DANCING INTO LIFE

Wednesday 24th February 2021

“Everything that exists in the universe – be it elements, stars, plants or animals, including humans – is a component of a larger living system. 

The universe exists because life exists – not the other way around. 

Relationships of matter-energy transformation are degrees of integration of life.”

_Rolando Toro Arañeda

How connected do you feel with life? Does it seem as if everything is on hold until ‘all of this is over’? I see many people who have given up on dance at a time when it would be the most beneficial. Dance connects us to life.

Life is not just the events that make up day to day ordinary living. Life is far greater, far more fascinating and far more exciting that we could ever imagine. Life is the great mystery that fires up and drives this entire universe. We can never understand it through the limitations of our mind but we can experience it through the beautiful sensorality of our body.

When we dance we connect to the world through our senses feeling and experiencing movement through space, movements of extension and greater range and movement of the heart. When we bring our mindful attention to the dance integrating all of our experience in the moment we enter that elusive state we call the present. Being present is not a measure of time. Being present is a state in which we perceive the world with heightened sensisitvity. In that moment we are open to feeling connected. Above all we are connected to life force and find that while we momentarily let ourselves be distracted, life is still here, always waiting patiently for us to plug into the joy, pleasure and excitement of living.

DANCING IS GOOD FOR THE BRAIN

DANCE AND FOCUS

Wednesday 17th February 2021

“If you focus on results, you will never change. If you focus on change you will get results.”

_Robert Bloch

Have these chaotic times made it difficult for you to focus? I see young Philip, my nephew trying to attend school online – and how hard it is for him to focus. I see others trying to work from home. These are not our supportive environments where our body and mind automatically knows what to do, where to focus and what we should be doing. Not only are we surrounded by everyday distractions like that piece of cake calling for our immediate attention but we are also experiencing unprecedented emotions that either we don’t understand or can’t process quick enough.

Dance always brings our attention back to our body. We focus on the music, the movements and the beautiful experience of moving through space and time. For the duration of the dance we are totally focused. This seems to me a really powerful way to develop focus, learning to bring attention back to what we are engaged in at any moment. The concept of Deep Work (read more here) talks about the positive effect of work in which we are actively engaged and focused instead of distracted and scattered.

Dance supports this focus. We embody focus in our dance and if we take these lessons out into life we can beat the chaos. Let’s dance so that we can turn everything into a dance; with a beginning, an end, focus and a positive outcome.

To be a Good Dancer, Don't Give a F**k - Amrita Hepi

REPLENISHING DANCES

Wednesday 10th February 2021

“Dance is the movement of the universe concentrated in an individual.”

_Isadora Duncan

What do you do to replenish the soul? Drip by drip the tediousness of life can sometimes chip away our energy. If we don’t do something about it soon we can find ourselves expended, lying down at the bottom of the energy barrel.

Actually out body is not limited energetically – we are machines for living and can keep creating life and energy. We only feel tired when we don’t take a break. As with everything we need to replenish and taking time off is perfect. Sleep is our time off for the body. Dance is our time off for our soul.

To dance weekly is to take a moment to give yourself a gift. Intrinsically dance does not have some ulterior motive – unless you are dancing to impress someone! Dance is an activity which we engage in for the sheer pleasure it gives us. We feel the pleasure because we connect to our body, heart and soul simultaneously. We feel the pleasure of integration. Within this state, when we are experiencing the joy of living, we create more energy. Joy feeds joy and we dance with life lighter and with more freedom.

Energy is about HOW the movements happen...

DANCING INTO NEW STORIES

Wednesday 3rd February 2021

“Real change is possible, but only through a new story.”

_Charles Eisenstein

Could you ever change your story?

Do you have the courage to ever change your story?

Stories are what we tell ourselves to maintain our identity. Some are obvious and other subtle. It’s taken a lifetime to create these stories – bit by bit we add into our memory bank everything that we have experienced but also more importantly the beliefs we have adopted based on those experiences. To unravel and understand the story would most probably take just as long!

We expend a lot of psychic energy maintaining our stories to the point where defending our point of view of the world and ourselves can create barriers to new and wonderful experiences – should these not fit in.

A powerful escape from the story is to create a radical new environment around you. One of the ways to do this is to suspend life as you know it momentarily. Its that feeling we have on holiday when we lie on the beach and suddenly life seems to come into focus. The change of environment facilitates new perspectives. Failing the luxury of traveling to the beach at the drop of a hat – we have our alternative. Yes! You guessed it. DANCE!

Dance creates new environments instantaneously. We shift into altered states through the dance, sometimes light and fun and sometimes quite deep. This shift from arises when we leave our ordinary life at the door and allow the dance to envelop us in non-ordinary states where our habitual patterns and stories are suspended as we give ourselves over to the music, the movement and the experience.

An Intro to the Story of Separation – Charles Eisenstein