Tag Archives: sensation

Are You My Dance?

I am a movement chameleon.

Nocturnal. Dark dweller. Shadow nimble. Twilight agile.

It is with unabashed curiosity, pleasure and the barely-contained, irresistible urge to slip into the danceskin of another that I lose myself for a moment. Here, lost in another, I am never more fully in my own.

Mmm, it is walking with feet of melting rubber that bring me closer to the brilliance of “us” that I so desire. The angle of the sternum. Bridge of spine. Liquid chain. It is coming.

The world you stand in melts away as I see into another. This one vestibular; symbolic and code.

Hollow, transient, rushing, dark, rigid, yielding, engrossed and divergent comes the whisper “dance that!”

Head. “Heart.” Pelvis/”Gut”.

Head. Pelvis. My dance is here.

The world of detail breathes softly in the background until I lift the veil.  Heightened sensation tells me a story and  I am reminded of my body history.  Within the discomfort of illumination come new lessons in my design and how to use my energy. Sensation pours around me and through me, giving me subtle and not-so-subtle cues and clues.

Cues (head) transmit information bites that are pure and without judgment. “Sharp pain”, “loose”, “unstable”, “flow”, “stuck”.  Clues (pelvis) nudge me to zoom in more closely to receive the chance to unravel new moves. “Revisit that arm and shoulder move and notice where you hold the head of your humerus in your shoulder joint.”

Immersed in this ocean I can swim, decisively moving my body through liquid sensation or I can float and be moved.

Swimming charges me past in order to land me forward – a-head. I don’t know what there was. To feel. To hear. To see. To learn. To love. I don’t know what I might have received.

In Being moved I find the new places. In Being moved I feel the swells – I am the swells as the ocean changes her mind. In Being moved my dance, my life moves through me. Connected. Deeply interwoven. One.

In partnership, in collaboration and with agreement: my life will not go on without me and I will not go on without it.

The trying-on is done. With small, fascinated touch or too-big, ungainly attempts at what is not quite mine, it is sensuality that leads me to wholeness. It is this work, this pleasure, this stirring connection of cells in conscious symphony that bring me back home…

Not to be lead by my head or “heart” or pelvis – but by all.

From the mud, coal-black, sticky, warm and pungent comes

my whole

my own

my spirit

my joy

I Am My Dance.

(Photograph by Daniela Paunova)

The Secret of Brilliant Movement – Mini Sensation Meditation

Let’s make this interactive:

This might be a conversation you open and hold with your body only, or perhaps you’d like to share your discoveries with the rest of us.

Diving into Sensation. Or tip toeing. Or crashing. Or stomping. Or sinking. Or slipping in.

Take a moment and awaken your Body Awareness. Three full, easy breaths.  Bring your attention to a body part and notice how it feels. Choose a sensation word and said it softly out loud. The door is open…

How do you define “brilliant” movement?

What is the Sensation of brilliant movement?

Would you describe your movements every moment as brilliant ?

Let’s not think of this as an all-or-nothing proposition, so… where and when are you moving brilliantly?

Do you sense brilliance in your entire body or does a particular body part or area come to mind?

When you receive the answer, stay with it. See in your mind’s eye and feel your brilliant movement as an immediate and intimate experience. In the intimacy is the details.

Is it when you’re dancing with your friends? Are you moving brilliantly when you’re running? When you’re cooking?

What is it you do, then, that isn’t brilliant?

Why isn’t it brilliant?

Who told you it wasn’t brilliant?

Not brilliant compared to what?

Revisit your brilliant movement. Take time to consider the questions and the answers your body gives you. Spend as much time in any one as you like. As with any of my meditation suggestions, you can explore the meditation in it’s entirety or you can take it apart. Play with one question in the car, stopped in traffic. Play with a question while you’re standing in line and another at the computer, in front of the tv or anywhere to practice and heighten body awareness.

Remaining connected to the sensation of brilliant movement in your body, invite your mind to explore these mental toys:

What about using the words brilliant and energetic interchangeably?

Where does your sensation go?

Now we’ll use brilliant interchangeably with difficult.

Where does your mind go? What sensation or sensations do you notice?

How about brilliant and specific?

How are specific and difficult movements connected to brilliant movement? Are they?

Let’s go to brilliant and painful.

Are any of your brilliant movements painful? Yes? Why? Must the movements result in pain to be brilliant?

What if we use the words brilliant and functional interchangeably?

Will you go back and answer any of the above questions differently? Is there a change in your body sensation?

How about we use the words brilliant and pleasurable interchangeably?

What changes now? Is there a difference between functional movement and pleasurable movement? Sensation?

Now let’s make easy and brilliant interchangeable.

What’s the change? Does the change occur in your mind as shifts of perspective? Is the change wholly physical?

A bit of both?

Let’s bring the sensation and concept of satisfaction into the equation. Brilliant and satisfying?

When and where is your movement brilliant and satisfying?

Ok, adding  another element into the mix.

For brilliance, it must also be satisfying and painful. To be satisfying, it must be brilliant and painful. To be painful, it must also be brilliant and satisfying? Does this work? Is it possible? Where does it breakdown? Do you know this sensation or these sensations in your body?

Are all of these possible? Some? None?

When we make brilliant interchangeable with authentic, what happens?

Brilliant with healthy?

How easily can you equate your body’s natural and unfettered movement with brilliance?

Where does your mind go when you consider brilliance in the organic nature that is your very personal movement style?

Are there rules to being brilliant? Is there a charge for brilliant movement? A piper to pay?

Is brilliant movement expensive?

Is there a sacrifice?

Or is brilliance freedom?

The “Secret” is within you.

Art by Kalidou Kasse

The Sensation of Dance

I took Ulrich Schnauss’ piece, Monday to 6:15 class Thursday, after listening to it pretty much the entire day.

Normally, for me, when I fall in love with a piece of music, I can’t sit still. I have to move and better yet, dance to it. This exploration was different. My initial sensory experience kept me in stillness, rapt – with a huge recurring smile of systemic delight.

When I got into the lovely space that holds Nia twice a week, I turned on the music. At first my body just wanted to be still and let the sounds swirl and swoop around me.

Then the drums pull me in, drawing me close and teaching me where to move and when to wait.  Wisps, pulses, murmurs and voice of melody invited my body to relax and listen with different ears.

“L i s t e n,” spoke the sounds, “and F e e l.”

What had at once felt so familiar and unfamiliar began to melt into trust.

Bends in the music became bends in direction. Liquid percussion became liquid art. From vibration to flesh and blood.

Loose, joyful shifts into the pleasure of discovery; simple, open discovery revealing knees, hips, elbows, shoulders, hands and eyes. Alone and in relationship, my spine slips into the dance and a new conversation begins.

I am not pieces; bits and parts listing and rolling without consciousness.

I am a biological community; a nexus of cells and creativity. My boundaries soften and blur as sound and solid collide, and blend.

Now both more than the sum of parts, essences spill over and what was separate and discernible is no more.