by Lavinia Plonka | May 7, 2023 | Kinesa Newsletter
About 15 years ago, I was out to dinner with a friend at a trendy nouvelle cuisine restaurant. There was a dish boasting dasheen wraps. I asked the waiter what that was. “That’s what they make the tortilla from,” was his answer. In other words, he was clueless. But...
by Lavinia Plonka | Apr 5, 2023 | Kinesa Newsletter, The Creative Body
I never thought I’d live to see this again. No. Not the Grand Canyon. Not the Aurora Borealis. Shoulder pads. They’re back. Everywhere all at once – from Balenciaga to H&M – as if we’ve been dropped into an alternate reality channeling the 80’s. The...
by Lavinia Plonka | Mar 5, 2023 | Kinesa Newsletter
I’m glad I don’t have to live on my garden harvest. Each year I double dig and hack away at black walnut roots that are snaking their poisonous way in. Yet I always miss a few and watch in dismay as my exuberantly flowering plants sadly droop and succumb to the...
by Lavinia Plonka | Feb 14, 2023 | Kinesa Newsletter
I recently stumbled across a song from the great musician, Sun Ra called Make a Mistake. The lyric is simply, You made a mistake, you did something wrong You made another mistake, you did something right. The recent documentary, Goodnight Oppy, tells the story of the...
by Lavinia Plonka | Jan 6, 2023 | Kinesa Newsletter, The Creative Body
In my mind, it was not a neck lesson. However, it included a short sequence where I invited the class to interlace their fingers, fold their elbows close to the face, and gently raise the head. “Don’t use your neck. Let your hands support you. Make sure you keep...
by Lavinia Plonka | Nov 2, 2022 | Kinesa Newsletter |
I’m one of those old hippies that finds meaning in everything: Coincidences, license plates, repetitive dreams. As if the universe was trying to get my attention, to wake up from my waking dream because I was ignoring something important. The more absurd, the more...
by Lavinia Plonka | Oct 2, 2022 | Kinesa Newsletter, The Creative Body |
During a lesson recently, I shared some movement sequences with a client. “How often should I do them?” she asked. After a session, another client asked, “How often do you think I should come?” Another student approached me and asked, “Do you think I should do some...
by Lavinia Plonka | Sep 5, 2022 | Kinesa Newsletter, The Feldenkrais Method® |
Last night we went to a friend’s art opening. The artist has spent many tortured years working through personal challenges in order to build his international reputation. His craft was never in question: he can paint and sculpt anything in any medium. But life kept...
by Lavinia Plonka | Aug 9, 2022 | Kinesa Newsletter, Movement as Medicine |
I bent down to pick up a sock and felt my lower back totally seize up. “Oh no, oh no! Not when I’m in the middle of teaching a series on the lower back!” As if in some way, fate had decided to mock my conviction that movement is the solution to everything and I am...
by Lavinia Plonka | Jul 5, 2022 | Humor/CosmiComedy, Kinesa Newsletter |
Photo by Erika Fletcher on Unsplash On a recent balmy evening, my husband Ron and I took a walk down our dirt road after dinner. The sun had set and the sky was laced with pink clouds glowing against the azure sky. There is a field at the bottom of the road next to...
by Lavinia Plonka | Jun 5, 2022 | Kinesa Newsletter, The Creative Body |
I was harvesting my strawberries yesterday. In order to outwit the birds, my husband Ron had built an ingenious “box” composed of a wooden frame with bird netting that I tip over for harvesting and then carefully lower (not to crush any strawberries) back when I’m...
