"When was the last time you did something for the first time?" ... I know, that's the kind of sentence that almost always comes accompanied by a motivational post on social media. My intention here is not to write a motivational post, but I wanted to share that I had a delightful weekend, precisely because I did something for the first time, after a long time!
During my childhood, I was a chubby, nerdy kid, without any skills with my body. I hated physical education classes, I was never chosen for the volleyball team and I was always bad at games that involved juggling with the body, like doing somersaults, for example. For this reason, when I saw that there was a free acro yoga class at SESC in my city, I thought "I'll just go and watch".
SESC (Commerce Social Services) is a private institution that offers a range of activities involving art, culture, and sports. It is one of my favorite places in my city and whenever there is something interesting I go there. I ended up spending the whole weekend there and it was amazing.
Acroyoga
I don't know if you've heard of acro yoga, but it is a modality that mixes both Yoga and circus movements. In general, the movements are done by two people, where one plays the role of the base, supporting the movements, while the other balances.
As soon as I arrived at the sports gym, there were lots of people and the group seemed excited about the practice. So I thought "why not try it? I've never done this before in my life anyway!" The result, I loved it! I was completely hooked and didn't want to leave.
Acroyoga is very interesting because the practice develops a lot of body awareness, besides working on trust with your partner. In the beginning, I was very afraid of falling, but little by little I understood how to support my body and I gained the confidence to turn upside down and do other stunts.
I had a lot of fun!
This lady is in her 70's and loves to play acro! Such an inspiration!
Art
After having a lot of fun with Acroyoga, I ended up visiting two exhibitions that were happening there, one is called "Amálgama", of graffiti and visual arts, and the other is called "BLZ Exhibition" about weaving.
Amálgama
General view of the exposition
I found this very interesting and surreal exhibition. It is the work of two local artists named Michel Japs and Will Ferreira. In it, the artists criticize several facts that are happening in the world and propose reflections about our existence. The opening sentence sums up well the purpose of the exhibition and reads:
"We live in a world where reality becomes more and more aggressive, we are impacted by the news of the degradation of the environment, unemployment, the replacement of man by machine, prejudice against the different and the definition of standards driven by financial interests, man is consumed... The artist absorbs and reflects this in his art."
A cyborg trying to breathe
Zombie trees
Exhibition: BLZ
- BLZ is an abbreviation of the word "beauty".
This exhibition shows the work developed by a cultural center called JAMAC, located on the outskirts of Sao Paulo. This project was idealized by the artist Mônica Nador in 2004 to be a place for the dissemination of art, yoga, culture, and cinema. One of the main activities developed by this center is the stencil and serigraphy workshops, which encourage students to create their own prints and patterns.
At the exhibition, it is possible to see this work, as well as get hands-on and participate in practical workshops. One of them teaches how to make stamps from rubbers with the aim of creating patterns. It is a visually beautiful and very interesting exhibition as well. I particularly did not know the work of this artist who, as the name of the exhibition itself says, talks about beauty.
Creamy espresso
To close this weekend with many new things, there was a delicious, super creamy espresso with a brigadeiro spoon. Brigadeiro is a typical Brazilian sweet, made of condensed milk, chocolate, and butter. It goes very well with a cup of coffee and was, without a doubt, the perfect end!
Doing things for the first time gives us a burst of adrenaline and encouragement! Something essential to survive these days... It did me a lot of good!
And you? When was the last time you did something for the first time?
Thanks for reading!
See you next weekend!