After reading this post, I really want to do a Pochinko-lineage clowning workshop. Unfortunately none are available right now. So instead I figured I’ll at least do the Biokinetic Release lightening warm-up described in the post. Asked Claude to create a ~1 hour solo routine for me, and I will keep notes on my experience here.

Biokinetic Release / Rivering — Solo Routine (~60 min)

Reconstructed from Drew Schorno’s The Game of You, plus the underlying lineage: David MacMurray Smith’s Biokinetic Release (built on Wilhelm Reich’s body-armor model) leading into Jerzy Grotowski’s rivering. No published protocol exists; this is a starting recipe, not the canonical method. Normally done with a trained facilitator present.

Safety (read before every session, at least at first)

You have no facilitator. Your “ringmaster” mask must stay partially online throughout — you are not aiming for full trance.
The injury model applies. Numbness, lockdown, or fear that spikes rather than flows = the edge. Back off. Do not excavate solo.
Exit protocol (decide while calm): open eyes → name five objects in the room aloud → stand up.
History of trauma, dissociation, or panic → do this with a practitioner, not alone.

Setup — 5 min

Clear floor space with room to stand and move a few steps in any direction.
Warm room, phone off, door closed, no mirrors facing you, nobody walking in.
Set a gentle alarm at 45 min as the ringmaster’s backstop.
Rehearse the exit protocol once in your head.

Phase 1 — Settling and dampening — 5 min

Lie on your back, knees bent or legs long, eyes closed.
One slow attention pass, feet to scalp. Notice; don’t fix.
Key instruction: stop initiating. Don’t move on purpose, don’t hold still on purpose — both are intentions.
Listen for nervous-system noise: micro-twitches, urges, flickers.

Phase 2 — Biokinetic release: limbs and trunk — 12–15 min

When an urge appears (finger wants to curl, shoulder wants to roll), amplify slightly and let it run. Follow, don’t choreograph.
Calibration test: movement should feel ~70% happening to you, ~30% permitted by you. If it feels performed, shrink back to a twitch and wait.
Work periphery → center: hands/feet → arms/legs → pelvis/spine.
Let movements chain: squirm → roll → arch.
It will look stupid. The “observing and judging” mask arising is material — note it, don’t obey it.

Phase 3 — Breath, throat, face — 8–10 min

The Reichian core; where the emotional voltage lives.

Bring attention to the diaphragm. Break the pendulum of the breath: irregular rhythms, staccato exhales, held-then-released inhales.
Let it become sound — sighs, huffs, squeaks, nonsense syllables. Let the face contort with it.
The irregular pattern will get interpreted — as laughter, sobbing, or both in sequence. Let each come fully.
Don’t hold onto any state. No manufacturing reasons to keep laughing; no clinging to grief. Practice letting affect move through without narrative capture.
Numbness or rigidity surfacing = stop signal for this phase. Return to ordinary breathing.

Phase 4 — Rivering — 12–15 min

The narrator (“Mickey”) has been generating story fragments to explain your movements. Now follow him. Paddling motion → you’re in a boat → commit to the boat.
Speak in full sentences, to imaginary characters.
Let the fantasy pull you off the floor: kneeling, standing, walking, running a few steps.
Change masks freely and without loyalty — tightrope walker one minute, the wind the next.
Two rules:
1. Keep the ringmaster question faintly running: is this safe, here, now? (furniture, volume, neighbors)
2. Distress that still feels like a game is workable. Distress that doesn’t → exit protocol.

Phase 5 — Return — 8–10 min

Back to the floor. Two minutes of ordinary, regular breathing — restore the pendulum.
Open eyes, sit up slowly, look around and name what you see.
Journal 5 min while fresh: which masks showed up, what the body did that surprised you, any emotion that arrived without a story attached. This is the capture step; skip it and the session evaporates like a dream.

Frequency and expectations

Schorno’s cohort: daily for months, supervised — that’s where large changes came from.
Solo: 2–3×/week to start.
First several sessions will be mostly awkward twitching and self-consciousness. The dampening skill (Phase 2) is the bottleneck for everything downstream.
Mechanistic framing (lowered top-down motor priors, amplified bottom-up noise, real-time confabulation by the interpreter) is a useful anchor if things get intense — but drop it during practice. Analyzing while rivering is just another judge mask.

Journal

7/6:

So fun!!! wtf. completely letting loose on my fantasies. I love this
No real tears tho I did feel the sensation of grief at times
Lots of laughing from the breath exercises. Interestingly only one out of those times did my brain generate a story (at least that I noticed)
Masks that showed up: dragon/demon possessing my body, person or set of persons running from the dragon/demon but being trapped in a room of circular infinite mirrors, lots of dancing, singing/rapping to diff songs, carefree bodybuilder influencer (?) type, climbing out of a deep cave, old man with a messed up knee that’s still tryna play tennis (lmao so literal)
Maybe not too surprising but a lot of random contorting and stretching, kinda checks out as I did work out this morning lmao
Any emotions without a story attached? Mmm not really, no strong ones
I had a loooot of fun. Was even able to stay mostly in character when I had to go pee in the middle of the rivering