go back. We could release it or we could pull it right out of our third eye. Robe shared a story that he said that this was a trick that people used to make themselves invisible. He did not want us to over evaluate it, but to have fun with it. He said that it's a linear motion and the spiral is the key to making it work. He was trying to help us to relate out you can have fun with things.

He then introduced us to the next exercise, which he called THE MANTIS AND THE VORTEX (2). He asked if he could use the chalkboard, but it wasn't erasing so he went on to the exercise. The shape he envisioned using for this exercise was the shape of a teardrop. He had us put our fingers together and the shape from his perspective was like that of a teardrop. Rob was trying to describe the movement involved with it as triangulation. He referred to the chameleon's eye on the Budweiser commercials and how it moved. This was rather an interesting spiraling shape to play with. He said we were going to be moving around this shape. Rob stated that this did not have to be straight like the line where you have a fixed point. This you can change where it's going. The idea is that you are working around this housing in order to project motion. We started with open fingers just to make it simple and Rob stated that we can get to where we can bend our wrists and for those who have a martial arts background, we could punch that way. He stated that "It gives you where you can come from anywhere to the same focus point, the way that a train moves. A train moves like so, talking about the arm on the wheels. That's sort of the idea of the physics behind this. As we're moving forward, one at a time, try to point a zone. You can still raise it up and change where it's going to, the idea is that you are moving around that shape. I noticed that some of you are doing this where you are leaving the shape. Others are going along here. Either one is fine. The idea is that you are moving around that shape. As far as you're stepping back, let's gather, where you are pulling into a center. Into your center chakras, pulling into your heart. Just the idea of bringing in. Now always, always, always twisting and using spirals along the way. So how you step is really up to you." We then tried to speed it up. He stated that you can step around and so long as you are still using that shape it gives you good motion and reason to move. This was great because he was doing these exercises with us. It was great seeing him out of the corner of my eye moving. After we did this one, he stated we could do this anywhere and the more room we had the more fun we could have with it. "The more we make it our own, the more we'll get out of it," he stated. "Loving it and making music is the most important thing."

The next exercise we did he called, MANTIS CASTS A WEB or CASTING MANTIS (3). This one had the analogy of fishing. This one goes way back for me. I used to go fishing with my dad. Then back in 1985 before we moved from Nebraska we had gone deep-sea fishing. So Rob had us get our "fishing poles." He asked if our line's extended and that we had a decent sinker on the back. He then had us cast the line. He said to follow our cast with imagery until it splashes or lands on the ground. He then told us to turn and cast the other way. He then said to pick it up, swirl it around then fly-cast all the way to the other side. This was really a fun one. Rob said that this works with a one-handed cast and also works with a two-handed a type of torroed effect, like pulling the tablecloth off and leaving everything behind on the table. You can take this shape into elliptical circles around. But to stay organized he had us do it in a linear way. He had fun with it when starting us out by saying, "We're going for the tuna. Let's go. All right. Hands together. Throw that cast." He told us not to stop. Some people stopped in the middle of it. He stated that we had to feel the tension of the extended feeling and that we had to make it real. We then stepped back the other way and threw the cast back in the other direction. He had us do a spiral and throw it away again. We then changed it into a net and threw that out. He had fun with playing with the size of the net. He told of one of his first analogies with this one. He said it was a lot like Spiderman. We did some more casting. He joked a little bit and said we did not have to always listen to him. "Don't be shy, we don't know where you live." He told us to try to keep it alive. He told us to decide what we wanted to do, any analogy from casting to pulling a tablecloth to pulling our friend's pants down and throwing him out of the room, throwing the laundry out, the ex-husband down the street. Anything that makes us happy. He said to mentally project, to make it real. In the background he heard someone making sound effects. He said he loved sound effects, they are so great. He stated that they actually keep you breathing natural. He then gave us a round of applause.

Rob then mentioned that we might not do all of them in this one session and then he introduced the next one called MANTIS FIGHTS UPSTREAM (4). I love the names. He really likes to have a lot of fun. I wondered what it would be like to have him as an instructor on a daily basis. He stated that it was more of a fish analogy, but he's a Mantis guy. He said that what we were going to have to do is create the imagery of being in two planes and there is the pressure of water coming at us. Water has weight. He stated, "Don't make it roll you right down the river, but try to keep that feeling where it's not just your hand but your entire body. And you're now going to have to swim up stream. So you can be a salmon swimming around rocks. You can jump out of the water. Go around, be creative. Be adventurous. Don't go straight up there. Make sure you cruise around with this. When you get to this end, now you're going to lift up and travel back the other way. Very good. You guys are getting into it, that's good. That's basically the feeling you're going to want. You want to have that feeling of water pressure towards you as you make this live journey. Instead of aerodynamic, it's called aquadynamic. I don't know if it's a term or not, but I'm going to use it."

Rob then mentioned there are two rhythms in martial arts, one is the walking rhythm where one hand swings. This is the perfect yin and yang analogy. The other is almost the same, but you're reaching. He then applied it to the exercise where each hand was a different fish, but he told us to not separate ourselves from our hands. He first had us reach out as far as we could reach. He then told us to reach further than we can where we were forced to take a step. He said it doesn't have to be a fish, but if there are two of them, it helps us to be more child-like in pursuit of happiness here. He had us take our hands and had them act like two fish first doing the same thing, swimming beside each other, so to speak. He encouraged us not to be too straight and once again to have fun with it and be adventurous. He tried to also keep us in tune with our full body mass. He then had us do opposites. He said to stay in tune with our water weights and not to do it too fast. He said the pace that you set is what makes it an art form. He mentioned that this did not have to be limited to one thing. He said that he used the idea of the fish as a means to keep a large group organized. He said that you can play like you are on a rolercoaster. He then got excited with that idea and he wanted us to do the exercise as if we were on a rollercoaster.

End of Day 2 - Morning Session - Part 7

Alisa Joaquin Copyright@2001.
This personal account cannot be reprinted or sold in any other form without strict permission from the author. It is being distributed here solely for your enjoyment.

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