Itis August 2014.
We have just taken a boat from Santa Maria to (I don’t remember the name, let’s call it X) in order to visit X and jump from its cliff. The decision is taken rather in the spur of the moment while seeing the diving center sign.
Some context:
We have just graduated high school and this is the summer before entering our first year in university.
Hormones are flying stupendously high, we are on an island and there are 11 of us.
All male.
It’s safe to say that testosterone was high.
Quite high.
And so are stupidity and extroversion. That sometimes can happen in big groups. The feeling of being able to do anything. Not necessarily bad, not always great.
But I’m derailing from the main story and thank god we didn’t do anything stupid. Completely, at least.
Back at the diving center, we wear our sea vests and enter the boat. We are having fun, the boat and business owner is telling us a story and we are discussing things about Paros and Naoussa. After a little while we reach the cave/cliff we are to jump from. We dive in the water and are tasked to climb the rocky outer line of the cave to reach the top where we would be jumping off into the water. It’s kinda rocky, some of us cut a little skin but we all make it to the top, swimsuits on and everything.
The owner of the boat tells us, then challenges us to jump off the cliff.
In the beginning, we are all hesitant. We are scared.
It’s quite high and it’s safe to assume that no one has jumped from that height into the water before (I would have to double-check with the rest to be completely sure though) so the fear is quite rational.
After a few moments, some assesment of the rocks below and the height someone makes the ‘’heroic’’ first leap. Someone jumped into the water. Big splash, one second, two, a head reveals itself.
It’s all good. This armors the rest of us with the courage to jump and fall into the water.
And so one after the other they jump.
Expect one.
Me.
I reach the edge and my legs are unmovable. I simply can’t fall into the water. Or better yet, cannot allow myself to fall in the water.
My friends are shouting at me to jump, that all is fine, that it is great fun but I simply can’t do it. I can’t bring myself to forgo my fear of jumping. This is not so much about fear of heights (which I am afraid of).
Nope, it is something else.
After a good five to ten minutes, as everyone are disinterested in me not jumping, I have to take the tough and humiliating uncomfortable rocky path down the water again.
I am the only one who didn’t jump.
Santorini, 2017, Swimmers’ Dive
It is 2017 and I’m in Santorini for summer vacation. We have booked a room at a nice hotel in Perissa and like most hotel complexes in Santorini, this hotel has a pool.
I’ve been trying swimming for a little while (athletically) but I still haven’t allowed myself to fall forward so I can propel myself as swimmers do when diving.
Yet I try and manage to do ever so slightly. But not fully, yet.
That year, I, someone who has been going to the gym since I was 15 (I am 21 at the time) due to shoulder dislocations decides to start yoga.
Sun salutations, downward facing dog, upward, first, second, third warrior and so the poses go. And I loosen up, and down.
As my body lets go with every practice so does my mind and the boxes and concepts that want to be expelled and changed. These are ideas that have been ingrained and changed over time about a myriad of different things (this process never stops I have just become so much more proficient at it).
As my body relaxes and integrates mindful practices so does my psyche stop being in the way of my own self. Alan Watts’ influence is clear.
Dancing and The ‘’Falling Exercise’’
In 2018 I go to the swimming pool and I no longer restrain myself. I propel myself forward as swimmers do. I allow myself to fall. And as I do, I catch myself and control my body accordingly.
All these aren’t new. Most definitely I am not the first to talk or write about it.
In dancing, there is an exercise called “the falling exercise”.
It simply is what the title says. You must fall. You do a certain move, do it again with more intensity all with the intention of falling.
You must learn to let go.
What happens then is oftentimes because you let go of that fear, you perform the move better. Or perhaps you ‘’simply’’ achieve to do the move which you weren’t able to do before simply because you were holding yourself back.
This is not to question the nature of fear. As with most emotions they are ingrained in us throughout thousands of years and of course are taught in better or lesser ways from childhood.
But falling here is ok. You might actually hurt yourself a bit but 99% of the time you learn how to catch yourself and fall without injury.
You learn the exercise of falling, and by doing so you are able to progress your dancing.
Acrobatics
This past September one of my best friends told me that she wanted me to join her this coming Wednesday in the acrobatics class. Knowing my background in breakdancing (stopped after a year due to that shoulder injury mentioned above), exercise, and yoga she thought I would really like it.
And I really did.
I have been going ever since because I have been working, to no avail at doing handstands since I was 14. Acrobatics isn’t simply handstands, it’s all sorts of things but because of 12 years, multi-faceted, but still gym based resistance training my body was now ready to completely embrace a more calisthenic type of training (I also stopped going to the gym in September and switched to gym workouts which I have been doing ever since Covid started).
Handstands wouldn’t be missing from that regime.
After a few lessons, and getting my body used to the position I realized, that even after my shoulder repair (I had surgery in the summer of 2019 after a total of 12 dislocations over the spun of 8 years) I was still holding myself back.
From falling.
You see, the key element of being able to stand inverted is to not be afraid to fall flat on your back when doing so. And because of an injury that nagged me for most of my teenage life and early adulthood, I was pretty unable to let go. My behavioral pattern and consequently fear had long roots. Yet lesson by lesson, handstand by handstand, will by will I managed to let go. Until I didn’t care if I fell. If my shoulder dislocated again (no chance, probably), or if I hurt myself.
I wanted to handstand and I was going to do it now.
And so I did.
And so I am doing, pretty often nowadays. Still working on that duration but we will get there. It’s not easy changing movement patterns mastering the stabilization of the core and back my London PT self would say.
Yet you might be thinking,
What is the point of this essay/strange story that I’m writing on a Monday afternoon while returning home from work sitting on the train?
The point is simple. Physicality affects psychology and vice versa. But that’s not the only thing.
No.
It is also an attempt to put emphasis on the concept of allowing yourself to fall, of letting go and that of trust and faith in one’s self to figure it out. Even if you fail, even if you fall hard, even if you get hurt. It will be so much better.
‘’Falling’’ From A Cliff
In 2016 I went to another island, this time in the Ionian sea.
Corfu is one of the islands I love most in Greece. I was again with a group of friends, male again, but 5 of us this time.
Not falling from that cave in Paros was ingrained in my memory and so when I found another opportunity in the face of a higher cliff at La Grotta I took it. Multiple times. I jumped and fell into the water each time feeling better and being able to say that I surpassed my fear of jumping and, falling from a height into the water (I’m pretty sure that La Grotta height was slightly higher than that of the cliff in Paros).
But this isn’t about extreme heights. Still afraid of these.
No, this is about facing a challenge in the face and taking it head-on. Even in delay. We all know of of so many people that have taken many challenges head-on. People that stand in the side of their loved ones while being sick, or friends being by the side of their friends when having a bad day and people offering help to other people every single day.
But fear, fear of falling flat on your face, the same way I did snowboarding two weeks ago at Parnassus ski center and doing it again and again until learning to glide and change directions is pivotal.
Not only in snowboarding, swimming, dancing, or jumping.
It is pivotal in the whole of life. It is also pivotal in love and relationships which make life worth living (a story for another time).
This isn’t one of those motivation-inducing texts (at least I hope so) that I used to read and watch (watched a lot of videos) before going to the gym when 15.
No, this is a deeply felt and quite positive/inspiring lesson in maturity and reality.
It isn’t easy but it can be done.
As kids fall in order to walk so we have to ‘’fail’’ and fall in other things in order to become or do who/what we want.
Sometimes all that stops us is our own inhibitions.
So release yourself in how many ways you can from the inhibitions and boxes that you have (those that no longer serve you and which your psyche commands you to release) and allow ‘’it’’ to fall. Be afraid. Learn how to catch yourself in the process. Sometimes you might need help with that. ‘’Fall’’ and don’t be afraid to ask for it.
Tweaking the original Samuel Beckett quote in order to close this article I would be obligated to change the Is with Ls and write:
Try again. Fall again. Fall better.
Happy Monday and happy falling,
Marios
P.S,
Here’s a video from jumping in La Grotta. Seems quite short looking at it now. Might need a higher cliff.