Dancing Through March- Week Three

The highlight of my dancing week was attending a Saturday Night Yoga Trance Dance. Since I have been on the lookout for a place to dance my heart out with other people- a place other than a club, other than my own living room, a situation other than a dance class that I lead; I was excited to try out it out.

I am glad that I did. The space was beautifully set up and welcoming. There were enough people there that you felt the experience as shared, but not so many people that you felt like you needed more space in which to move. The music was great; driving, pulsating drumbeats that begged for movement. Our facilitator lead us through some prana initiated yoga poses at times during the evening, but I never felt as if I had to follow any directions exactly and I mainly used the suggestions as starting places from which to explore my own movement.

What I found remarkable about the evening was how free I felt to respond to my impulses to move. We all have our habituated movement patterns and when I dance, I usually find myself repeating certain phrases again and again. Not that this is necessarily bad. I dance in a way that feels good to me, and those phrases feel good. But this time was different. I found new phrases. It was as if my back came to life. No longer flexing, extending and rotating as one big unit, I was able to explore incredibly detailed articulations in my spine and scapula- flowing movements, undulations, waves and circles...and the coolest thing was that at times, I felt like my body was moving me, rather than the other way round.

And this thought kept going through my head-

We don't do this! We don't move like this. Our culture doesn't have anything built into it that would articulate the spine like this. If we all moved with this kind of abandon, with this much flow, with this much detail, on a regular basis, from a young age, just think of how different our relationships with our backs would be!

My back has been bothering me for over a month, a recurrence of a chronic problem. As with all pain, it is trying to tell me something. It is calling out for movement and for touch. So, for the remainder of March, as I continue to dance, I am going to extend an invitation to my back to express itself.

Click here for more info about the Yoga Trace Dance and ongoing yoga classes at Physikos.

Enjoy the dance and as always....


Wishing you balance,

Nance