DANCE and Self-Regulation

“Self-regulation will always be a challenge,

but if somebody’s going to be in charge,

it might as well be me.”

_Daniel Akst

Dance is a wonderful tool for psychological self-regulation. It develops our ability to have a greater awareness of the cues we are receiving from the body, integrating our physical and mental selves.

Sometimes we are so out of touch that our bodies are positively screaming at us for attention, through pains and aches, stiffness and fatigue. These are emotional signatures of the body that first arise as bodily sensations. When we become aware of these cues, we are able then to ascribe meaning and interpret them as feelings. These become mental states that begin to govern our behaviour. When we are connected to our body, when we are aware of our feelings, it is possible to be conscious of our actions in life. When we are disconnected, we are little more than automated robots governed by habitual patterns of behaviour.

Dance is our portal to the body and our connection to everything that is going on in our being. We connect with our sensations, our bodies, our emotions, and our feelings. They are not always negative; we can sometimes be unconscious of the good times too. Integrating our mind and body through dance opens up our ability to direct and be creative in our lives. We learn ‘when’ to act. We learn ‘how’ to act. And so are able to self-regulate ourselves in life, not flouncing around a helpless victim of circumstance. We become active creators of a well-balanced life.

_Christos Daskalakos

Dance, Wellbeing and Self-REgulation with Moni Mogaji

POWER DANCE

“Dance is a superpower. 

Everyone has it but only a few are brave enough to unleash it.”

_unknown

Power Posing – or even better Power Dances…

Can our postures and movements alter our state of consciousness? There are many people who believe so. A few of these are people like Rolando Toro Araneda, creator of Biodanza, Felicitas Goodman, creator of Ecstatic Trance Postures and, Carlos Castaneda, author and creator of Magical Passes.

That there is a connection between what we call our mind and our body is now an established fact. Author of Biology of Belief, Bruce Lipton is someone who writes about the influence our mind has on our body. However this is a two-way street and as much as what we believe and how we feel influences the state of our body, our body can influence our mind, sometimes taking us into altered states of consciousness – in other words, out of our normal state of being. Postures and movement send signals to the brain. Whether we contract or expand our limbs and torso, will send different messages to the brain. Think of the hunched over person feeling depressed compared to an athlete who has just won first place, arms outstretched waving their national flag.

I was reminded of this on Saturday as I danced around the fire. Inspired by the strong shamanic beat of the music my body naturally began to move with a strong energy, muscles electrified with strong direct movements, torso expanding into movements of power. With this dance, my consciousness shifted into an expanded state that matched my body. For a moment it felt like my whole being had expanded and my dance extended from the fire out into the stars. This left me feeling powerful, invigorated, and very determined. Once again, this bears testimony to the power of dance.

_Christos Daskalakos

PURPOSE and DANCE

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost,

to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”

― Eleanor Roosevelt

What is the purpose of the dance? I simple question that can be understood within the wider existential questions we ask ourselves – one of which is, “What is my purpose?” For some, this does not feature as a major concern as they continue to negotiate the trial and tribulations of everyday life. While for others it becomes such a burning question, that often they go on a quest to find the answer, giving up everything and traveling to other places. Meanwhile, I would think, the answer lies right in front of us. It lies in the living of the profane as much as it lies in the ecstatic experiences of what we would call sacred.

The answer lies in the dancing. Instead of burning our brain into overdrive to figure these things out, we can find an easier path which is to drop into direct experience. Often people think about their purpose as something that needs to be defined reached. A better way of understanding purpose is to see it as a state of being rather than as an end state. It becomes a dance with life instead of a goal to be reached.

These are deep questions with answers that evade us. But we are lucky because we can use the dance to enter these states of being, instead of doing. We don’t dance to create some outcome, the dance itself is the outcome. What a beautiful illustration of purpose. The purpose of dance is the dance. It is the experience of being ourselves. In the dance we feel our feelings, enjoy the sensations of movement and allow our spirit to soar. This is the blissful state of experiencing and just being ourselves. Is this not the purpose of life too?

_Christos Daskalakos

Spaces, Places, Dances

“Poetry and music exist in time. Painting and architecture are part of space.

But only the dance lives at once in both space and time.”

_Lyall Watson

The power of dance is that we embody our experiences. Dance is not a simulation but a real experience in time and space. Space is a key component of dance and sometimes we could miss the subtle influence it may have simply by us dancing through space. It may be easy to imagine that dance is a body moving through space when actually the dance creates a unique spatial experience for the dancer. In the dance we are not separate from space, we are space, we are time, and we are the movement – all rolled into one embodied experience.

Firstly we experience space in different ways. In circle dances for example there is no hierarchy, everyone has an equal position. We are individuals dancing and yet together we form the circle. It’s no wonder that the circle has been an intr
icate part of dance since our ancestors gathered around the fire consolidating their communities and connecting with each other.

This is just one aspect of space and dance. There are many experiences. As dancers, we interact with space in many different ways. What does it feel like to dance alone in one place – never leaving or venturing out of our personal range of comfort? Contrast that with what it might feel like to take off, move through space, turn, jump and extend our movements. These two opposites offer an experience of “stuckness” vs an experience of “exploration”. And, how do we move through space? Do we focus on linear movements moving forward, or do we alter directions?

Even when we dance alone we are involved dynamically with space. Yet, when we dance with others new possibilities unfold. By negotiating through space with others we learn about relationships. Are we rigid, or are we flexible? Do we dominate, submit or find a beautiful harmony with the other?

The way we negotiate space in our dance is a reflection of how we live our life. By exploring new possibilities in the dance, and learning to glide, turn and leap through space we embody an experience that can be translated into life.

_Christos Daskalakos

AUTHENTIC DANCES

 

“When you are authentic, you create a certain energy, 

people want to be around you because you are unique.”

_Andie MacDowell

Being authentic is an action. It is an ongoing state of being that connects of our own personality, values and spirit. This requires fierce honesty with oneself and others. Out of this arises a state of integrity in which our actions are always aligned with our values. It requires a deep listing to self and the courage to be vulnerable and open hearted.

What often gets in the way of authenticity is the self we think we are is not really the self we truly are. It is easy to become disconnected to retreat into our mental constructs of self that are based on incorrect information. Incorrect assumptions, judgments and opinions from other can often be toxic leading us to low self-esteem. When we take on such negativity our internal sense of being is destroyed and we reinforce this.

Conscious dance can provide us with the tools for being authentic. The dance teaches us to be present in the moment, to connect with our feelings and to act in the moment. Being present also means that we can cut off the mental chatter and external situations that remove us from the raw experience of self. Dance also brings greater awareness to both internal and external influences on us. When we connect with our feelings through the dance we can experience life in a way that is free from these influences. Dance takes place in the present moment. By experiencing the dance through a body moving through time and space means we learnt to notice, take stock and value that which is true for us. We learn to live in a state of being authentic.

Through the dance we can connect with our authenticity. When we give full expression to who we are, our light shines through into the world and our inner beauty is revealed. Dance is the outward expression of this inner self. It gives expression to our inner vitality, our inner feelings, and our inner world. We allow the movements to let this manifest in a dance of beauty. The dance is a mirror of our authentic self.

_Christos Daskalakos

BALANCING ACT _ dancing our way into harmony

"Even if you are not that good, dancing frees the body to 

float along with the music, and to cast off stress."

_Byron Pulsifer

Many speak about dance connecting body and mind. The truth is that they never were separated, it’s just that we are not always aware of the impact the one has on the other. Our moods are often determined by the state of our body, and what we think can influence the way our body interacts with the world around us. Dance gives us the opportunity to become aware of this connection and so integrate body and mind – finding harmony.

Dance can bring harmony to both our body and mind through carefully balancing and stimulating a full range of experiences. As a form of self-expression, dance mirrors our sense of self, and who we feel we are. At the same time this is bidirectional and dance can shift these mental constructs through creativity and freedom of movement. When we experience something different in our body, it changes the way we think and feel. Letting go into a beautiful dance can dispel negativity and bring healing.

The more balance we find between our physical, bodily experiences and our mind of thinking and imagination, the more harmony we bring into our experience of life. To be at peace is to be in a place where the one is not in conflict with the other. No, to self-limitations imposed on our thinking and feeling, and no, to the disqualifying judgements around the body. Yes, to dance! To dance is to accept both the beauty of the body as well as the magic of the mind. Together they form dance. And, dance brings them together in perfect harmony and balance

_Christos Daskalakos

dancing ... DIRECT EXPERIENCE

“There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive.”

_Jack London (The Call of the Wild)

To dance is to experience ourselves beyond the descriptive language of words and thoughts. So often we feel we have to ‘know’ the world by describing it and giving it some meaning through language. Yet there is a place of knowing beyond knowing and that is direct experience. Through the dance we are able to experience life in a way that is beyond the limitation of knowing intellectually. Dance uncovers the subtlety and range of experience which has not been premeditated nor predefined. It is the world of wonder, awe and magical exploration.

Experience is based on feeling – knowing is based on mental constructs. To be immersed in an experience is to have a direct relationship with it. In dance we are immersed in the exciting movement of our own body in space. Not only that, but we are also immersed in the emotional flow of feeling that arises spontaneously as we let go and for a moment connect with the grace of movement.

The mode of being, given to us by dance, is difficult to put into words. It is felt and lived in the moment. It is all encompassing and has a range and depth of connection to life that is beyond the stories, ideas and imaginations of the mind. To be dancing is to be in flow. This is a state of being in which we are fully immersed in what we are doing. The body, heart and mind are one – and in a strange way the ego falls away as we experience ourselves and life directly and not filtered by concepts, ideas and other ways of ‘knowing’. The benefits of being in a flow state of direct experience is that we can regulate our emotions, feel motivated and engage creatively in expressing our authentic self. To dance it to be fully experiencing life – directly!

_Christos Daskalakos