Two observation exercise – kim woods only
The first one Description: Pick a physical activity. Something you do all the time, or something you’ve never done before: bike riding, running, swimming, hiking, golf, playing twister, roller skating, soccer, basketball, etc. Now go and spend at least twenty minutes participating in this activity. Really do it. Engage. Explore and experience it. Pay attention to every part of your body and mind as you play/do the activity. Even if you’ve done it all your life, engage with every nuance of the activity. What do your muscles do and feel like when doing the activity? What is challenging? What is smooth and easy? What sounds to you experience? smells? Tastes? Sights? Sensations? What about your mind? Where do your thoughts go as you perform the activity? Really pay attention and discover the experience of the activity. Perform it for at least twenty minutes, mindfully paying attention to every part of the experience. Experience and notice the details. Now go home. And write about what you experienced. Detail it. Tell me about what was hard, easy, unusual, fun, new? What did you feel, taste, smell, hear, see? Take me through it beat by beat, moment by moment, nuance by nuance. The second oneDescription: Go to a busy café or diner, or some other eatery, where you can sit near TWO other people, engaged in a conversation, a dynamic interesting conversation with tenstion… where something is happening between the two people… EAVES DROP on conversations – without being obvious. Find one that has something interesting going on. Anticipate spending at least 20-30 minutes listening in to this conversation. From this conversation, listen carefully, pay attention to what is being said, what conflict is arising, what is expressed and revealed through the language. NOW, also pay attention to the people involved. What do they look like? What is their body language? Pay attention to all the details. Do not write anything at the busy café or diner. Just listen to what is said. Watch. Pay attention to all the details. At a later time (when you get back home) write a letter as if you are one of the people you observed in the café. Write the letter addressing the person that they were at the café with. This can be a love letter, a complaint, an email, an apology, an explanation, etc… For this exercise to work, you must have 1) chosen a conversation to listen to where something was HAPPENING and 2) you must really have spent the time, listening in on a conversation and paying attention to the dramatic tension… something between the two people must have been witnessed, heard, experienced, by YOU the writer. If not this letter will be flat, uninteresting, and lacking conflict. Write about something you heard or observed happening between the two people, but write about it as if you are one of the people in the conversation to the other. Write about some inherent need, conflict, obstacles. The letter can be a complaint, an apology, a list, an explanation, or a request… anything is possible, just use your imagination and curiosity to explore the situation between the two people you observed. For each one, I need single space for one page, therefore totally two pages.