THE FIFTH SERIES
The Masculinity Series
Masculinity was the name given to a specific group of magical passes
by the shamans who first discovered and used them. Don Juan thought that
perhaps it was the oldest name given to any such group of magical passes.
This group was practiced originally for generations only by male shaman
practitioners, and this discrimination in favor of male shamans was done
not out of necessity, but rather for reasons of ritual and to satisfy an
original drive for male supremacy. Nevertheless, this drive was soon terminated
under the impact of enhanced perception.
The well-established tradition of this group of magical passes being practiced
only by men persisted in a pseudo-official way for generations while it
was being practiced on the sly by female practitioners as well. The old
sorcerers' rationale for including females was that for reasons of strife
and social disorder around them, the women needed extra strength and vitality,
which they believed was found only in males who practiced this group of
magical passes. Therefore, women were allowed to execute the movements
as a token of solidarity. In don Juan's time, the division lines between
males and females became even more diffused. The secrecy and exclusivity
of the old sorcerers was completely shattered, and even the old rationale
for allowing women to practice these specific magical passes could not
be upheld. Female practitioners performed these magical passes openly.
The value of this group of magical passes—the oldest named group in existence—is
its continuity. All of its magical passes were generic from the beginning,
and this condition provided the only instance in don Juan's lineage of
sorcerers in which a whole party of shaman practitioners, whatever their
number may have been, were allowed to move in unison. The number of participants
in any party of sorcerers, throughout the ages, could never have been more
than sixteen. Therefore, none of those sorcerers were ever in the position
to witness the stupendous energetic contribution of human mass. For them,
there existed only the specialized consensus of a few initiates, a consensus
which brought in the possibility of idiosyncratic preferences and more
isolationism.
The fact that the movements of Tensegrity are practiced in seminars and
workshops by hundreds of participants at the same time has given rise,
as stated before, to the possibility of experiencing the energetic effects
of human mass. Such an energetic effect is twofold: not only are the participants
of Tensegrity performing an activity that unites them energetically, but
they are also involved in a quest delineated in states of enhanced awareness
by the shamans of ancient Mexico: the redeployment of energy. Performing
these magical passes in the setting of seminars on Tensegrity is a unique
experience. It permits the participants to arrive, pushed or pulled by
the magical passes themselves and by the human mass, at energetic conclusions
never even alluded to in don Juan's teachings.
The reason for calling this set of movements Masculinity is its
aggressive quality, and because its magical passes are very brisk and forcefully
executed, characteristics easily identified with maleness. Don Juan stated
that their practice fostered not only a sensation of well-being, but a
special sensorial quality, which, if not examined, could easily
be confused with strife and aggressiveness. However, if it is carefully
scrutinized, it is immediately apparent that it is, rather, an unmistakable
sensation of readiness that places the practitioners at a level from which
they could strike toward the unknown.
Another reason that the shamans of ancient Mexico called this group of
magical passes Masculinity was because the males who practiced it
became a special type of practitioner who didn't need to be taken by the
hand. They became men who benefited indirectly from everything they did.
Ideally, the energy generated by this group of magical passes goes to the
centers of vitality themselves, as if every center made an automatic bidding
for energy, which goes first to the center that needs it the most.
For don Juan Matus's disciples, this set of magical passes became the most
crucial element in their training. Don Juan himself introduced it to them
as a common denominator, meaning that he urged them to practice the set
unaltered. What he wanted was to prepare his disciples to withstand the
rigors of journeying in the unknown.
In Tensegrity, the word Series has been added to the name Masculinity
to put it on a par with the other series of Tensegrity. The Masculinity
Series is divided into three groups, each consisting of ten magical passes.
The goal of the first and second groups of the Masculinity Series is the
tuning of tendon energy. Each of these twenty magical passes is
short, but extremely focused. Tensegrity practitioners are seriously encouraged,
as the shamanistic practitioners of ancient times were, to get the maximum
effect from the short movements by aiming to release a jolt of tendon
energy every time they execute them.
"But don't you think, don Juan, that every time I release this jolt of
energy, I'm actually wasting my tendon energy, and draining it out
of me?" I asked him on one occasion.
"You can't drain any energy out of yourself," he said. "The energy that
you are seemingly wasting by delivering a jolt to the air is not really
being wasted, because it never leaves your boundaries, wherever those boundaries
may be. So what you're really doing is delivering a jolt of energy to what
the sorcerers of ancient Mexico called our 'crust,' our 'bark.' Those sorcerers
stated that energetically, human beings are like luminous balls that
have a thick peel around them, like an orange; some of them have something
even harder and thicker, like the bark of an old tree."
Don Juan explained carefully that this simile of human beings being like
an orange was somehow misleading because the peel or the bark that we have
is located inside our boundaries, just as if an orange had its peel inside
the orange itself. He said that this bark or peel was the crusted-down
energy that had been discarded throughout our lifetime from our vital centers
of energy, because of the wear and tear of daily life.
"Is it beneficial to hit this bark, don Juan?" I asked.
"Most beneficial," he said. "Especially if the practitioners aim all their
intent at reaching that bark with their blows. If they intend
to shatter portions of this crusted-down energy by means of the magical
passes, that shattered energy could be absorbed by the vital centers of
energy."
The magical passes of the third group of the Masculinity Series are broader,
more extensive. What practitioners need in order to execute the ten magical
passes of the third group is steadiness of the hands, the legs, and the
rest of the body. The aim of this third series, for the shamans of ancient
Mexico, was the building of endurance, of stability. Those shamans believed
that holding the body steadily in position while executing those long movements
gives the practitioners a foothold from which they can stand on their own.
What modern practitioners of Tensegrity have found out through their practice
is that the Masculinity Series can be executed only in moderation, in order
to avoid overtiring the tendons of the arms and the muscles of the back.
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