Experience and Experiment have the same root
Experiment: Purpose of testing something unknown.
Experience: Yoga speaks of experience (pratyaksa) as one of the 4 ways of knowing, and the most important one.
Play is the way children and adults experiment and learn and gain experience and that potentially never ends. There is a lightness in the state of being that is play, it is purposeless and so we hold outcomes lightly … though as we ‘grow up’ we can feel a heaviness, our actions can be increasingly goal oriented (even in yoga).
As we get older there is a natural tendency to lose the springy, soft elasticity of our bodies and our movement. The main tissue responsible for that springiness and bounciness is fascia. The fibres in fascia respond to how we move (amongst many, many other factors). There are elastic fibres and collagen fibres. The fibres are crimped and the crimping gives spring. If we don’t physically use our spring, we lose the crimp, the tissues can harden.
We can regain our elasticity. Our practice can be continual play, we can cultivate a spring in our step, a lightness of heart, a buoyancy in our spirit. Small increments of improvement of spring continually lead to the freedom and lightness that is possible.
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