Floating in Suspension: Sensing Policy Through the Body

 As an aerial yoga practitioner, the sensation of being suspended in mid-air by soft yet resilient fabric—feet lifted, pelvis untethered, entire body hovering—is familiar. For some, this is a known and even empowering condition; for many, it evokes fear. Without a floor for grounding or gravity to indicate direction, all that's left is the tension of the fabric and the body's internal cues. One must realign the body, discern where to engage, where to release. Without such adjustments, positions fail, or worse—rotation, tilting, or falling ensues. The pain is not just muscular; it's the disorientation of gravitational collapse. Clinging desperately to the fabric renders all movement impossible. Elegance in aerial yoga begins only when balance is consciously configured.

Policy structures function similarly. Institutions do not form spontaneously, nor do they naturally catch every private grievance or social discomfort. They resemble suspension systems: support only appears when connection points are actively established. The posture of entry matters; only through a deliberate engagement can systems begin to bear weight.

This essay begins from the body to explore the concept of "public problems" in policy. Not every issue makes it into institutional view. Institutions do not automatically respond to pain. What is defined as a problem is, in truth, the result of selective institutional recognition.

I. Not Every Problem Becomes a Policy Problem

The idea that "problems ought to be addressed" is widespread and intuitive. However, for institutional actors and policy designers, a foundational discernment is necessary: not all problems are policy problems. Not every phenomenon has a corresponding institutional mechanism; not every social hardship can or should be translated into public policy.

Whether a problem enters the institutional frame depends on certain thresholds: Does it involve public resource allocation? Does it reflect market failure? Is it tied to defined governance responsibilities? Does it present risk externalities affecting the wider society? These conditions determine whether a problem qualifies for institutional uptake.

Take housing affordability for young adults as an example. While undeniably a pressing social phenomenon, it enters policy discourse only when framed as institutional insufficiency or a distortion in market mechanisms. If interpreted instead as a matter of personal choice or lifestyle preference, the issue remains outside policy jurisdiction.

Institutions are not designed to address the most painful problems, but those most translatable. This is not unfairness; it is the logic and limit of policy. Institutions must draw boundaries to assign responsibility and to justify the distribution of resources.

In aerial yoga, beginners often experience intense pressure in specific body parts. Panic ensues: "This hurts! I can’t do it!" Instructors, however, rarely respond to isolated discomfort. Instead, they assess posture: pelvic alignment, core stability, breathing. The pain point may not indicate the true problem. Often, what requires adjustment is the system of tension itself. This reflects a shift from a pain-oriented mindset to one focused on support structure—in yoga and in policy.

II. How Problems Are Shaped into Institutional Forms

In aerial yoga, discomfort does not necessarily imply error. The cause may lie not in the point of pain, but in the grip on the fabric, the angle of spinal extension, or the micro-bend in the knees. Stability and grace are contingent on alignment with the support system.

Similarly, for an issue to enter the policy realm, it must align with the grammar and scaffolding of institutions. Language, data, responsibility, and legal frameworks are the counterparts to core strength, breath, and fabric tension. The mere declaration of a problem does not suffice; the problem must be translated into a form the institution can recognize.

Problem recognition is a political act. It involves constructing narratives, assigning accountability, and reframing risks. Governability is not innate; it is produced through language, evidence, and design.

Institutions tend to favor problems that come with ready datasets, applicable legal precedents, and existing financial models. This leads policy designers to search within calculable, divisible, and comparable models, often at the expense of recognizing structural issues that lack pre-existing formats.

For instance, in the housing justice movement, slogans and protests were gradually transformed into institutional phrases like "rental subsidy," "tenant agency," and "youth rent assistance." This represents a linguistic transition from ungovernable anger to governable categories.

Problems are not analyzed after entering institutions; they are already defined in the act of institutional language formation. The way a problem is named determines how it will be segmented, analyzed, and operationalized.

III. What to Do When Problems Are Not Yet Recognized

Some aerial yoga postures appear simple, but instability persists. The fabric seems uncooperative; the body wobbles. The issue, however, rarely lies in the symptomatic spot. When the core is unengaged and the pelvis is misaligned, the structure has not yet been assembled.

The most challenging scenarios occur not when institutions refuse to respond, but when a problem has yet to be acknowledged as belonging within institutional bounds. The issue is visible, but the system has not heard its language. At this juncture, the task is not to emphasize the problem's intensity, but to construct a narrative that the institution can comprehend.

This may involve translating the issue into the language of risk or cost. It may require reframing individual stories into actionable case types across departments. Or it may demand the creation of a policy entry point—a simplified frame of responsibility that fits into planning and budgeting logics.

Institutions do not perceive problems autonomously. Only with defined boundaries, assigned roles, and forecastable risks can a problem enter the processing stream. Therefore, institutional work entails not only technical analysis, but also narrative ethics and cognitive responsibility. To name something as a problem is also to define the perimeter of institutional concern and, unavoidably, to exclude that which cannot be articulated.

In policy terms, support structures consist of language, responsibility, and risk configuration. Without constructing these, no matter how intense the pain, the issue remains suspended outside institutional action.

IV. Institutional Sense as Embodied Awareness

In more advanced aerial yoga, supports become fewer and coordination more exacting. Every joint must be repositioned. The core must stabilize, thighs must activate without rigidity, arms must reach while maintaining the center of gravity. A minor misalignment can tip the entire structure. Completion does not equal stability; only continual adjustment of proportional tension maintains equilibrium.

This is institutional sense: not solving individual symptoms, but reconfiguring the entire support matrix. Every anchor within the policy system has a tension threshold; every line of responsibility can strain or snap. Policy work is not merely analysis from above, but co-structuring from within.

In policy discourse, problem definition is often treated as a rational exercise—breaking down structures, tracing causality. Yet in practice, the most frequent issue is simply not knowing where the problem is. With tools and models in hand, analysts may still be unsure where to begin, who should act, or how far intervention should go.

This reflects a loosening of institutional sense. When interfaces blur and criteria dissolve, action loses direction. It resembles suspension without awareness: motion falters, and balance evaporates.

Institutional sense is an embodied apprehension of support systems, a simultaneous awareness of location, responsibility, and tension. It is not a toolkit, but an attuned intuition—developed through repetition, orientation, and recognition of thresholds.

Hence, policy professionals require not just analytical capacity, but sensitivity to structure—an attunement to governance arrangements, power distributions, and responsibility dynamics. Not all problems require intervention, but every problem warrants a determination of governability.

Conclusion

Inverted with feet hooked gently in fabric, no floor beneath, no force to command, there is no choice but to yield to the agreement between gravity and the cloth. This yielding is not surrender, but a posture achieved only after all adjustments and redistributions have been made. It is the result of deliberate choices and sustained perception.

Public problems are similar. Institutions do not automatically recognize or absorb them. Entry depends on whether the problem has taken a form institutions can comprehend and carry. The threshold lies not in its severity, but in its boundary, risk framing, and responsibility design.

What is called a "public problem" is often a moment of suspended equilibrium—a temporary alignment achieved through language and engineered support. Institutional capacity does not lie in force, but in whether the issue has been formatted into a legible object.

Problem entrance is not natural; it is designed. And institutional sense is precisely the capacity to detect and shape that design. As in aerial yoga, balance is found not in force, but in precise tension. The ability to breathe calmly in midair is not intuitive. It is learned. And it is that very position that marks the true beginning of a policy-relevant public problem.