Floor Work
An hour of movements so small they feel pointless, done slowly enough that your nervous system finally notices them.
Floor Work is not a stretching class, and it is not yoga. There are no poses to get into and no range to chase. Ayo gives one movement — rolling the head a few centimetres to the left, say — and asks you to do it twenty times, each time with a little less effort than the last. By the twelfth you are doing something you have never done before, which is moving without bracing.
Why the floor
Standing, your body is quietly holding you up the whole time, and it hides a great deal of habit inside that job. Lying down removes the job. The floor gives feedback a mirror never can: you feel exactly which parts of your back are touching it, and which parts stopped touching it years ago.
How a class is built
Each class takes one region and stays there. Thursdays are usually the ribs and shoulders; Sundays tend towards hips and feet. The hour runs roughly like this:
- A scan. Lying still, noticing what touches the floor. Nothing is fixed here.
- One movement, many times. Small, slow, and deliberately under-effort.
- Variations. The same movement with the eyes going the other way, or the breath held out, or the other side of the body doing nothing.
- The scan again. Most people find the floor has moved. It has not; you have.
What we ask
Do less than you think you should. The reason the class is intensity two and not one is not effort — it is attention. Sixty minutes of paying close attention to your own shoulder blade is genuinely tiring, in the best way. Expect to be hungry afterwards.