Friday, June 10, 2011

confessions of a movement slacker

Part I: :dancer:

i have always rejected broad labels as predicates to the self, or as descriptive relations to others. “i am a dancer.” “i am his or her girlfriend.” “i am a slacker.” oops. i guess i’m okay with the self-depricating predicates??

i quit dancing in november 2009.

i no longer felt authentically connected to the experience. teaching ballet and modern dance had become a habit. i had co-produced my first dance performance in summer, 2009, only to find that i had not stayed true to an artistic intent. i had never set or taken time to think about artistic intent.

my MOVEMENT had become something i did not want to do. ballet class hurt my body. i didn’t feel like there was a place in my community to safely explore modern or ballet technique without falling into my old patterns of judgment, pain, competition...so i stopped teaching dance after 9 solid years of it. i forgot that dancing, moving, was artistry. i lost connection (or maybe never even had it) to feeling what is good for myself while running headlong toward that which did not feel good to my physical and emotional body.

last sunday i went to the pool with my beautiful buddy, Tara. she wants me to find an hour a week to teach her ballet technique. i have been hesitant to agree, but i decided that in July i will start an hour ballet technique class at my Pilates studio. i will try to offer the parts of the technique i miss: the delicious wrapping of muscle to bone, the incredibly powerful feet and ankles, the levity. so, in the pool, we just started doing barre exercises. and it felt good! if only i could harness in my body on solid ground the freedom/resistance that is inherent to the properties of water. what element is your favorite to harness? the solid growth of wood? the heat and effervescence of fire? the mysteriously invisible wind? the density of metal?

for now, i hit the dance floor in our local dj scene. because that, i feel. in anusara yoga this week with Paul and Sommer, they mentioned becoming so engaged with what you are doing that it warps time. i love to warp things, so on my own, i am trying to truly “show up” for myself (as my other main yoga teacher, Ti Harmony, says) and quit my habit of movement addiction. i want to love it.

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