still amazed

I didn't make the seminar above, so it's been especially fun watching the videos from it. I continue to be amazed at the amount of trust, skill, and commitment that is required of the parties involved in order to even pull this drill off relatively safely. While there is a need for safety (it is a real knife he's using, and the blade did scratch the surface of her skin at some point), it's an aspect of safety that cannot be tentative. There cannot be fear from either side. Fear is what makes the had slip, the muscles harden. It makes the body inflexible and unable to react in subtle small ways that make the difference between getting scratched and getting stabbed.

There really has to be a commitment, a full commitment of the person getting "cut", of the person with the knife, and in the spirit and intent of the knife itself.

I have been in other instances where the live knives are circling the skin in close trajectory and perhaps I've never thought about it before, what it really takes to be able to practice in this way.

Oddly enough I was not at that seminar because I was doing a demo somewhere else. Where I did demo the live knife and I did demo it with someone I had never played with before. And there were many many things I just couldn't not even attempt doing because it was someone that I just met. Even in the little that I did do I had to get past any lingering fears. There is a moment just before where you think, "Dear God, I hope this works!". There is always doubt just before you leave yourself to reach beyond what you think you are capable of. But then the moment comes and you must leave that doubt behind.