Bear Frolics Exercises

To experience the Five Animal Frolics we need to keep in mind the "Frolics" aspect of this movement art: being playful and exuberant, freeing up our time for fun, delighting in bodily movements, enjoying games of imitation, taking pleasure in the moment, and delighting in the exercise of fantasy and imagination.  We should be smiling as we enjoy our playful frolics.  We should strive to return to our youth, and rekindle those memories of our joyful childhood games, innocence, freedom of fancies, and silliness.  We are never too old to embrace that precious child within each of us.  

Bear Frolics: Lessons, Bibliography, Notes

The Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh.  By A. A. Milne.  With decorations by Ernest H. Shepard.  New York, Dutton's Children's Books, 1994.  344 pages.  Color illustrations, hardbound.  ISBN: 9780525457237.  Originally published in 1926, 1954.  This book includes: Winnie-the-Pooh, and The House at Pooh Corner, VSCL.  
 
The Te of Piglet.  By Benjamin Hoff.  New York, Penguin Books, 1992.  257 pages.  ISBN: 0140230165.  VSCL.  

The Tao of Pooh.  By Benjamin Hoff.  New York, Penguin Books.  VSCL 
  
The most famous literary Bear is Winnie the Pooh.  Over 26 million English language books by A. A. Milne about the Pooh Bear and his friends have been sold since 1926, the books have been translated into scores of languages, and Disney Films has made him even more famous and a lucrative commodity line.  Benjamin Hoff has explored how Pooh Bear is a quintessential "Taoist Bear."   

So ... it is just fine for you to Dance like a Bear.
Become a Silly Bear for a awhile.
Enjoy the real honey of just being right were you are,
   here and now, content,
   Pooh, it is quite easy.
 

"Christopher Robin and I walked along
Under branches lit up by the moon
Posing our questions to Owl and Eeyore
As our days disappeared all too soon
But I've wandered much further today than I should
And I can't seem to find my way back to the Wood
So help me if you can
I've got to get back
To the House at Pooh Corner by one
You'd be surprised
There's so much to be done
Count all the bees in the hive
Chase all the clouds from the sky
Back to the days of Christopher Robin and Pooh."
- Return to Pooh Corner,  Words and lyrics by Kenny Loggins, 1969, MCA Musi