When Yoga Is More Than A Stretch and Belly Dance Is More Than Tricks To Wow The Audience

   To a lot of people here in the west yoga is seen as a way of "stretching". Dancers do it to improve their range of motion, to warm up or cool down from a dance practice. Others go to yoga for stress relief. But there are times when yoga is more than a stretch and more than stress relief.

   I've been through a lot of phases with yoga over the years. My relationship to yoga and to my body changed since I was a kid. Currently I practice Belly Dance more than I do yoga. And because I am clocking in so many hours of dance time or time with weights my yoga practice is usually for cooling down. Over the years I know from experience that this is not a very deep way to practice yoga. That it is a practice based on "stretching". Don't get me wrong, yoga for the sake of stretching to me is a good thing! I don't believe that yoga should always be about pulling back the layers. I believe that yoga is a process that unfolds to us as we practice and as we practice it is up to us to become present with whatever the process of yoga is presenting to us in that moment.

 Today I did a particularly in depth back bend practice on daturaonline.com with Rachel Brice and Ashley Lopez which was challenging physically and emotionally to me. I am grateful that my lower back and upper thoracic spine can handle back bends way better than I could years ago. But I felt inner resistance. As I do when doing any kind of practice that is tough I press on while being aware of what is going on inside me. I breathe deeper and I watch and I listen. Sometimes when something comes up for me during an in depth yoga practice I absolutely know what it is. Other times it isn't so apparent.

 Having been through a lot of trauma in my past I half expect something to come up for me whenever I do a more concentrated yoga practice. Sometimes it isn't about the past but about the present or the near present. Having also a background in unofficially studying Psychology I tend to approach things in that way sometimes. Sometimes it helps but sometimes you need yoga awareness. Which means to let it be and to unfold while you listen and watch rather than actively analyzing it. I think both approaches compliment each other quite well rather than one over the other.

  I continued practicing but at a certain point I could feel I needed to stop. Not necessarily physically but something mentally and emotionally inside me really wanted to cover up and protect. So for the rest of the practice I laid on my stomach, did Downward Dog, Child Pose and Reclining Twists, hugging my knees in and Fetus Pose. Then I simply sat with what was going on and gently reflected. I felt a conflict of wanting to open up and expand while at the same time wanting to contract, protect and cover up. Aside from my not being used to such an in depth back bend Yoga practice I have been doing a lot to not be as "open" as I used to be with a lot of things. I have felt the need to protect myself from all of the bad going on in the world as I watch helplessly while all of it is going on around me. So, though I care very much about everything that has been going on politically, religiously, culturally and environmentally I have needed to distance myself from it in my mind and emotionally very much in order to cope. I know that if I am more open then I will think of horrible and terrifying things in the middle of the night when I wake up like I used to. I'll have more horrific nightmares like I used to. And I will have trouble getting all of these negative things out of my thinking throughout the day like I used to.

 Yoga is a good thing and it's a good thing when people say that Yoga should not just be about "stretching" but I am perfectly fine with Yoga being just about "stretching" and being in my body. I totally believe in taking down metaphorical walls and opening up but I also do not believe it is healthy for Yoga to be the kind of practice where it is always taking down walls that all of us need in order to be healthy. Speaking from experience this is what is best for me. To create a balanced practice where Yoga is not always about accessing my emotions front and center and uprooting deeply inlaid trauma.

  Looking back I can see how making one kind of practice dominant over another drastically changed my state of mind and ability to function as well as how that dominant practice affected my body. I have found that a strong and in depth practice of Belly Dance creates a strong foundation mentally for me. I believe it is from my current practice of Belly Dance for why I am more solid and more strong physically, mentally and emotionally than when I have made Yoga be my dominant practice. When Yoga has been my dominant practice I am in more pain physically because I am hyper flexible which means that my body is better suited to focusing on toning exercises and practices. And when Yoga has been dominant I have been more vulnerable and upset because an in depth yoga practice will for sure bring up stored emotions and memories at some point.

 Trauma is something that never goes away. You live with it all of your life and with each person it is different how different things will affect them. When you mix Yoga or Belly Dance with a person you are creating a unique chemistry and that chemistry will differ with another person depending on their experiences and where they are coming from. So when everyone says how Yoga healed them and changed their lives I don't understand it very well. Because I did yoga from a young age and it did not "change my life". All of the traumatic things that happened within my family still happened and all of the traumatic things that happened in my early adulthood still happened. In my experience Yoga is not about "changing my life" or about making myself a better person. It's more about continuing something I learned through solitary Hatha practice in the eighties. To be with myself, with an experience or with another person because even if it's just a stretch it's still a listening to the body wisdom. So whenever I see Yoga being sold as a way of making yourself into a better person or that it should be about more than "stretching" in order for it to be real Yoga and to be more spiritual I don't understand. It seems overly "postured" to me. Of just trying too hard to be " the yogi" and fit into a magnificent awesome box that you don't mind being in because you can do all of these awesome yoga poses within it. I only understand Yoga to be a practice to be actual Yoga if it is without judgement. If people scoff at Yoga for being too on the surface if it is practiced just physically then they would scoff at something as wonderful as Yoga Therapy.

 I don't believe that the body can be separated from the emotions at all, ever. So even if a practice is being sold as a practice to get a yoga butt or to lose weight, I may not like that way of selling it, but I know that the body wisdom that is inherent in people will wake up and way "Wait a minute...I want a practice that listens to what I have to say. Not one where one intention for yoga practice is God!" And people will naturally gravitate to what is healthier for them anyway because the body is wise even when it's being led by ignorance. Sooner or later we all wake up and I'm not a fan of yoga teachers who assert their dominance by making their students feel inferior when they talk or write excessively about how the only real yoga has a spiritual component added. And I say this being a fairly spiritual person myself. I don't try to make what I do spiritual. I don't believe that my yoga practice is more real if I add a mantra to a yoga pose or if I do yoga asana every single day. Yoga is not made more real by doing it on front of an image of Ganesh or any other Deity. And I don't consider a person is doing Yoga that is more real after they have read and studied the Bhagavad Gita and Yoga Sutras. Yes, these are part of the history and roots of Yoga but so are other practices that have nothing and everything to do with Yoga Asana. Yoga is Yoga by a persons intent to be present. It isn't more real with a Headstand or amazingly flexible postures and it isn't more real by how often it is uprooting buried emotion. Yoga is something worthy of practice even if it hasn't turned your whole life around for the better. I can't say that practicing Yoga has ever done that for me but I still practice it and I am open to discovery rather than cementing into a tight knit box of rules.

  To put anything into an inflexible set of rules cuts off the life and breath of an idea, an experience and or a practice. And without breath there is no growth and no life. To make strict and inflexible rules is to use the excuse of discipline simply for egoistic notions of mastery. And then when we form these ideas and cut off the air to them we set people up as idols and work ourselves towards being idolized which is anything but yoga. Because of this I see no one, including myself, as a "master" of yoga. It's simply a practice to get in touch with our humanity, to humbly see, hear and feel our own limitations and possibilities as well as others with compassion. So yes Yoga is more than a stretch. But it's also great when that's all it is because even when that's all it looks like on the surface it usually amounts to more anyway. It's all good.

 People can go years practicing Yoga or Belly Dance as a means for performance and gaining respect but again I believe that the wisdom in our bodies is so strong and inherent that eventually a person practicing in this way will realize that they don't have to practice this way anymore. The simple experience of practicing Belly Dance or Yoga will call to a person subtly to reach for something more. So even if a persons original intentions were only to " be awesome" and to wow the crowd it's likely that the process of dancing or doing yoga will actually speak to them. An experience they did not call on with intent will visit them. Intent creates for a stronger practice no doubt about it. But it's absolutely wonderful that we can trust the wisdom in our bodies to reach out for a greater experience than the one we had originally intended.

 In this way I feel that both Yoga and Belly Dance are both very magical whether they alter outside circumstance to perfection or not. I don't expect either practice to do this for me, to change me into someone else to change my life into something perfect. And I would not sell either practice to anyone to create these kind of results. Instead I encourage people to begin or to continue because deep down they need to even if they may not know it yet. I would rather a person discover that they are already awesome, already "The Yogi", already a "Belly Dancer". This rather than desperately trying to manufacture for years the kind of person they think they aren't already, the kind of person who is a "Real Yogi", "Really Spiritual", or a "Real Belly Dancer".

  I trust that Yoga is always more than just a stretch and that Belly Dance is more than tricks deep down for everybody so I don't think anyone really needs to be preached to about how they can become more of a "real " anything. All we need to do is to let go of the idea that real is something that someone else discovered. Guidance is wonderful to receive and is needed but it should be the kind of guidance that truly points us towards our center because when we work from there that is the true integrity. Integrity cannot be manufactured by another person for us to simply piggy back onto to gain enlightenment. In that process of letting go of constant self manufacturing we become more real and let go of the self manufacturing process that has become so popular within all kinds of practices.

  Yoga and Belly Dance are more than props, tricks, glamour or mystery. We may perceive that yoga and belly dance are a mystery if we haven't grown up practicing it or haven't practiced it for very long because it comes from another country than our own. In our culture though we are brought up to see our country and culture as " the best" we also tend to fetishise and objectify someone or something when we want to lay claim or own " it ". In this way we are attracted to what mystifies us but in that process we further distance ourselves from what taking part in practicing any of these things means. Being in touch with something deeper is a mystery to us because our culture fragments our sense of self. Spirituality and people who are in a stronger connection to the Earth are surrounded by mystery with the way we tend to look at people "over there". But when we do actually drop our cultural notions of what these things are and mean we could find that "they" are not so different than " we". We could find that the state of being which is strengthened by a Yoga or Belly Dance practice is not so mysterious because it's right here and just as real as what is over there and over there is just as real as what as here. And we also could find that maybe we don't have to ascribe mystery to something or someone in order to give value to it. Without mystery we could find that we have even more sense of adventure because we are open to discovery. When we plaster something like Yoga or Belly Dance with mystery we close off our ability to discover and grow because we have already decided what we think we know about it and we tend to not want to know anything more because that would ruin the feeling of mystery and adventure. But as a result we are distanced from what the practice actually is and separated from the roots from which it came.

  If there are things that we do not like about our own culture, we should try to understand what we are hoping to discover when we become mystified by another culture and it's customs and it's way of life. We should understand that inherently deep down we were attracted to what a dance form or a yoga practice or to what a way of meditating means because deep down we are wanting to remember something that our own culture has forgotten. Some part of us knows deep down that a particular practice will help us to be in touch with.....something. Something we may not even know we are looking for, something we may have never known but that even so that we remember deep down.

    I think it is very sad that a culture would fragment itself so much that it would steal, colonize and appropriate other cultures as well, hold racist views as well as fetishising a culture and it's practices. To keep seeing a country, a culture and practices such as Belly Dance or Yoga as "other" degrades the people and degrades the quality of our practice. Deep down all of us want more than this and I know that deep down we are wanting to reach beyond the experience of mystery and intrigue. I believe that we all can do better and more than a stretch and a wow. That we can try with our western minds to remember what the practices of Yoga and Belly Dance have the potential to teach us. We can remember this easier I think when we can remind ourselves that we perceive these things differently if we did not grow up with them as being part of our lives and or if we did not grow up with them in the culture where they originated where they have a strong history.

   In the way that other cultures are viewed it reminds me too much of the way a lot, not all men, but the way a lot of men view women. We all know that a lot of men keep a distance between themselves and a woman to keep that mystery there and so it would be easier to objectify and fetishise a woman than to get to know what she is about. If he knew her too well then it would be more difficult for him to assume responsibility for how he sees her and treats her. It is similar to how our culture tends to view and treat other cultures. As long as a woman or an entire culture is held at arms length while we seek to have some kind of relationship at the same time, then we are not valuing a person or a culture. We are in fact dishonoring them. We act like we know all there is to know about a person or a culture and forget they even existed! Surrounding a person or a culture with mystery and then seeking to own it through whatever act and then forgetting it's existence is dishonor. For a culture to take on a style of dance or yoga without getting to know what it's really about and without committing to it for the long term is wrong. It's arrogant for an entire culture to assume it knows what something from another culture is about when it's only been part of one part of the culture for a century and then to forget and not practice it anymore because it's no longer hip. Women are still seen as primitives and cultures that are not western are seen as primitive and therefore lower on the evolutionary ladder than white men. I see racism, and cultural appropriation as not separate from issues of gender identity.

  The idea of how to respect these traditions is very complicated and yet very simple at the same time. Though we have had a taste, we still have a lot to discover on our path to demystifying these traditions and a lot to discover on how to embody what these traditions actually mean to express.

  If you read this entire blog entry good for you! It is certainly long and a lot of what I wrote didn't come to me on the yoga mat but just came to me as I was writing. So I didn't expect or intend for this post to be so long winded!

  But a lot of what we intend rarely happens that way!

How To Feel Confident During Your Moon Cycle and As a Dancer

Confidence is something that everyone wants and a lot of us will do anything to get it even if it's bad for us or not for our highest good. But sometimes we are attracted to a path to take that we haven't before. We may understand our reasons in the beginning and then discover as we progress that there were all kinds of things that we were attracted to but didn't know we were. The process of taking part in it brings us up front and center to what it's all about and the process brings us up front and center to ourselves.

   Being attracted to an art form particularly dance has magic. When we first see it something inside speaks without speaking. Our body wisdom wakes up when we see a dance form that we are attracted to as if there was a deep part of us that remembers something we have never known. And we become drawn in wanting to explore and remember more. It is this deep connection to dance that keeps us coming back again and again.

   But sometimes confidence wanes and we want to pull back and sometimes do. It's about more than image in this case. It sometimes and often is. But besides issues with image many people feel very disconnected to their own bodies and to the earth. We have learned to stop listening as a way to over come the difficulty of being in the human body. And because we have grown a culture around this we forget that our bodies have natural rhythms. Our bodies understand rhythm from in utero inherently through and through. The earth has vibrations that we do not tune into as much. Air and water is the easiest for us to understand or fire. But because earth is seemingly solid like the body we forget that there are vibrations, rhythms, tones and music going on all the time. Our breath and our hearts have rhythms, a tone, and a music, a harmony that changes according to our emotions, age and health. All of our organs have vibrations. Because this is our daily existence of being it easily becomes background noise that we simply don't hear. We are taught to believe that there are better and higher mysteries than the human body to listen to and discover.

   And then when we find ourselves attracted to a dance form the attraction embodies our understanding that we are already one with this dance. Then we take a class and we have hope still but are brought face to face with the disconnection that we commonly feel from our bodies and music. And we forget that all of this is about connection to the the earth. That the wisdom of the earth of therefore of the body is already there. All we need to do is remember, listen and allow.

   When we do this the thinking brain is still operating but it's working in tandem with a part of us that is much older. Dance is one of the few places where people can access this state of being. And when we can allow ourselves to experience this we find that we are surprised by what unfolds and moves through us. We are also amazed at how easily and without force that we were able to manifest a dance. In this state of being we make discoveries and feel as if we are being danced rather than trying to exert a formula. Formulas are great for exploration too. It's simply another way to explore dance. But without discovering this state of being in dance it's common to fall into second guessing, doubt, never feeling like enough or not ready and even feeling like a fraud.

   We use our eyes more in this culture than our ears and we commonly fall back onto our eyes to learn how to dance rather than our ears, the subtle sensations in our feet and our core, throughout our bodies. Over time the messages we hear and feel from our bodies won't be so subtle. The more we can bring ourselves into our own bodies rather than running away, wishing that our bodies were something else the better. The more that we can trust and believe that we ourselves understand something inherently such as dance and that we only need help remembering the more we make gigantic leaps ahead in dancing.

   When we dance we develop a stronger relationship not just with ourselves but with the space around us and the earth under our feet. For a culture that wants people to withdraw from their bodies yet somehow have perfect bodies at the same time it's not easy to be present and aware. To take up full residence in body , mind, spirit, earth and space is radical. To trust yourself enough to do this is radical and rebellious because a person who listens and is connected to themselves, the earth and their space is not easily controlled by institutions or ideas which seek to harm. The body that listens knows what is good and healthy and knows what is toxic. No matter how disconnected a person is that wisdom is still there. The body opens in it's physical gestures and posture when it feels safe and attracted to something and the body speaks when it feels threatened by closing off in either subtle or obtuse cues.

   Even if we have illnesses we need to build a solid relationship with our bodies everyday. It's harder to when we have pain and suffer because we feel that our bodies have turned against us. But even in illness the body is speaking and asking us to listen to it's wisdom and most of the time if we do not listen our body finds ways to speak louder. As women we tend to develop a conflicted relationship with ourselves which fluctuates between nurturing and listening, doing what our bodies needs and being angry at our bodies for getting in the way of life and muscling through anyway. All women I am sure have experienced this during their cycle every month because the culture does not designate this time for women as being special. It should be a time when the woman does what ever she wants. A time for reflection, rest, anything she enjoys and anything that relaxes her and makes her happy, When it's all about her voice and her guiding vision.

   I have found at different times that when I was not able to take time to do what my body demanded during my cycle that after my cycle was finished I was relieved but not as refreshed. Instead I would feel depleted. I even found my immune system was worse after a period where I did not take time to do "whatever I want". However this isn't the case if there are far worse things going on which are causing extra pain during menstruation. Sometimes it is from too much stress and not listening enough to make changes at other times during the month. But sometimes it's just a mystery that everyone likes to tell us they understand.

   We are told that all we have to do is eat more greens, avoid alcohol and caffeine etc. We're told to avoid chocolate and then suddenly we have articles telling us "it's ok" to eat chocolate during our cycle to make us "happy". Why do we need articles to tell us what we need during our monthly? I'm sure if your like me you've tried what they've said and it's either made no difference or made it worse! There is probably countless antidotes of women's bodily wisdom that has not been handed down for centuries and that we are unable to tap into. I'm sure it's there. Every time my cycle comes around I am listening. But it's very hard to keep listening when parts of me are trying to just push ahead and do what I normally do because by the regular standards it's what I should be doing.

   And this is the way it is with dance too in our culture. Even experienced and seasoned dancers who have developed a strong connection to their bodies and how their dance and their bodies connect them to the earth experience hiccups along the way. Repeatedly we need to bring ourselves back to center and allow ourselves to experience being with ourselves without doubt. That inner process is a rhythm and even a dance all on it's own. Like the lotus we grow up towards the light and back into the mud. We open and we close. We explore and we withdraw. It's a natural push and pull motion of the universe that we are one with.

   Ever notice how when our minds are all over the place, hectic, upset and anywhere but here we naturally feel it in our bodies a need to withdraw? We may push ourselves to stay open and to keep doing whatever it is but our bodies are still speaking.  That is the bodies wisdom in action. To re group and center so that you can feel safe and strong enough to open and expand out into the world. Ever notice that when your mind and your body is centered you can more easily explore and move out into space? In this state our senses are alert and awake. We are able to listen. When we feel the need to contract the senses have subtly begone to not be as sharp so that all of the attention of the senses can focus inward to process and reflect. And ever notice that when you feel one with the earth for whatever reason that you feel something more than confident even. That you maybe even feel a deep state of grace. That an open sense of wonderment and optimism flows through you in the same way as it did when you were a child spending a lot of time in nature. Clear headed, strong, empowered, All simply by spending time in nature and by strengthening your awareness of the connection you have with nature through creative movement. Our bodies move like everything in nature and we see this a lot in Yoga, Pilates, Belly Dance, Tai Chi and more! And notice that when we feel a connection to the earth that our awareness becomes more opened up to the sky and all the space of the universe above and all around us? Commonly people feel this when they are standing in an open field. Even standing in a large open field in the middle of a city can create this experience.

   Whatever the time of the month allow yourself to drop into your body and to experience all the ways that your body is in relationship to the earth. Listen to the music more and listen to how the music feels in your body and where. Feel how the vibrations and rhythms travel through your core, your limbs and into your feet, hands, neck and head. Feel your body as an extension of the earth and that the earth is an extension of you. I do have a pagan background so when I dance and when I speak, teach or dance the ideas and experiences within pagan spirituality inform and inspire my experience.

   Women's Day was the other day but to me everyday is Women's Day! We need to treat it as such!

   Remember that deep down your body, your heart, mind and soul knows more and is capable of doing more than you have imagined. Repeat to yourself when your getting in your own way " Allow. I allow."

   You, the earth, the music and the dance are one.

Why You Need to Try Princess Farhanas' Drama Queen Technique and Emotion Cards!

  To begin. when I refer to dancers as "she" in this blog post I am not implying that all dancers should be a "she" It's a base word that I am using in the same way that many people use the word " he". I don't swear a lot in my writing but I do when I feel it's the best word to describe what I am trying to get across. I believe swear words serve their purpose in this way rather than littering an entire piece with cruddy words! Somehow using swear words here and there seems to give a more personal flair rather than tacky if they are used sparingly rather than glaringly. However if you don't like my little sprinkle of swear words in my piece simple move on! If you do then read on!

  I have been looking at this deck of dance cards on-line for awhile now and hadn't bought them yet.
They can be found on her site at http://www.princessfarhana.com/shop.htm

   Recently in an Intermediate 1 Class we played with these cards in class and it was very interesting! We picked a couple of cards that would be the moves that we would work on and we picked a card that would be our emotion. My first card for emotion was nervousness and my movements were upward eight, hip lock up and shimmies. We also layered emotion with veil work which was also an interesting exploration. We first did the movements to the music to discover the flow of the moves that suited us and the music best. Then we layered the movements with the energy of the emotion from the card we picked. At first I was unsure of how I would dance nervousness without it being a mime like activity or a mime dancing in a musical! I totally did not want it to be hammy! But as the music was playing the intention of using the emotion blended with the energy of the music and I could see how my dancing transformed.

   I found that the holding of the intention of nervousness actually made for a powerful dance even in just a few simple movements. The nervous energy created a pulled in effect which felt like it was wanting to over flow the entire time I was dancing all while I was concentrating on containing it. This inward intention changed how my movements looked. Eventually as I danced it transformed into not being nervous because I wanted to let it go. So the story of the dance was containing oneself and limiting oneself but then setting oneself free. The nervous energy I noticed had created a lot of  extra heat. The bodily feeling of this energy was like a rapid flurry of a tight tornado whirling at my center around my face and heart area. I am this descriptive because I have studied and believe in the chakras and the movement of energy. Hippie Dippie and New Age Goo but it does transform how I experience life and how I experience dance.

   The next emotion was jealousy. This one I found my arms changing position. I wanted to create a bigger and more intimidating presence so I found my arms going into 2nd Position in ATS and Tribal Fusion. And my face was stone and angry with my chin coming down a little. This energy also created a lot of heat. Unlike the previous emotion it did not transform or evolve into a resolution. It simply stayed put solidly which I think is what the energy of jealousy usually is about. It does not get resolved easily and the person feeling jealous holds the emotion very strongly. They may feel vulnerable but try to create an ominous presence to intimidate a person into not doing something that has hurt them. Also my hip movements became stronger, bigger, sharper, crisper. I saw my hip shimmy transform into the way I had been trying to get it to go for awhile! So, I was astonished! Which is amazing because most people describe the hip shimmy as being relaxed and taking less effort. But in this case I captured the movement by trying to express determined action with the turbulent emotion of jealousy. I also bent my knees more  rather than standing taller which also makes sense. Someone else might have stood taller to create a larger presence. But in my experience when I am jealous I work to ground and earth myself. More hippie dippie language I know. It's just the best way to describe it!

   The other card I drew for emotion was bewildered. I was like, " How the hell do I dance bewildered? " Again the whole image of doing a sappy dance with mime like facial features and body gestures came into my mind! I tried to dance it, mostly feeling bewildered of how to dance bewildered. This was the emotion done with veil. I think the effect it created in the dance was that I was searching, searching, searching. But like in life, I don't like to be bewildered. I like to come to conclusions as soon as possible and to let go of the feeling of being bewildered. If it's something I absolutely can't understand or figure out or accept I let it go and move on. In my dancing I quickly decided to set myself free from being bewildered which then made my dance free and exploring, present, liberated. Again this was another interesting evolution of plot within the dance. I love stories and plot and am always captivated by seeing a character grow and change by change of environment or outside events.

   As dancers and as humans we need to be "Round Characters" and "Dynamic Characters." I'm talking about a few kinds of characters that writers work into the plot of their stories. Without them the story would not move forward and because the story would fall flat we as the readers would simply stop reading. And just as it's hard to write a well rounded plot with well rounded characters it has gotten to be more and more challenging for dancers to explore other emotions besides power, strength, joy, sensuality and sass.

   Even though our culture has grown to understand emotion more and it's more in the open and accepted that we are not perfect by going to therapy and needing help, all of us tend to feel more in need of putting on a good face than ever. As a result our dancing has changed. We become focused on technique. But something I knew from the beginning when I started dancing was that if you embody the emotion while dancing the dance dances with you. The dance flows through you and speaks to you while you listen and answer back. The movements transform into something alive and juicy, not pasty, cardboard and flat exercises.

   Also what I knew then that I forgot over time was that when you dance emotion you grow 80 times quicker! With the emotion suddenly there is a place and a direction for the dance to go and for you as the dancer to go. And though it is improv the dance becomes crisp, ripe and fresh. The dance might be simple but it becomes amazing in way that hours and sometimes years of obsessing over technique and tricks fall short. Situating practice completely around technique stunts dancers by years and years. With the emotion she flies light years ahead of the rest. Her body is able to incorporate more movements with more detail faster and her reflexes become refined. Why?

   Because the dancer is no longer putting their body under a microscope. The dancer is no longer treating themselves like a thing to fix but instead is being a living, breathing human being who dances. The dancer is being a human being that has a wide variety of emotions that range from the most vulnerable to the most powerful. We try so hard to run as far as we can and distance ourselves from the animal kingdom and embodying the full spectrum of our emotions is the expression of our roots as animals. We don't like to remind ourselves or each other that we are animals rather than that we are people falling short of the "neon god" that we've made. The neon god that is so-called perfect. All technology breaks all the time, it never lasts and becomes obsolete pretty quickly. But everyday we strive more and more to be so called perfect machines. Robots with a few of the best traits that we humans see as being palatable. Our bodies have wisdom yet we tend to always believe that our bodies do not. That our bodies need to be controlled, disciplined and set to right because our bodies are so messy and seem to have no logic or reasoning. But to those who listen closely or have studied any of the healing arts understand just how wise our bodies are to ensure our survival. We look at all our bodies do wrong rather than what our bodies do right.


   What we often fail to realize is that the more we distance ourselves from our roots which are not airbrushed but is instead caked with earth, is that the more we distance from those roots the more fractured our culture will be. It is the root of the breakdown of families, communities, groups, spirituality, educational and hospital institutions. I'm not saying that there is nothing right in the world or that there was a time where everything was the way it could/should be. I'm saying that in our evolution we are dropping our emotions and feel more of a need to put on a show and face because all of us are so public now that we are on-line. My reach to the rest of the world changed after I discovered chat rooms in 1997. And it changed again when Tribe, Facebook and Youtube came along. These things have been very good.

   But at the same time we struggle between accepting our emotion and understanding them in a holistic way and having the basic human need of privacy. As dancers or any kind of artist which is used to putting their souls out there for everyone to see we have an unspoken need that gets translated into our dance. The natural and human need for privacy. At the same time we want to only express to the world through art what the rest of the world says is worth something. It's safe and being out there alllll the time feels very unsafe indeed! Before the net artists of every kind could more easily put up their walls enough to get to work in their studio. Some are still able to do that today. But I think most dancers and artists are more hyper aware than they ever were because of the internet and what it means to be on it everyday.

   In this way a lot of art, music and dance has lost it's magical edge. The edge that cuts through all of the bullshit and reminds people of something within themselves they had forgotten. The part that's human because most of the time they are forever trying to mold themselves into something rather than just be. We still get artists, dancers, musicians and writers that have allowed themselves to be open to the creative void and to allow inspiration to pour forth from it and through them into whatever medium they use to translate that message.

   These pieces are jewels and even though we are all so busy with technique and perfection, being what we "should" be part of us wakes up when an artist taps us on the shoulder. Whether it's the dancer who has claimed and held onto her soul who expresses the spectrum of emotion in her dance or a painter that did every motion with awareness as they laid paint or other objects to the canvas in a kind of yogic dance deep down we know how sacred and valuable it is and how much we need it. Not just from outside but from ourselves.

   So, what's the solution? How do we change our practice? How do we stop obsessing over technique when it has become almost a compulsive addiction? How can teachers get this important message across to their students? That they can really dance right now, not when they have perfected more and more techniques and tricks to be "amazing. That we can stop criticizing and practicing compulsively to silence the self hate and criticism. The more we allow ourselves to dance with emotion the more our confidence will grow.

   Mine did after this experience. For years I had tried to re-capture an ability and a feeling I had earlier on. I have actually felt I was a better dancer then even though since then I have learned so many techniques and styles of dance. I know so much more than I knew then but over time came to trust myself less. I lost my ability to trust in myself to teach myself to dance. In the beginning I had that I think from my first teacher and from not being exposed to the greater culture of belly dance that grew and changed since 2002. And now that I remember this very important part of the dance in a way that's more than intellectual I'm different. I feel and think differently not just about dance but about myself and my body. And that is very powerful.

   This is why you should get these cards and incorporate them into your home practice and or your dance class plan for your students. Without emotion we become lost as artists. Without a structured frame work to hold that emotion we run away. Without  a structure we also push and push to get past our horrible beginner ways rather than exploring the sacred within the simple and the basic. With these cards, it provides all of these things. It can also remind us again and again that being a beginner is a wonderful thing and shouldn't be something to be ashamed of.

   Yet a lot of us are all the time. But the best students and teachers fully embrace being a continuous beginner. Not just a continuous learner but a continuous beginner. We are always beginning new in the next second and moment fresh. Students and Teachers that are continuous beginners are humble, alert, patient, thorough, and responsible which is wonderful for everybody! This means less division and stronger communities and so much more!

   I challenge you to be a continuous beginner in all things, acknowledge your strengths, cradle your weakness, embody the full spectrum of your emotions in your art and in your dance and in your life. I also encourage you to give yourself the proper amount of privacy that you need so that you can feel comfortable being fully present in your art and comfortable with putting it out there.

Children of the Earth
Do What You Need
Blessed Be