Find the Problem

These scores are meant to give specific feeling of exploring a psychologically loaded sensation generated solely through physical action. This then informs other studies that involve steering into a sensation and looking for emotional content in the physical. The name, “Find the Problem” come from the idea that one is in the attempt to achieve a goal, but one wants to avoid actually achieving it, in order to stay with the problem. This happens through recalibrating the personal score to make it more problematic when one clearly becomes capable of solving the problem. For example, if one wants to touch someone and they are not moving away, one might give oneself an additional restriction like you can only touch them when they are moving. If you are trying to overpower someone, and one is going to be successful, keep the intent, but give oneself a firm restriction to only be able to access ¼ of your full strength. Why? There are many reasons I come back to this score, but I prefer to do these scores first without giving a reason, so that people can come at them fresh, without the filters of what I have already discovered. My hope is that that predisposes people to come to their own conclusions and be open to new discoveries rather than just manifesting what they assume will happen. That said, There is something compelling about seeing how we deal in problematic circumstances, how we act under different kinds of stress and attachments. From a therapeutic perspective, we have a tendency in our society to rush to solutions of problems, don’t give ourselves time to really feel problems. I believe that this causes us to suppress many things out of fear of seeing the problem and causes us to miss more profound solutions to our problems.

Some examples (usually when facilitating these scores, I will give each person their role separately, so the other’s score is unknown at first. It is interesting to do this, then switch roles and do it again, trying on the one hand to be more precise and also noting if knowing the other person’s score affects one’s experience. Usually there is an aliveness when it is unknown. It is interesting to see how we can maintain this aliveness when more information is available, so that information does not induce blindness.

(The point is note that these specific scores are somehow an answer. They are meant to identify the idea of “finding the problem” and recalibrating intentions to sustain problems.)

• Hard/Soft (Duet) – A wants to touch B very firmly or not at all. If there is soft touch anywhere, A wants to very immediately make it either firm or to move completely away. B wants firm touch also, but it must be developed slowly, and there must be no fast shift of pressure. If there is any fast pressure shift, B has to get away and start over.
• Love/Disgust (Duet) – A wants to touch B, be gently physical with B and to look at B and talk with B. B does not want to acknowledge A’s existence and does not want A to touch them in any way. Running away, fending off, or interacting is a kind of acknowledgment, so there is created a kind of tension.
• Look/Touch/Don’t be seen (Duet) – A and B have the same score. They both want to touch the other and look at the other. Touch can be with any part of the body, the more the better. However, they don’t want the other to see them either looking at them or touching them and so need to look away and break contact if the other can see them, even in their peripheral vision.
• Isolation (a group score for 5 or more) – All but A are very convivial with each other, touch each other a lot while talking to each other. Talk can be about anything. A also want to touch and talk and be convivial. No one talks with A. As A moves to touch someone, they shift to a deadpan, stop talking, stop touching anyone, and walk away in some direction until they are away from A, at which time they move to join the others in convivial talking and touching. (This is very much like a scene from DV8’s Strange Fish in which Wendy Houston acts the part of A)