In the late morning and from mid afternoon til dusk, the performers would meet for Groundwork sessions. The exercises involved in this aspect were fantastic and I felt was, or rather, could be deeply penetrating work. This work needs its own time and doesn't really fit with the western notion of 'busy time'. There's also the landscape too and that needs time to form a relationship with it. Therefore, I felt even three weeks was too short. I now understand why Tess based this project on a three year cycle. But it gave me a good taster of what to expect if you gave it the energy and time required.

The morning session of Groundwork always involved a Bizaku(?) in some form or another. Essentially, Bizaku is an exercise where one walks first at one millimetre per second for six minutes, then at one centimetre per second for six minutes and finally at ten centimetres per second for six minutes. Each day the exercise varied. Sometimes it was simply a straight line. Other times a straight line on uneven ground or we'd do it on a crooked meandering line, or blindfolded or walking backwards. The best one was when we lined up in two teams opposite each other some eight feet apart. Each team shared one piece of cotton and placed it in their mouths. The idea was to keep the cotton taut between each other. And then into Bizaku. Invariably the two teams run into each other and then what do you do? This brought up all kinds of questions and interesting poses in the body, both individually and as a group body as each team attempted to disentangle themselves from the other. Later we repeated this exercise blindfolded.

There was lots of blindfold work in the Groundwork sessions and I found that I crashed through many fear zones by simply taking away my vision. Where, when I used sight, I gingerly walked the ground on my tender naked feet, when blindfolded I found myself bounding over rock, sand, grasses and sometimes even prickles! I would slide myself around trees and climb into mysterious holes. I would scramble though metre high grass and bury myself in sand in the riverbed. I found my body had its own sense of balance and I 'saw' through my skin.

Other times, Tess would ask us to meander through the space and make specific stops and observe everything in our line of sight. Sometimes we were to give voice to our meanderings in a continuous stream of consciousness. Another exercise we did was Word Pulse. Usually we'd run up and down on the spot to get the pulse pumping then fall over onto our backs. From there, we'd have to speak works in time with our pulse - two minutes lying on backs, then sides, then stomach. Another exercise was to get up and fall over repetitively for five minutes non stop. And another was to walk backwards down a rocky mountain without looking behind.