A bit about getting into Hang

More desire to explain Hangs.

Think of it like being at a martial arts studio.
They all look like regular people.
Well, regular people dressed funny, perhaps.

And when you’re not on the mats, when you’re not practicing, you probably fall back into your old ways of being in relationship, of relating.

But on the mats, when it’s sparring time, things change up quite a bit.

Same with Hang.

When you agree to attend a Hang, you are agreeing to step onto the mats for two hours.

It is two hours of practice.

It is two hours of sparring, trying out new moves, on both sides of the relational equation.

The orientation is to be trying something different about how you relate.

What that “different” is…well, that’s up to you.
You can practice slight deviations from your norms.
You can practice 180s.
You can practice something completely out of character.

From the POV as an instigator, you are faced with a whole bunch of dance partners.
All shapes, all sizes, all kinds of different.
You get to choose what to practice with which partner.

Your Primal Character already has a “normative dance” with each of these types.
You can certainly choose to go along with your Primal Character’s bigotries.

Or not.

From the POV as a recipient, you are faced with a whole bunch of dance partners.
They are going to launch an opening set of relational moves towards you.
Your Primal Character has a whole series of response to “that kind of opening gambit from that kind of character”.
You can go along with it.

Or you can practice with a whole new set of responses.

From a Dojo POV, why get on the mats if you don’t want to try something new, something different, something that possibly may get you to another type of experience.

From a Dojo POV, getting onto the mats is not about practicing the same old way you have of either instigating or receiving.

From a Dojo POV, it is not about the “truth” or the “authenticity” or the “reality” of your Primal Character.

From a Dojo POV, it is not about what your Primal Character has to tell you about what is so.

You have two hours to attempt creating something that your Primal Character cannot do.

What do you want to walk away from two hours on the practice mats with?

More of the same?

Or something different?

That’s the point.