The Inner Studio - Riverside Architectural Press

friend. You may wish to bring a specific creative problem you are facing
or approach the exercise with a more general question. Remember to
give yourself time to ground the experience and make sure you will not
be interrupted during your work.
Learning to Wrestle
THE INNER STUDIO
Having activated the inner world, the designer is ready to begin
transcribing images and responses. This section describes ways to
sustain contact with and deepen our connection to creative states.
We want to learn not only how to make an ally of these covert
images, but also to develop the capacity to extend their expression
into the materialization of the project. Design development really
means learning to transcribe your imagination from spirit into
matter.
Wrestling with Design Development
There was a time when wrestling was not considered entertainment–it
was part of the range of basic life skills. I believe that
wrestling trained people to work at close quarters with something
or someone that might be unyielding. It taught people the value of
having to relate intimately with difficulty and how to fight fairly. To
wrestle, you must try to stay on your feet–in other words, in the
ego–and not lose hold of what you are trying to pin down. I have
always thought of the creative process as a form of wrestling. There
is an art to wrestling that requires you to bring a combination of
craft, energy, and awareness into the moment.
We cannot avoid obstacles and irreconcilable difficulties when
we are trying to create something. Sometimes the point of wrestling
is not the victory, but to see if there is a sincere desire to wrestle. In
other words, are you willing to fight for your idea? The elders who
contemplated the biblical story of Jacob wrestling with the angel
have made the point that an angel could easily have wrestled Jacob
to the ground–the important question is why the angel allowed
Jacob to fight all night. The answer they suggest is that the angel
wanted to find out if Jacob was willing to wrestle all night. At
dawn, the wrestling ended when the angel withdrew, not wanting
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