Break on through to the other side...

Session 3, Day 6
So Day 6 was quite the break-through class. While going across-the-floor we talked about 100 vs 300 percent in terms of, I guess, energetic output. And while, yes, it is a worthy exercise to do the movement at 300% for the sake of feeling your edge. I encourage you to work at this 300 level all the time. That’s not to say, be careless and throw or push your body past its limitations. But everyone in the class tends toward the side of playing it safe. So right now, I think it’s best to explore the danger zone a bit more. I think we’re all responsible enough for ourselves to not get too carried away. And if I saw someone getting carried away I would definitely step in. But in my opinion, no one is there. I mentioned that I feel like we’re waiting for someone to give us permission to go all out, go 300%. When in actuality, when it comes to really performing and giving it your all, no one other than yourself can open that door. Sometimes it helps, to just accept the fact that you will look like a fool every once in a while. But the more you live through embarrassment like that, the more you realize that it’s not a big deal. And when you can laugh at yourself and pick yourself right on up, you’re actually congratulating yourself for being brave enough to just go for it all. When I was younger, I participated in this “audition” for a dance conference scholarship that took place on stage, in front of about 1,500 people, at the closing event after a week-long dance convention. I danced my heart out. So much that I totally lost my grounded-ness and ended up on all fours in the middle of the combination. I absolutely had no recollection of how it all happened. One minute I’m feelin so good and the next, my nose is inches from the floor. Needless to say, I didn’t get the scholarship. But falling on stage in front of so many people was worth all the compliments I received from my colleagues, the people who have seen me dance over the years, and who know me beyond a 2 minute audition. My point is, accomplishments don’t always come in the form of awards or scholarships. It’s really you that determines whether you’ve met your goals or not. I, as teacher, am nothing more than a friendly, sometimes harsh if need be, reminder of the reality that everything you need in order to be successful is already in you. And remember, time in the studio is for no one else but yourself. So let this place be the one place, if nowhere else, where you can experiment, fall and really test your will.

Sumo

Session 3, Day 5
So we’re past the half-way mark in the workshop. And everyone is making leaps and bounds in their skill level. You may not think that the way you dance is drastically different, but it shows in your openness and your ability to take on new tasks with more and more courage. It really showed today in the Budo exercise where we did the connection exercise in a circle, and worked on finding each other’s center quickly. This is good practice in fully committing to the task and leaving no time for doubt – which is essential when dancing. When we dance we’re constantly calibrating and re-calibrating where our weight is. So we practice a deep awareness of our bodies in relationship to space and other people. When we did our center pliés exercise, I had you imagine yourself as a hug sumo wrestler to try to get you to take up more space and allow yourself to expand width-wise. This image helps to use the support of the space and stretch beyond your kinesphere. If our sense of ourselves is flimsy and narrow, then we in a sense limit the relationship we have with our surroundings…We also continued to drill the choreography we already know, and then we added a few more steps. I had you count out loud while running the routine, and that seemed to help connect the mind and the body a bit more. If, without speaking, your mind seems cluttered with other thoughts unrelated to the choreography, then counting in your head and tracking your body with your eyes, is a way to quiet and focus the mind. It’s amazing how much the mind and body conflict, and it’s as if, the heart of the dance practice, is more of a mental exercise in stilling the mind. It’s a really complex negotiation between the two. And in dance class, we should explore how much of our “thinking” and decision-making we can locate in our felt/physical bodies, instead of in our mind-body that we so often use in every-day interactions. More to come…

Your time to shine

Session 3, Day 4
The usual to begin: warm-up from the floor to standing. When we are lying in our X on the floor and spiraling from the initiation of either our feet or our fingers, remember to let the rest of the body melt and just follow the initiation. Allow yourself to just rest into the movement. We, of course, did our pliés, and this time I would step out to give you a chance to figure out the routine yourself. Everyone was really timid at first, but once you let go of some of the pressure, you realized that your body wasn’t so lost and was able to really shine. All the information is already there. It’s sometimes more about clearing the mind to allow the body memory to emerge. We went on to do the connection exercise and tried it from our partner’s back. It’s amazing how much you can feel without seeing. Sometimes the feeling is so much more powerful because you don’t have the distraction of sight. We get a lot of information from our eyes, and sometimes that information can take your focus away from what you’re working on in your body (while your dancing). So learning to shut off that critical voice and the fixated gaze can really open up your movement. We started working on our combination. It begins with a large spiraling of the right arm and upper torso. The footwork is a variation on triple steps (similar to our across the floor exercises). Now that we’re beginning to take on a lot more movement each day, it is critical for everyone to stay open and positive. Practice, practice, practice too! Once a week is not enough. So if retaining the material from class to class is a challenge, then you have to practice it at home and on your own time. Remind yourself again of the goals you set out to achieve at the beginning of the workshop. And ask yourself what steps you’ve taken in the last few weeks to accomplish those goals.