Although I am deeply wary of “great man/woman” talk, this article about Roger Federer comes after watching him win a recent tournament. Various factors, including the procrastination that partly drives this writing, allowed me to watch the final match twice, to see again the kinesthetic brilliance of a dominant athlete. I instantly became a Roger Federer fan. More than refined talent, I fell in love with Federer’s whole one court persona, which, like Pete Samprass before him, exudes a poised quietude despite the overwhelming genius of his play.
The article is written by David Foster Wallace whose name sounds eerily familiar but eludes placement. Regardless, the piece is beautifully constructed and makes great formal use of the endnotes. More importantly, however, anyone who follows my writings in this space or has talked to me for a day or two knows my experience and fascination with physical-embodied aesthetics, the particular technical artistry understood through proprioception. Wallace does an excellent job relaying, especially formally through his injections of William Caines’ story, the strange –felt- awareness we are capable but often unconscious of. Although the felt awareness, the “thought that is also felt,” he invokes through the formal structure of the article is not the same quiet lightness experienced in performance, one does gain a basic sense of our possibilities. Most interestingly, especially for those readers who also practice an art, Wallace does an excellent job describing the flattening out of Time/Space, and the easy perfection that follows, through a slowed down glimpse into a tennis stroke. My own experiences of this same flattening, in hockey, in martial arts, even in reading at times, are carved into memory as a series of flashes, of perfect movements, of cellular understandings, of an embodied thrill that is experienced and reflected in a space outside of the conscious mind. Wallace’s article activated some of those starving neurons, simultaneously reminding me of the possibilities ready in the space of concentrated immersion.
On a related tangent, I have started my first Bonsai plant. My ex-roommate had been working on Bonsai for several years with varying degrees of success. Craig’s latest, named Tegreeno, began as a living archive of his relationship with Ishita, the love of his life. I had the scary privilege of taking care of Tegreeno for a month and fell in love with the process. So, after returning from my wonderful spiritual retreat, Craig helped me begin my own Bonsai, now named Tyger (pronounced like the Winnie the Poo character) in honor of Tegreeno’s inspiration and Blake’s Tyger, Tyger.
As we worked to pot and shape Tyger, delicately bending hard copper wire around the fragile branches to ‘train’ growth into a particular form, it became obvious why martial artists, and Zen masters of various practices would be so enthralled in the art of Bonsai. The sensitivity and concentration required in each step of the process is balanced with foresight, the vision to see both what you desire and the potential of the living being in front of you. Whether clipping branches, wiring, dekeing a goalie, side stepping a punch, or for Federer, hitting impossible angle shots, immersive experiences offer a organic time-space conflation that carve new possibilities for a cellular proprioception beyond conscious thought.
