Today we looked at “growing into the contact”. I was considering how we can at times contract, shrink or brace ourselves against quick or or threatening impacts. I was interested to see that if we expand into, and with the other, ki-musubi is made and developed without any secondary actions necessary. Nicola Endicott suggested we slow down to experience this. Hiro said he wished to look at simultaneous mutual engagement. We combined these two ideas in our practice. Out of the slow practice I became aware of two things.

• a “glowing” quality in our approach is needed to bring the contact alive -The Shining!
• it must be full-bodied not fragmentarily from the limb

When we engaged with each other in this way I had the image of bride and groom meeting at the alter. Hopefully (for the sake of the ensuing marriage) there is the glowing sense of growing together, a vivid electricity. I was reminded of O’Senseis idea of practice as the “cultivation of attraction”.