leaping + flying

Gif of the Week: Spreading Wings

If this beauty of of a gif doesn’t show in the post (gifs can be glitchy), click here. via Hedviggen

Surfing Through the Wave

(Video link HERE.) Some people like watching this with the sound cranked up. We find it more beautiful OFF… ….a reminder of that the path can sometimes be obscured, but we must keep riding through as best we can… via The Dish

Grant Snider on Making the Leap

Grant Snider nails it again. What leaps are you afraid to make? (Make a list, real or imaginary, of what they are and why you want to make them.)

15 Seconds of Gorgeous from Tom Ashcraft

Tom Ashcraft “Artisan, Naturalist, Electroreceptor and Scientific Instrument Builder” is a man who completely defies categorization. He’s got all sorts of gear that constantly monitors and records wondrous things that are going on in the sky all around us. His lovely little film is like watching the night sky out in the country…

Daybooks with Custom Covers to Mark Where You Are or Are Going

Marella Consolini, former Chief Operating Officer of the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas, is one of the many very interesting Improvised Life readers we’ve come to know and be amazed by. Somehow years ago, an email exchange started and continued until we feel like she is an old friend, who we happen to have never met in person. In…

If We Never Tried, We’d Never Know… What’s Possible

All morning long we watched as Tinypass alerts came into Improvised Life’s inbox, announcing subscribers to our new Friends with Benefits subscription service. They landed like butterflies, from people inspired by IL to help it survive, “being there” as we risk, leap, try, see what happens…

Role Model: 13-year-old Girl Eagle Huntress

Thirteen-year-old Ashol Pan is one of the first females to learn eagle-hunting, a tradition among Kazakh eagle hunters that was the province of boys and men. We think the image at the joyful Pan is incredibly heartening, a perfect example of “Why not?”

GIF of the Week

Our blogging platform won’t allow gifs to be posted on the homepage or thumbnails without messing up the code SO CLICK TO VIEW THIS WEEK’S GIF.

The Thrilling Adventure of Familiar Frontiers

(Video link HERE.) Mickey Smith is a surf photographer from Cornwall, England whose six minute video of wave riding in the ominous North Sea is a stunning, nail biting, vicarious experience for urbanistas and land-locked couch potatoes. But diving beyond the hair-raising visuals, listening to Smith’s philosophy of life is what makes this clip intriguing. Smith says, “I never…

Yo-Yo Ma on Leaps of Faith

Not long after we found this rather astounding leap photo, we came across this quote from Yo-Yo Ma.

Olympic’s Hidden Victories (Views of Fear and Flying)

(Video link HERE.) We’ve been riveted by the Olympics on Sochi which we’ve been watching on TV. What interests us most is the fierce spirit we see: contenders making unexpected mistakes, falling, going off-track and off-plan, and most often CONTINUEING their run anyway, valiently with no possibility of winning. There are many victories we didn’t…

Pursuit of the New: Surfing with Ice and Snow

A source of inspiration to us over the winter months is intrepid photographer Yassine Ouhilal, who documents surf culture in some of the worlds coldest waters. A surfer himself, Yassine is Canadian born but ventures further north to the far reaches of Canada, Russia and Iceland where a small number of like-minded surfers escape the hoards…

A Stunt Video’s FEELING of Risk (Watch at your own…risk)

As we watched this video of professional stunt people doing their thing, we realized we knew the feeling well: of taking a risk once we’ve done everything we can to master what we are doing. There are so many unknowns being in the world; we’re ALL always walking on SOME edge…But why take risks? we wonder.

Maurizio Cattelan on Being a Loser + a Revolutionary

Ever since Holton Rower gave us an issue of Maurizio Cattelan’s magazine-book Toilet Paper, we’ve been following the artist’s work. Recently, we started hunting Cattelan’s words and found much about living and making that resonated.

Leaping Lebkuchen Bauhaus Style

Leave it to the Bauhaus to put their unique design sense to Lebkuchen, the traditional German Christmas cookies similar to gingerbread.

Wheelz’s Wheelchair Freestyle: ‘See Challenges in a New Way’

Check out this splendid, energizing, deeply heartening video of Aaron “Wheelz” Fotheringham, a “professional hardcore sitter” pushing his wheelchair to exhilarating limits, including occasional wipe-outs, par for the course with any attempt at mastery and risk-taking.

Daily Exercise Routine: Dancing, Leaping, Frolicking, Joy

What if, instead of going to the gym, dancing, leaping, frolicking and joy became our exercise routine? We can’t help think it would have a big liberating impact on our daily life and work.

shaolin monk: through practice you can skip on a wall!

We are knocked out by photographer Tomasz Gudzowaty‘s beautiful black-and-white-essay of the practices of Shaolin monks, found at IndigoJaws. We especially love this one of a monk skipping on a wall — a variation on our favorite subject of leaping and flying — made possible by rigorous and repeated practice. Lesson there… Thanks Vanessa!

Welcome to Improvised Life’s Redesign

Yes, you ARE at Improvised Life. We’ve changed our look but not our mission. The comfortable old site, lovingly-created only 4 years ago, had become too small a container for all our ideas, and too difficult to read on the many devices people use these days. That’s how fast things change! So we redesigned it…

dance in your head to jungle’s platoon

Sometimes seeing someone dancing gives you the feeling of dancing yourself: a fine way to start the day.

He, SHE really ramps up at 2:00.

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