How to Be the Best Dancer You Can Be

Article Source: http://www.compassionate-medicine.com/how-to-be-the-best-dancer-you-can-be/

photo of dancer Samantha Emanuel

“Do you know why I dance the way I do?
Because I have suffered.
I have gone through divorce,
death, a lot of heartache…
That’s the art.
You can show anyone a step
But not a soul.
Never forget why you dance.
It will always
give you strength.”
…Nadia Gamal…


We are all capable of dancing. You see that truth when a baby first begins to move their body to the rhythm of their soul. Watching a baby dance always reminds me that there is a higher power.

Some of us dance as a path of devotion – the ones that consider themselves “dancers” to their core. If you are a dancer like myself, I’m sure you hope to dance till the day you die. As a holistic healer, I know that in order to live long, healthy, happy lives that include dancing, we need to treat our mind, body and spirit. All three are necessary to heal in order to be our most joyous selves.

Know Talent Is Not Born, It Is Made –

In the book ”The Little Book Of Talent” by Daniel Coyle, he talks about how talent is not innate, it is created. “If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery,” Michelangelo later said, “it would not seem so wonderful at all.” Rachel Brice, who is considered one of the best Tribal Fusion belly dancers in the world,  uses this book as one of the educational tools for her 8 Elements dance program. I first read the book in her 8 Elements course Initiation that I took with her recently. I have found this book immensely useful for advancing my dance practice.

Some of the key ways that talent is created, as discussed in “The Little Book Of Talent”, are by building strong neural pathways in the brain, not from how long you practice, but by how you practice. You need deep practice, which requires hard work, mental struggle, and extreme attention to detail. Struggle is not optional, it is neurological required if you want to create strong “talent” neural pathways in the brain. You must also make mistakes in order to build talent. I know it is the tendency of myself and many others to want to ignore mistakes or avoid making them at all. But, you have an opportunity to build a strong neural pathway by making mistakes, paying attention to them, and fixing them right away.

Beware Of Reliance On Drugs To Connect With Your Dance -

The dance world is full of drug use. Many artists are drawn to having altered states.  I believe positive, life altering changes and profound healing can occur from the use of psychedelic plants and other mind altering substances, including alcohol. I have had them.  I am not anti-drugs by any means. The danger is when the relationship with a substance becomes unbalanced, and one of my specialties in my healing practice is trying to help people find balance in their mind, body and soul.

Unbalanced meaning the bad effects are outweighing the good. I believe experiences with mind altering substances are meant to be used very, very moderately. Relying on drugs to connect to our dance, whether it be to feel free, less anxious and afraid, is not sustainable. With over use of a drug, the very gift that it gave us in the beginning of using will be the very thing that we lose. For example, drugs and alcohol can definitely reduce anxiety, fear and depression. But drugs actually will destroy the very neurotransmitters in our bodies that create happy states if they are abused. If you find you are “chasing” a high that you had once, and it’s not happening any more with your use, you may have a problem with substance abuse.

Sometimes people are completely reliant, absolutely powerless over a substance. Addiction is very real, and probably has touched the lives of most people. I was in four rehabs by the age of 20 years old. I aso got a degree in chemical dependency counseling, worked in inpatient rehab as a counselor and worked for many years for an incredible local program here in Boulder, Colorado called Natural Highs created by Avani Dilger. I am very familiar with addictions! I know the power of them.Natural Highs is a class for teenagers to learn how to have altered states without mind altering substances through herbs, body work, mate tea ritual, acupuncture and intimate sharing.

It is important to be aware that most addicts or alcoholics have had trauma in their history. In order to heal the addition, trauma specific helping work is necessary. One of my specialties in my private practice is treating trauma or PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). My favorite therapy for trauma and PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) is Brainspotting or EMDR therapy. Make sure you find a reputable and certified therapist who uses this type of therapy tool in their practice. In my experience, it is essential that the environment and the therapist be completely safe or else the trauma will not be worked through.

The other healing tools I have seen work very well for healing trauma are ear acupuncture, ceremonial botanical body work, plant medicine, aromatherapy, flower essences and abdominal massage. I utilize all of these tools to treat myself and patients.  I have had a lot of success treating self harm addicts with these tools as well.

Other very effective tools are sweat lodges, ceremonies, rituals, cleansing, journaling, cleansing, meditation and yoga.  (*Editor's Note: "The Smudging and Blessings Book" is a beautiful resource for helping one to create sacred space for home and spiritual practice purposes.)

I think every one craves altered states, whether an addict or not. I am interested in ways to have altered states without hurting our biochemistry. There are ways to have altered states through things that actually support our minds and bodies, and do not create imbalance in the body at all. Dance is one of the ways we can get a natural high. Some other examples are meditation, sweat lodges, ceremony and cleansing. If you are creating a habit of needing a substance to dance, you could be harming your dance in the long run. Dance has saved me many times by inspiring me to stop destructive behavior because I was afraid to lose my connection to dance.

Healing Body Work Is Essential -

We must do self care to thrive as a person and to dance forever. One of the number one symptoms I treat my patients for is stress. Stress is so destructive to human beings. Healing body work, massage, chiropractic, energy work, facials, to name a few, can be life changing. I have had deeply moving, radically transforming and healing experiences receiving healing body work. This inspired me to become a healer myself. I have been apprenticing under a teacher named Naomi Boggs who has been teaching me Lomi Lomi bodywork, plant medicine, flower essences, deep abdominal massage and ceremonial botanical body work. I now do these in my private practice and I find them to be radically healing.

Now that I have taken my dance to the next level by treating it as a full time job, I find i cannot get away with not receiving regular body work. It absolutely helps me be a better dancer. Luckily, I can trade my services with other practitioners. If money is an issue, look into massage and acupuncture schools in your area. These schools usually have a clinic where students treat for a very discounted rate. Community healing clinics are becoming very popular in most cities. This is where you get treated in a group setting for a very discounted rate.

Seek Help Of Practitioners Who Are Holistic Healers, But Don’t Rule Out Western Doctors -

 I chose to become a holistic healer because treating my own mind, body and soul helped save my life from suicidal depression. I believe treating the mind, body and spirit is going to evolve medicine. I believe in both Eastern AND Western medicine – a marriage of the two. There are some amazing things that western medicine can do – hello, surgery and pain killers! Let us honor Western medicine. I love how Eastern medicine does not separate the mind, body and soul when diagnosing and treating a patient. The body holds stories that need to be expressed and words won’t get the job done.

Don’t Worry About How Old You Are –

I was 38 when I discovered tribal fusion belly dance and fell deeply in love with it. This was shortly after I birthed my second child. I knew that after searching for years for a path of devotion, after living in an ashram, after taking yoga classes for years, after struggling with meditation, I found what I was looking for in belly dance. When I am in a negative mind set, the voices in my head will say, “You are ridiculous! Trying to be a serious dancer at the age of 40! Who do you think you are? You look like a fool! It isn’t even possible! Why didn’t I find it sooner? You can’t be an old, beautiful dancer!” In a positive mindset, I declare, “I am so grateful that I found belly dance this YOUNG!

I am so grateful I found it at all!” Beauty is in the movement, in the soul that shines through the body during the dance. I try to remember and embody this, but it can be a challenge sometimes. I think we are culturally programmed to think that there is an expiration date on us when it comes to being a dancer.  In my own personal journey, I realized that the enemy is not our culture as much as my own fearful ideas about aging and beauty. I am responsible to heal and change those old ideas that no longer serve me. I so appreciate the belly dance community because of the huge age range of women doing it. I will continue to look to the examples of women dancing till the day they die!

Start Your Dance With Reverence Or A Prayer –

Those of us that have access to dance classes and community around dance are very lucky. Be grateful for that! I have met many women who told me when they were a kid, their family could not afford classes. Dance classes were not readily available on the internet, because there was no internet. Which brings me to another thing we should be grateful for – the internet. Now, with the technology of the internet, we can take classes from the touch of a button, from all the best teachers in and around the world.

I love and honor Carolena Nerrico, the mother and creator of American Tribal Style dance (ATS), for always opening her ATS dances with a movement prayer acknowledging the space that we dance in, the dance teachers, the music we hear and our fellow dancers. It’s beautiful to watch. She teachers her students who are teachers to teach the same.

Create An Altar – 

In the book, “The Little Book Of Talent”,  it talks about the importance of “staring” at what you want to become. Not just thoughtless staring, but conscious and deliberate observing. Truly seeing what it is that inspires you and what it is you hope to become. Create a sacred space for yourself with things that inspire you. Hang pictures of dancers that make your heart soar and your light your soul on fire. Surround yourself with beauty. This helps dreams takes flight.

Practice Yoga –

Rachel Brice says, “Yoga is as important to my dancing as drills or any form of practice. Without flexibility in the spine, upper back and side ribs, hips, etc., the movement would not be as “snake-y”. I’m constantly encouraging students to take more yoga classes.” Not only has yoga helped my dance, it helps me calm my mind and find peace in my soul. It helps me get in touch with my body, to know when I need rest, how far to push myself and when to slow down. When I first started taking yoga as a young teen at Kripalu, then a ashram with Amrit Desai as the guru, I was frustrated with how painful it felt.

I would get cramps in my body and limbs were constantly falling asleep. I was not aware at first that my competitive nature, my looking at everyone else and comparing myself to them, was the biggest culprit of my physical discomfort. I had a surrender one day when I decided to practice with my eyes close for all classes. What happened was incredible. I suddenly was able to tune in to what my body’s needs were. I did not push myself. I listened and I grew because of it. I crossed over into a place of physical and spiritual peace. My body stopped hurting and yoga was no longer so frustrating. I have been hooked on yoga ever since.

Warm Up And Cool Down –

Always. Period. It prevents injury and injuries can take a long time to heal and often prevent us from dancing.

Develop Your Taste In Music And Build A BITCHIN’ Music Collection -

Music is a HUGE part of a dancer’s world. It is the soul of dance. The two go hand in hand. My musicality has grown as I have grown as a dancer. As my musicality grows, so does my dance. They are mutually engendering. What’s most important is that YOU dance to music that moves your soul. I met a lovely teacher who said, “If I listen to the song 3 times in a row, that’s a song for me to pay attention to. It is probably the song to perform to. ” – I build my collection by perusing the free online music site, Soundcloud. On Soundcloud, you can create and store music playlists of the music you find on it. I also find musicians on Instagram by searching hash tags of the type of music I like, ex: #hiphop #techhouse.

Be Humble –

Even if you are the most sought after teacher in the world, be humble. We are grateful we get to dance every time we do. Do not take that for granted. I learned from the lovely and amazing teachers Collena Shakti  and Joanna Ashleigh that emoting gratitude in your dance is a powerful way to move yourself and your audience. I also have had the privilege to study with two amazing dancers and teachers, Zoe Jakes and Rachel Brice. I was so moved by both of them – not just by their amazing teaching skills, but by what humble, kind, down to earth and gracious people they both were, despite having become very famous. My experience is that gurus do not exist and that we are all equally human. All teachers and dancers that I respect, have these qualities.

If You Get Injured, Be Patient With Recovery – 
The number one reason I see my patients get re-injured is because they rushed back into an activity before they were fully healed. I get it- being injured can be challenging. You are unable to do the thing you love the most – dance. Fear, anxiety and stress can rush you back into the activity. See injuries or illness as an opportunity to go deeper inside yourself, listen to what your body is trying to tell you, learn the lesson in the healing process. Maybe you need to slow down, take more time for self care, re- evaluate your path. It is a rich opportunity for growth if you have the right attitude.

Support And Be Kind To Your Fellow Dancers –

I have been so impressed with the belly dance community that I am a part of. We are kindreds, and I am grateful to have found a supportive tribe of like minded people pursuing their love of dance. That doesn’t mean I haven’t encountered jealously, competitiveness, and unkindness. I know that I have felt my own jealousy, insecurity and competitiveness. I am human. But I really do not indulge these feelings. I make a conscious effort to spread love, support and kindness. I go out of my way to thank dancers that have inspired me, support dancers that need it, and be humble. I also make a conscious effort to spread love and kindness on the internet by telling someone when I admire their work. I am always trying to reach out a virtual hand to support and be kind. The internet is another world that most of us in this day and age inhabit. I have been horrified by the hatred I see on the internet in comments. Let’s try to spread love.

I love this quote by Gilda Gray, which Rachel Brice has taped in her journal: “I know part of me is competitive, but I will focus my energy and attention on the part of me that wants us all to celebrate our differences and similarities in a big network of friends that push themselves and inspire each other to do the best work possible, while crediting each other and our influences.”

Ecstatic Dance: To Fly, To Heal, To Love

Article Source: http://the-toast.net/2015/04/07/ecstatic-dance/2/

I wanted to move, but my body would not cooperate. It was a feeling not dissimilar to the paralysis I’ve experienced when wanting to kiss someone for the first time. Mentally, I was able to project myself vividly into the space. In my head, it looked good. On the ground, though, nothing changed. Frustrated by this self-imposed inertia, I closed my eyes and tried to conjure the living-room parties of college: the empty PBR cans, drunk boys jumping on musty couches to New Order and Bruce Springsteen, the blessed darkness. I opened my eyes: Jenny was being solicited for contact improv.

In ecstatic dance, contact improv is initiated by deep eye contact, and often seems to culminate in an entangled limb-nest on the floor. (A woman who had been the subject of numerous unwanted contact-improv solicitations would later offer us a practical solution: dance with your eyes closed.) Feeling overprotective of Jenny, I wiggled my way over, forcing myself into the groove. The piano music phased into beatless chanting, slow jams, reggae, and eventually the sort of electronic dance music that often incorporates saxophone riffs and sounds best in a loud, cavernous space. We stomped and waved and hopped across the floor.

I performed a rapid, mechanical-looking dance-march that I once saw in a nightclub in Berlin, and felt like a videogame character hitting an invisible wall. I had a short flashback to the step aerobics class I took in high school, and wondered whether this might ever become a suitable form of exercise. “Like curriculum-free Zumba,” the ad copy would read, “but barefoot, in harem pants!”

Around the two-hour mark, I went hunting for a water fountain, and fell into conversation with a gentleman named Happy. Happy was sitting on the outskirts of the party, looking content, and he welcomed me in generously by asking whether I wanted his full attention and eye contact – yes, please. Later in our conversation, I learned that he teaches a healing method called Eye Gazing. Happy was exquisitely kind, and told me he’d been part of the Oakland Ecstatic Dance community for several years. A woman ran over and wrapped her arms around Happy’s neck. “Church should be a party!” she said, then scampered off.

“Church is a vessel for spirituality,” Happy clarified, as I fleetingly wondered whether I had inadvertently joined a cult. “People get their freedom in dance, in wordlessness. They get a lot out of their own freedom, and out of other people’s freedom, and –” this is where he lost me “– it leads to deeper and deeper levels of ecstatic freedom, where we find our true nature. There’s a chemistry to ecstasy.” 

Chemistry, ecstasy: sounds good to me! I thought. I was back on board.

As I made my way back to the dance floor, I bumped into the least probable co-worker, Louis, who was taking a much-needed water break. He was wearing a terry-cloth headband, and we greeted one another exuberantly and with mild suspicion. Louis has an advanced degree in computational biology, which is both practical and sane; at the office, I have a well-groomed reputation as a bookworm and a skeptic. Neither one of us seemed a natural participant in ecstatic dance.

Yet there we were, wearing tank tops and blinking at each other through sweat-bunched bangs. As we whispered by the yoga mats, I tried to imagine any other situation in which he, Happy, and I would all be at the same party. I was hard-pressed to come up with a feasible scenario that didn’t involve a mutual bloodline.

By this point, we had reached Peak Ecstatic Dance. People were bouncing and smiling and sweating; a guy who looked about my age removed the bulk of his clothing and did a prolonged handstand.

A woman held two small children and spun them in a circle. An older man in flowing linen pants, a knee brace, and purple socks rubbed shoulders elegantly with a lithe 20-something woman rocking a bleached pixie cut. One man slithered over to another and they writhed around on the floor, eventually emerging with one airborne on the other’s feet. It was clear who the regulars in the crowd were, but for the most part, I’d seen (and done) this sort of dancing before – if you ever attended a Dispatch concert in the early 2000s, you have, too.

Ecstatic Dance is an often wordless practice – people had their mouths closed, opening only to release an excited yowl or heavy breath. It’s also intended to be a nonsexual space, but there were a few people who seemed to violate this principle. A man in tight cotton shorts pogoed vigorously between women, trailing his fingertips down their sides. Men are perfect at ruining things, I thought, as he barreled toward us.

***

It’s hard to explain, but I now feel oddly protective of the Ecstatic Dance community. It’s not my community and likely never will be, but I have to commend the people who belong, who build and grow it. They’ve identified a need and addressed it. They’ve proactively made something beautiful for themselves. No matter what it looks like from the outside, it works: people there glowed with self-comfort. I wished I could get there, and one day I might. Dance, however, probably isn’t my path.

As I watched an older couple hold each other to a reggae remix – she with swollen ankles, he with slight shoulders and white hair – I was moved. Later, sweaty and beat, Jenny and I emerged onto Oakland’s Broadway. Cars sped past; two men walked by, shouting at each other. I felt a little deflated, and also extremely relieved. Maybe I’d lost my edge. Maybe I’d never really had it.
“I’ll think about that older couple for a while,” I said.

Jenny agreed.

“I never want to do that again,” I said.

“Mmm,” Jenny said. We continued to walk. “It’s so peaceful out here,” she said after a while.

“Yes,” I said. And it was.

Benefits of Early Morning Dancing

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https://websitelaura.wordpress.com/2013/07/16/10-benefits-of-early-morning-dancing/

10 Benefits of Early Morning Dancing

Posted by aclauravanderzee

 

Last week I’ve come up with this light bulb plan to start teaching dance classes early in the morning, very early actually. And then I remembered something a clearvoyant person once told me: you know you are too old to be a ballerina but you can still dance every day. She is so right and I bet this goes for many people out there. Dancing is such a blessing, we human beings just love it. There is no reason not to dance and if you think there is, start dancing on it right now!

So, I called it The Moves, starting with The Morning Moves. Forget steps or routines in front of a mirror, instead we will go on a journey of the body, mind and soul, opening up to oneness and awareness, loving the fact that we are here, alive, in our bodies. Yes, let’s hear it for the body. She is left out too often, exposed to toxins, stress and other signs of neglectance.

Moving the body around, creating inner and outer space, eyes closed or wide open, swaying like a tree, moving the earth with a single breath: most people become instant wall flowers when they encounter free dancers. O dear Lord, you hear them think while backing away, God gave us steps, use them! But let’s be honest: wouldn’t you just die for a crazy dance like that? To feel the freedom of motion and obviously the freedom of mind, getting into it ‘like no one is watching’? To become a fool?

This wall flower thing is exactly why I will be in the studio 5 times a week and I invite you. Let’s be fools and, like David Bowie once chanted: let’s dance! Yesterday morning was the first of The Morning Moves and it was complete bliss. Not to mention selecting the music. People or no people, I will be there, available to you and to the heart beat, dancing my ass off. Because if anything, opening up to the gift of dance everyday is a present on its own.

For those who have experienced the healing and energizing effects of dance at some point in their life, The Moves may be a long awaited morning workout opportunity. And they’re right: you will get fit and in better shape. But let’s take a look at other benefits:

1. You will forget you are tired. Feeling heavy and done with after waking up? You. Will. Rise. During an hour of pure dancing, while connecting to the inner body and attuning to healing frequencies, tiredness will proof just a state of mind, your attention is elsewhere, in the now.
2. You develop a sense of inner rhythm. Knowing life flow and how it expresses through your body works miracles in daily life. You get to know your rhythms and how to move with them. High energy becomes your friend, just as low energy. Through dance we don’t fight anything, we bring everything to awareness.
3. Dancing provides you a sense of musicality. You will know music from the heart. Whatever party you attend, you know how to let the music guide you deeper into the dance. People will watch you, yes. They might think you are crazy, yes. And you, you will be dancing.
4. You will know masculine and feminine polarities within yourself and others. How these unique qualities of life feel and move can be explored through dance. Feel how the feminine opens and how strong the masculine enters space.
5. Stress can be located and vaporized, by you. While dancing with stress, as if it were your dancingpartner, you take it into the Now, again, into awareness. You localize the stress and know it. Bring attention, dance with the stress and say farewell.
6. Dancing in awareness creates a higher frequency. The strong magnetic field around everybody’s heart creates an even stronger collective heart that illuminates and transforms everything around and in it.
7. Dancing brings joy and awareness to yourself, others and the planet. While dancing freely, you open the heart so it is able to connect to the hearts of all sentient beings (Life, to make it short).
8. Dancing is the smile of the body. How? You inhabit your body and this radiates out. You will inspire others by transfering information (body language, skin radiance, life oozing from your whole being).
9. Anything you did not want to feel, anything you pushed away comes into light. Because dancing is something very physical, you will feel where stress and other emotions manifest. Movement allows you to literaly put stuff in motion.
10. The foremost benefit is that you are aware. From there life is dance and dance is life!

Dance To Heal The Earth

I really love this writing, about dance, humanity, the Earth, and that which is soon to come.  It really speaks to where I am at right now with my journey, and my dancing path.

I hope you enjoy reading it, and I hope that it strikes a solid and harmonic chord within you, as it did for me.

Dance To Heal The Earth
By Dee Smith

Whenever you dance, wherever you dance, dance to heal the earth!

Dancing is power. Dancing is prayer. Some say that all is dance. Maybe. Now there's a big dance coming, a dance to heal the earth. If you're reading this, you're probably part of it. You take part whenever you do whatever you do to help heal the earth. When you recycle. 

When you choose to show love, to fight for justice, to bring healing, to bring out what is good in others. When you avoid cruelty and dishonesty and waste. When you are outraged. When you speak out. When you give. When you consider the generations to come. 

When you protest to the oppressors and encourage those who feel the cutting edge of injustice. And, of course, when you dance. There is a tree that all the prophets see, and whenever you let your love show, you make the flowers grow.

Soon this dance will be done in a big way, in the old way, on sacred ground. All living things will take part. If you want to, you can take part. No one is twisting your arm. You can stop any time you need to, and start up again whenever you're ready. If you've read this far, you probably know what I'm talking about. You've probably been doing it in one way or another for a good while. Soon will be the time to make no bones about it! Cut loose!

Anytime you dance, anywhere, whether at a party or in church, dance to heal the earth! Let your feet beat a healing rhythm into the earth. Let your feet beat a strengthening rhythm for those who struggle the hardest. 

Let your feet beat a life-giving rhythm for all peoples, regardless of race or national boundary, regardless of whether we're human or whether we're the trees, the air, the fish, the birds, the buffalo, the bear, the crow. We come out of hiding, we come back from the dead, and we dance, and our dance is a prayer, and our songs and our rhythms and our breath give life.

Is the music they're playing some mindless jingle? Never mind, as long as it's not bad music, and you can dance to the beat! Make your own words, and make the words a prayer. A prayer for the end of exploitation, a prayer for the end of lies, a prayer for healing, for justice, for life. Remember your prayer-song, feed it and let it get strong and pass it along. Dance and pray, whenever you dance, dance to heal the earth.

Have you seen anything? Wear it out! Make it so that all can see what you see! Take a white T-shirt and mark it with your dreams. Is there anything you'd like to tell the world? Take your shirt and mark it with your song! This is the way it has been done, so you can do it too. 

Use any color except black (there are reasons for that that will become clearer later), and you'll probably find that a loose, pure cotton T is most comfortable for dancing in. Because this is an actual dance, you dance hard, you sing and breathe hard and sweat. Wear it when you plan to go out dancing, to dance to heal the earth.

Some people do this dance while fasting, and dance for several days straight. But even a few minutes of dancing helps, and joins with all the other dancing going on, everywhere on Earth. Not everyone can fast these days. Besides, you never know when you're gonna dance, and you have to eat sometimes! But if you plan to dance, hold off eating till later, or just have a little. It's easier to dance if you don't have a hotdog weighing you down.

Some people say, do not do sacred things where people are drinking and partying. But all the universe is a sacred place. It really doesn't matter what others are doing, you can make a place sacred wherever you are, with your intention and your prayers. Some people use smoke to make a place sacred; a cigarette or incense stick will do fine. 

You can dance to heal the earth anywhere, even a party or a bar! The earth is everywhere, so you can dance anywhere to heal her. Only one thing. Please hold off drinking or using any other intoxicants till you're done. It works better that way.

The Lie has gone far enough. It spreads and makes everyone sick. Now is the time for this dance to begin. It, too, will spread, and it will bring healing to all. In the beginning, they say, God put a rainbow in the sky, to let us know that Spirit never forgets. Now is the time for us to put a rainbow across the earth, to let God know that we, too, remember.

Dance to heal the earth. Not just when you're dancing, but always. Live the dance, whenever you move, in all you do, dance to heal the earth.

Dancing Inside

Today, for the first time in many months, I was child-free in dance class.  This was thanks to my very gracious and intuitive babysitter, whom I believe could feel how run off my feet I was becoming with one babe in arms and two at my side all summer long.

There is a very fine line between being run off of one's feet, and dancing into one's feet.  There it is.  The key.  When things seem to get crazy, chaotic or out of control, my medicine is to dance my energy.  Dance it back inside.

Once I got into the dance studio, I didn't quite know what to do with my free hands.  They felt almost 'too' free after having them continually filled.  (To be true, I am typing this one-handed as we 'speak' ;)  Deciding to explore this new space, after the first wave of movement I decided to really take my time getting into the second wave of movement.

I wanted to ooze lusciously into the floor, to feel cradled by the earth and fully use the gift of gravity to give my body a complete stretch over and a deep release. This also happened to be one of those fine days where the music I had  chosen for class fit the freedom bill perfectly, it was a groovy and relaxing sound massage. 

When I finally came out of my deep breathing and stillness, everyone else was already standing and moving, deeply entranced in their own journeys and flowing with their dance.  It was so beautiful to see.  Despite the fact that the studio is surrounded by wall to wall mirrors, everyone had eyes closed.

Though mirrors can also at times serve a good purpose in observing, accepting and loving the natural movements we are each gifted with, I do enjoy it immensely when the existence of the mirrors is dropped from mind and all we are left with is free movement.

Free movement, directed only by our joy and gratitude for the gifts of our body vehicles.  I am filled once again with awe at the power and beauty of this medicine.  The entire room was electric and pulsed by that which holds all things as One.  Cohesive. 

At the completion of this one particular dance journey, the sense of community and bonding was both blissful and grounding.

And I was able to go home, arms free and expanded, scoop up my babes and feel them close while I showered them with butterfly kisses.  Still.  Free.

Beautiful Benefits of Trance and Ecstatic Dance

Through the Dance, we are able to rediscover our wholeness and move our entire consciousness into a spontaneous healing.  A point will come at which you will have no other option but to be true to your inner movement and you will be left satisfied, ecstatic, and healed.  As we move and sweat, we move deeper into our breath.

As deeper breath comes into our lungs, it feeds our blood with the necessary energy to move through the body and experience physical and emotional healing.  Trance Dance can easily and gracefully put you back in touch with your inner child, allowing you to once again become enchanted with your life, your world, and your self.  Lost and far-reaching memories can be reclaimed - and that is only the beginning.  We can also experience:

- A renewed trust in the healing powers we all possess
- A dissolving of lifelong patterns that no longer serve us
- Deeper trust that Spirit is real and influencing us at core levels
- Sense of safety to dive into the adventure of exploring oneself without judgment
- Reclaiming the wisdom which manifests itself into taking responsibility for your life and dreams
- Pleasurable relaxation into letting go and simply being with life's experiences
- Increased excitement, energy and vitality
- Greater awareness of the personal inner and outer worlds
- The unlocking of stagnant perceptions
- Transformation into lightness, well-being and inner peace

"We have come to be danced.
Not the nice, invisible, self-conscious shuffle,
But the matted hair flying, voodoo mama,
Shaman shaking ancient bones dance
The strip us from our casings, return our wings
...Sharpen our claws and tongues dance."

-jai jai ma