Finding Peace and Love

I feel as though recently there has been so much sadness in my circle of friends.  From break ups and heartache, to deaths in the family, there have been so many unfortunate situations.  When you are constantly surrounded by it, it can be difficult to remember that there is so much to love.

I find my love in dance.  Obviously.  I am lucky that dance is not just what I do, but it’s what I love, and it’s my therapy.  When things get bad, I throw myself into teaching and dancing.  I have that outlet.  Many do not.

I don’t know what I would do without dance sometimes- that adrenaline rush from the physical output, and the emotional rush from letting your heart take over your body. 

I wish more people would dance.  I know that many guys find it “feminine” and don’t feel comfortable with it.  Imagine if more guys danced, though.  Not necessarily ballet, but other forms like hip hop.  Would there be less of that testosterone driven force in times of turmoil that lead to destructive behavior?  I’ve known many guys that when things get bad, they’ve turned to fighting or drinking or both.   If they had dance, would they be able to take their physicality into that? 

I’ve been known to have a temper in my “past life.”  I get angry and scream and cry, and when I didn’t have outlets to dance it out, it would get worse.  It was only a few months ago that I remember being so upset and angry that I was walking down the street choking on tears and unknowingly digging my nails into the palm of my hands because I was so emotional that I was uncontrollably making fists in order to steady the shaking.  Now, this doesn’t happen all the time to me, but it was a morning that I had to go into my other job that doesn’t involve dance, and the situation that had caused the outburst had happened first thing in the morning.  I had no opportunity to dance it out.  I had to wait until the next day to get into dance classes to teach.  Even so, I wish I had had the time to put what I was feeling into dance.  I got to later that week. 

I did a lot of improv when I got my chance to dance it out.  While some of it was slow and emotional, there were others that were angry, and on top of that there were some that I did that just brought me peace.  I feel like that’s the most important type- finding your peace.  When a dancer “dances it out” they often get totally caught up in the emotions.  One needs to find the balance.  They need to find their peace. 

My peace:

So what do you think- if more of the destructively emotional people out there danced, do you think it would help?  Or do you think it would not make a difference?  Do you think guys would do it more if it were socially acceptable? 

My belief is that it would help.  Everyone needs an outlet, and everyone needs the creative side to their outlet.  Dance is perfect for men because it involves both the creative and physical sides.  I'm sorry, but there's not much emotion in soccer or football or running.  Sports don't quite get that creativity side like dance does! 

This is my way of saying "I've had a sad day, and I want to spread my love to the universe."  So hopefully this has put a little more love and a little less sadness out into the world today. 

Forget regrets- dance like it's your last!

Coming Out of My Dance Shell

So I have been very absent from this blog lately. I have been absent from my Twitter page as well. This is due to some major changes in my personal life over the past few weeks, and I am sad to say that these were the first few things to go the wayside. However, I am slowly building back up to something along the lines of normalcy in my personal life, and I thought, what a wonderful way to bring it back through a blog!

So not to divulge too much about my situation, but let’s just say that I have released something in my life that was holding me down for too long, and it has rocked many of the foundations that I have built over the past few years of my life. However, with this rocking of foundations has come with certain realizations of myself. One of those realizations is that as a dancer, it is not just what I do, but part of who I am.

When this release happened, the first thing that I wanted to do was DANCE. I wanted to choreograph. I wanted to channel all those emotions and conflicts inside my head into bodily movement to tell my story. And you know what? I did. I took the time to go into a dance studio recently and just dance my heart out. I haven’t taken a dance class since the summer, and I was scared to know what I looked like. I had no mirrors in front of me to see how I was doing and I was barely awake with only half a cup of coffee in my system. I recorded my dancing, and to my surprise, I looked decent. We all have a tendency to be our own worst critics, but certain things surprised me.

There is one song that stood out for me when I improvised. I put on the song “Breathe Again” by Sara Bareilles, and just went for it. Little did I know that 1- it would turn into looking like a put together piece, and 2- that I would start crying in the middle of the dancing. The song is about leaving someone behind because you’re looking for something more, and hoping someday you’ll find it. It hits home a little too much right now. One movement where I let out all the air in body suddenly became an epic moment in my life. It was the realization that dance would always be there for me.

People ask all me the time- “well, what are you going to do when you can’t dance anymore?” People look at me like I’m crazy for wanting to be in a career where you don’t get paid a whole lot, and when you need to search out your own benefits, if you can get any. People wonder why I choose an art for a career.

This is my answer- I have known since the age of 7 that I wanted to be a dancer. Sure, I went through stints where I wanted to be a marine biologist or a writer, but I always knew inside that it was always going to be dance. I don’t care if there are hardships, or struggles. Those are just channeled into the choreography and dancing, and enhances my life experiences. Financially it may not be sound, but dancers find ways, and we make sacrifices so that we can do this. I do not get upset from having to have another job to pay my bills. If anything, it teaches me more discipline and responsibility. While I may have needed guidance in those areas for a while, I have grown to become an incredible person from my dancing. I have learned so much from being a dancer, and I continue to learn from it, and my mentors, teachers, and peers within the field.

Dance is not something that grew into my life. There was something in my soul and my spirit at conception that was implemented so that I would be able to share my talent with the universe. My purpose in life is to dance, and therefore, is part of me. It is part of who I am, and not just what I do, and how many people get to say that in this lifetime? Very very few.

I hope to continue to learn the various forms in which this purpose is going to manifest. I am excited that this realization came while I am still young enough to take full advantage of it, and I am looking forward to even more realizations in other parts of my life.

And you can bet that I will be back here more to talk about my journeys!

Woman In the Mirror

Every dancer I’ve ever known has had a love-hate relationship with the mirror. On the positive, it serves as a great tool for students to fix corrections both in a singular manner, and as a group. On the negative it can provide a major distraction to adults and children alike. Older students tend to scrutinize their image, while the little kids tend to play with their hair or their leotards. How many of us, though, have had to come face to face with ourselves in the mirror as part of a combination?

I have.

In my previous blog, I described a improvisation class that involved learning a sequence of steps without music or counts. We were asked to use the emotion in the music to drive us. Part of what I did not describe for sake of space was having to run to separate walls in the room, then walking to the mirror and staring straight at ourselves. What I never imagined was what that would do to me.

When I danced, I was allowing a year’s worth of bad luck, bad situations, frustrations, and unpurged feelings to seep out into my movements. A lot of that, admittedly, also involved a situation dealing with a lack of self-esteem and confidence. After the teacher told us to trust ourselves and push our limits, it really hit home. Not just a realization, but a true hit-me-in-the-gut, pulled-at-my-heartstrings kind of feeling. To go from that on the dance floor, to suddenly facing it in the mirror brought tears to my eyes.

At first glance at myself in the mirror, I remember being taken aback by my face. It was contorted. My brows were furrowed, I was frowning, and my jaw was taught. It looked like I was about to cry. Granted, I felt like I was, but I couldn’t believe that my face was so telling. The next thing I noticed was that my breathing was labored. It wasn’t from physically being out of breath, but rather from the exertion of emotional energy. My final observation was my eyes. I previously mentioned in a blog about how the eyes are the gateway to the soul. My eyes showed so much pain and sadness, and that upset me. Maybe I was more troubled by these parts of my life than I had thought.

I didn’t realize it until the second time, until I really looked at my eyes again that the pain and sadness was being pushed out by confidence and hope. Yes, I was experiencing at that moment some lingering aspects of my life that had been less than satisfactory, but I was also experiencing the release of it to the point where I knew I would be able to move on. At that point, it allowed me to push myself even more, so in the final moments of class, I was able to shove the emotions OUT of my body and into the world.

To deal with that release after a year is almost like dealing with a loss of sorts. It’s no longer with you, therefore, a part of you that you have become accustomed to is not there. After that improvisation class, I was taking a ballet class. My emotions were still heavy until the second barre exercise. It was so hard to dig so deep, and then just let it go. By the end of the day, I was feeling fabulous again, and even better than before. That intense experience expelled all the bad in my life, and actually kept me on a natural high for at least a week after.

I just couldn’t believe how having to face oneself in a mirror could affect a person’s being so much. Not only did I emote out on the dance floor, but I was able to face those emotions head on, in quite a literal sense. The harmony between that dance and the mirror coincided perfectly. As Martha Graham said “Dance is the hidden language of the soul of the body” and the act of the mirror exemplified this.

My natural high may have worn off now, but the class, and the teacher, will be held in my memories and my heart forever.

Emotional Vs. Technical

Okay, confession time- I’m terrible about taking class. I know that it could help my career as a teacher, and can only benefit me as a dancer as well, but I’m really awful. Between my never-ending schedule of two main jobs, and always picking up little things when the opportunities arise, and my budget of trying to save, and my overall laziness without the luxury of a car, I tend to slack in that area. When the opportunity arose for me to take a few classes in the past two weeks through the studio I teach at, I jumped at it.

There are three classes that stood out in my mind- two of which are the topic of today’s blog. I happened to take two classes from two different guest teachers that were supposed to be similar in structure, but turned out completely different for me.

Both classes were improvisation based. They both started out similar- feeling the space in the room, and moving around in it in order to get a sense of where you were and how to use the space around you. Both teachers asked us to move in the space. There were two big differences between their approaches. In the first class, our eyes were open, and we were asked to move as different creatures about the room. The teacher would say “Now move as if you were a turtle!” So I moved as a turtle would- I balled myself up on the floor and took slow-motion steps. In the second class, we were asked to close our eyes, and feel where we were heading. We were asked to trust ourselves, and if we bumped into someone, we were to improv with them, moving and flowing with their bodies (at this point, I managed to hook someone’s neck in my arm. To that person- I apologize for partially choking you!).

The second half of both classes differed greatly. In the first one, we continued with a structured improv. We were broken into groups and asked to perform certain things- such as pausing for 5 seconds- while improving to and from the mirror. I loved this exercise. It worked for me because as a control freak, and a ballet teacher, I was able to freely move within the restrictions of rules. As I danced, I remember thinking about what I had to do. I remember thinking about how I had to move and thinking about what I had done after. I remember thinking about the technical aspects of the improvisation.

The second class worked much differently. We were taught a series of movements. It was not to counts or music. It was just steps that we learned in sequence. The teacher put on music (Adele! LOVE!) and told us that we could start whenever we wanted, moved however we wanted, and could improv with others if we were to come in contact. The teacher even came around and initiated contact and movement within specific dancers. What I remember the most from this class was the emotion that we were asked to feel. As dancers, we were asked to listen to the music’s message- being hurt by someone, but finding someone better. A year’s worth of my emotions, frustrations, and aggravations came out onto the dance floor. Heck, I almost cried (but I will talk about that specific experience in another blog). It was so powerful that it took me until the second barre exercise in ballet class afterwards to come out of that place.

Both of these classes were incredible, but it made me think about the aspects of emotional dancing versus technical dancing. Obviously technique is the basis for all dance. Otherwise, we’re just flopping around out on a stage. When we think as technical dancers, we think of the lines, the posture, the pointed toes, etc that we’re supposed to be doing. We think in a linear manner. “I must get from Point A to point B.” Our bodies and brains work in sync to create perfect positions and do what is asked of us. In the first teacher’s class, this is how I thought. I thought about how my body was moving and what it was doing for the specific exercise. I could probably tell you half of the moves I did, because even though I was letting my body drive me, my brain was still thinking about the movements.

Emotional dancing is very different. In emotional dancing, typically dancers do not think about the technical aspect of the dancing. Instead of “my body is contracting in a deep Graham position”, we as emotional dancers think “my body is contracting because I can feel it’s supposed to in my gut.” While I can remember some of the steps that were in the sequence of movement that we learned, I can tell you that I do not remember a lot of what I did when I improved. What I do remember is the feeling of release of pain that I had been harboring for over a year. Points A and B- don’t remember them. All I know is that the mood of the music took over my body , and I felt free to move.

I find it so intriguing that both classes had such similar ideas, but left the dancers with such different experiences. While both were improvisation based and designed to pull the students out of their comfort zones, one left me thinking and the other left me feeling. In the first class, I remember feeling pretty good and comfortable about the exercises. In the second class, it took me a while to warm up to the exercises. I enjoyed the first class, but the second left me with a lasting impression. Perhaps that is why I enjoyed the second one so much- I achieved a place of conquering that which did not feel comfortable. I overcame that sense of awkwardness and fell into my own skin.

This is the advantage of students being able to take from different teachers- they get more than one side of a particular genre. They are allowed to experience more than one way of teaching, which aides them later in life as to what they particularly enjoy most. This in turn helps them to decide which path they will prefer to take in the world of dance, if they so choose to pursue dance.

It also helps the teacher, like me, that gets caught up in life and doesn’t take class. To these teachers that I took from in the past couple of weeks- I thank you. You were inspirational, thought-provoking, and simply wonderful!