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This past weekend was full of excitement–opening day of our local farmers market, a trip to Philly for a 5Rhythms class, and an up-close-and-personal encounter with some Scottish Highland hairy cows…and I think they’re somehow all connected, too!
The 5Rhythms class was a big deal for me; it was my first class outside of my “regular” circle of dancers and at a new location as well. Up until this weekend, I had only been attending two meetups in New Jersey, both of which I am a “founding” member–there from the beginning. I feel established at those classes; everything is familiar, I see most of the same faces each month. But there is a class in Philly that I had yet to attend, and up until yesterday I was afraid to go. I don’t know the “regulars” there. I am still kind of nervous driving over the bridge to get to the studio. I wasn’t sure I’d fit in with the already-established tribe.
I kind of feared that my experience at this new and unfamiliar place would be like the batch of early-season strawberries I bought on Saturday at the farmers market:
…that everyone else would be all cool and unique and awesome, and I’d be lil’ old Jen, standing out like a sore thumb, trying so hard to be perfect.
People filtered into the room. We all kind of kept to ourselves, staring at the floor, stretching here and there. Some people greeted each other with a hug. But then the music came on, and the batch of semi-awkward strawberries gradually began to look more and more like a cohesive group.
As it turned out, not all of the dancing strawberries were strangers either. One of fellows there has also been to the Jersey classes, and I had danced with two of the women previously at the Biodanza workshop. Berry buddies! I dance to rock ‘n’ roll music with one of the more withdrawn-looking students, and suddenly there is a connection. We thrash around like ecstatic punk rockers and we so slowly break out into smiles. It’s funny, because we both looked so resistant to letting go even though our bodies were saying BE FREEEEEEEE! At the end of the song, our faces finally flash genuine smiles. We are exhausted. And alive! During a moment of Lyrical, suddenly Jersey guy and I are engaged in a kind of theatrical pas de deux. Some of the exchanges we do are so eloquently executed, it looks like they have been choreographed. How we do not crash into each other is amazing. We are keenly aware of each other’s moves and presence, and the give and take of our motions looks anything but spontaneous.
He is much older than I, and at the end of class he comments how he is always amazed about 5Rhythms’ magic in getting his everyday aches and pains to disappear. I echo his sentiment, noting that dancing 5Rhythms is one of the only forms of exercise that takes my mind off my bum hip. I can walk around the shiniest lake on the most beautiful day in the world, admiring the baby geese, the blue sky, the smiling babies in strollers, but still, with each step, my brain is saying, “Hip. Hip. Hip. Hip.” Even on my best days in yoga, I still have to think below the belt every time I rise into Warrior. But when I’m fully immersed in dancing–when the music, my breath, my heartbeat, my brainwaves–are all in sync, there is freedom. (OK, yeah, so my calves are super-sore for the next two days, but that’s a good kind of hurt.)
By the end of class, despite our ages and races and backgrounds, we all sit there together, glowing, looking very much the same. We’ve just shifted into a bit of a different perspective:
If only I had an easier time approaching new things, like a curious puppy. Here I am, nervous about dancing with new people in a different studio, when this weekend, while at my mother-in-law’s house, we took the family dogs for a walk past a Scottish Highland hairy cow farm.
Talk about new and strange.
Gomukha-WTF?!
In typical Jen fashion, I cautiously approached the fence but stayed on alert in case I needed to dash away and save myself from being impaled. They reminded me of bulls, and the way they let that unkempt hair of their hide their eyes was so devious-punk-rocker. I’m sure they were wearing chains and Metallica tattoos under all that fur. They probably just stole a car, too.
The dogs, however, were fascinated. Pippi sat down in front of the fence as though she were watching TV:
I could learn a lot from these dogs. New 5Rhythms classmates, hairy cows, misshapen strawberries…that’s what this world is–hairy, scary, weird, and wild.
Just gotta approach it with a lil’ trust and love.
Emma, the fearless Weimaraner.
This weekend has been themed a bit around discomfort, but in positive sense (for the most part, aside from my aching back). As in, unease in taking risks, breaking out of “safe” zone, stepping out of your comfortable boundaries. Like in yoga, when we’re chilling in Warrior I and realize we can perhaps bend the front leg a little more and sink further into the stretch. Little baby steps outside of our “I feel jusssst fine” mentality.
For example, on Friday night I went to the gym for my usual 30 minutes of swimming. However, that night I decided on a whim that instead of swimming to the wall, stopping, putting my feet down, turning around, and pushing off again, I was going to try something different and do an open turn every time I hit the wall. An open turn is an easier alternative to the wall flip as a means to keep swimming rather than stop–even for a few seconds–to switch directions. You approach the wall underwater, push off with your hands to give you the force to turn your body around, and then push off the wall with your feet.
After just a few minutes of doing this, I was really feeling it. I was never one to linger at the wall before, but it’s amazing how having your feet on the ground for just a few seconds is a generous mini-break. Take those few moments out of the equation, and my heart was PUMPING. I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to go back to my “normal” way of doing it, but there’s was also a part of me that was determined to flow past the initial fear. Sure enough, maybe about 10 minutes into the session, I was still feeling it but I had reached a new level of OK-ness. My brain switched from OMGWTF#(*#*&!!Imgonnadrown! to “Uff, this is a tough workout, but I feel strong!” Even crazier, when I glanced at the clock and saw I had been swimming for 31 minutes, I honestly wanted to keep on going, even though I usually wrap things up at the half-hour mark. So I continued for another 10 minutes. I was utterly exhausted when I finished, but it was such an accomplishment to try something new, kinda scary, and be cool with it in the end.
My other big foray into the New & Scary was the “Introduction to the Spirit World” workshop I attended with a friend on Saturday. To be honest, neither of us had a genuine, heartfelt interest in the subject matter; it was more of a skeptic, eyebrow-raising curiosity that led us to the event. The flier promised techniques to help us raise our vibration, connect with our spirit guides, and communicate with said guides through visualization. The program was also BYOC. That’s bring-your-own-crystal, BTW. Although I am used to meditating and have certainly felt shifts of energy and vibrations, especially after very powerful dancing practices, the rest of this program material was wayyyy out of my comfort zone. My intentions were probably 20% based on curiosity and 80% more of a dubious investigative journalist approach. An embedded blogger, maybe?
I didn’t have any crystals on hand, but my friend’s fiance had an entire dusty box stashed under their bed, and I borrowed an amethyst from the treasure chest. We didn’t spend too much time focusing on crystals, and the most we did with them was hold them in our hands while we tried to connect with our spirits. I can’t say I necessarily felt anything different, but I still gotta give crystals some credit–they do emit higher frequencies of energy. I mean, for my 5th grade science fair project, my dad helped me get a transistor radio to play, powered by nothing but crystals and some metal wires and stuff. The instructor also explained that crystals–in the form of salt–is what makes us feel so cleansed after a day at the beach in the ocean. The salt purifies our bodies, removes negative energy, and makes our bodies more open and receptive to positive energy, to connect with our source. Now, I’m not ready to go out buy a quartz tower and make my husband turn our office into an official “crystal room,” but I don’t see the harm in wearing crystal pendants or earrings. It certainly can’t hurt.
However, the majority of the workshop–the talk about the spirit guides–really made me antsy. Although I kind of understood the statement, “You are a spirit first, having a human experience,” I wasn‘t so sure about the other spirits who are supposedly surrounding me. “You are not permitted to walk alone on this planet,” the instructor said, who paused every now and then while talking, looking a bit distracted, explaining to us that she was listening to her spirit guides and that she didn’t mean to be rude. At one point, as she was gesturing with her hands, she give a little giggle, apologized, and explained that she had just accidentally poked her spirit in the eye. She told happy stories of being guided through difficult situations by her spirit guides and not-so-happy stories, like the time her spirit guide of five years decided to move on and essentially “broke up” with her. We took time to sit in stillness, increase our vibration, and try to connect with our spirit guides. Some people in the room had done this before and described feeling, say, a man on one side and a woman on the other. I experienced what I usually experience during meditation–a feeling of warmth and expansion. My palms and arms were pleasantly warm, and my body felt a bit like it was a balloon being gently filled with air. I felt it in my hands the most; they were resting palm-up on my lap, and during the deepest part of meditation, it felt as though my fingers were growing like wild plants, each digit growing and growing like Freddy Kruger claws but with the appearance of tree roots.
The instructor went around the room, her hands waving in front us like she was washing an invisible window. She praised the “regulars” for their amazing energy and clear chakras. My friend’s energy was deemed questionable. And when the instructor approached me to tune my chakras, she grew very concerned that I could not relax. It was true–we had been sitting in metal folding chairs for more than an hour, and my hip and lower back were killing me. (I hope she knew it was hip bothering me and not my first chakra!) She poked and prodded me, asked how old I was, and urged me to have a session with her. Yikes! I felt like the yoga newcomer who couldn’t even master child’s pose while everyone else in the class is up in handstand. Even the other first-timer at the program, who at first complained about not being able to feel or see or understand anything spiritual or energetic, by the end of class was describing being surrounded by four spirit guides–and was able to name them, nonetheless! My friend didn’t see any spirit guides but she did have a pretty intense emotional release that simply fascinated the other attendees and instructor. I, however, was the “special” student, who had to move to the floor because her legs hurt and who didn’t have any releases or presentations from spiritual sidekicks. But I’m OK with that, because I did have a nice meditative experience, enjoyed that brief feeling of expansion and lightness, and was happy for my friend for being able to get rid of emotional gunk that had been buried in her heart.
Lastly, I did something today that I never thought would happen: I willingly decided NOT to attend a 5Rhythms class. The decision was not an easy one, because I have attended every class at this particular location since its inception in November; I am a regular! But it’s an hour drive away, gas prices are getting ghastly, and, um, I actually listened to my body. This whole week my body has felt totally out of whack since I took a 2-mile walk in new (and now returned) sneakers. I’m not just talking about an achy lower back; it has felt like someone tried to twist my entire top half off like a bottle cap. I’ve felt crooked in downdogs, my shoulder felt weird when I swam on Friday, and my hip has been acting up again. So instead of dancing like a wild woman for two hours at 5Rhythms today, I RSVP’d “No” on the group website and texted my massage therapist in a panic: “R U available for an hour today? Please?!?!?!” Luckily she had an open slot, and thank gosh I took it: She took one look at my naked back and said I was totally off kilter. Everything on my left side was completely torqued, from my neck down to my hips.
So, as it turns out, sometimes the comfort zone is a good place to be, and finding the willpower to refrain from plowing ahead is the challenge. I was at my edge this morning and really didn’t want to creep any further off the precipice by delving into a high-intensity dance practice. Saying “no” to 5Rhythms and attending to my body first, asking for comfort, was my “discomfort” zone. And I’m glad I went there.
Visions of days like today are my “happy places” on dark, icy nights in January, when I’m sitting in yoga class, not really 100% sure if I’m actually there for the yoga or just the 95-degree-plus-humidity climate. During opening meditation, when the teacher tells us to imagine ourselves in a place where we feel at ease, relaxed, happy, I ditch her suggested visualization of a tropical beach, hammock, and ocean and instead envision a more realistic scene that includes our kitchen, with the sun streaming through the open windows, ceiling fan making the wispy white curtains dance; our bedroom, where I wake up at 5 a.m. in nothing but a t-shirt and underpants; my car, where the windows are down, my legs are bare under my flowing skirt, my feet sockless. I imagine driving down the main road in town, the path ahead of me a clear stretch of blacktop lined with flourishing green plants and canopied with flowering trees, no longer an obstacle course of snow piles and ice patches and bare tree limbs looming over me like giant skeleton hands ready to crack and tumble onto the roof of my car.
THAT’s my happy place, and I’m there right now, folks. April has been kind enough to bless South Jersey with a little preview of summer, a preview during which the digital clock outside the bank flashes 88, the shower dial isn’t turned all the way to the left, and the frozen yogurt Bryan and I dish ourselves for dessert starts softening just a little quicker.
Mornings like this make it more difficult to decide how to best wake myself up—it feels like the opportunities are endless! Do I do sun salutations synchronized to the sunrise? Do I put on my sneakers and walk around the neighborhood as the sky transitions from dark blue to turquoise? Do I bike? Dance? Swim in the sunny, salty waters of my gym?
This is the time of year when routines are broken, when just because I planned to do such-and-such this morning, you know what? It’s so beautiful out, I’m inspired, and I’m going to do THIS instead. I went to bed with every intention of waking up at 5, doing my meditation challenge, and heading outside for a 2-mile walk, but after assessing the way my body was feeling, I decided to dance instead of walk. I had just gone on a nice walk the evening before, and I was reluctant to change out of my comfy pajamas. Meg from Spirit Moves Dance recently posted a great 5Rhythms playlist that I have been itching to try out, so this morning my way of waking up included a little bit of Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical, and Stillness. Forty minutes later, my pajamas were saturated in sweat, my heart rate quicker than any walk could have given me. I felt like I was partially responsible for helping the sun rise, like my 7 minutes of thrashing around in Chaos shook the earth just enough to pop the sun from under the horizon.
Although I changed my planned routine this morning, I do have morning rituals that are very hard to break. Aside from the basics (brushing teeth, getting dressed), my morning essentials include:
- Drinking a big cup of warm water. Apparently warm/hot water gets the digestion tract going, and I also believe everyone wakes up dehydrated, so it’s important to get liquids in the system ASAP!
- Rolling around and stretching on the living room floor like a cat, which usually involves some kind of yoga moves (downdogs, supta matsyendrasana), as well as using my foam roller to knead out muscle kinks.
- Standing warm-ups, such as Breath of Joy or Empty Coatsleeves…something with a hara breath.
- All or some of my physical therapy exercises. Doing the entire set takes about half an hour, so usually I’ll abbreviate each exercise or do only a few.
- Showering. Even if I shower the night before and do nothing in between then and leaving for work, I still need to stand under warm water for a few minutes. My muscles aren’t the same otherwise!
- Finally, meditation. This is relatively new, but I’m trying to get it to stick. I started the Chopra Center’s 21-Day Spring Meditation Challenge 10 days ago, and I’ve actually been looking forward to the 10 to 15 minutes of quiet reflection each morning. I’m hoping that one day meditating in the morning will be as easy as drinking a glass of water!
QUESTION: What are your morning rituals?
I was so excited to see the sun today. After a mostly miserable/dreary morning and afternoon yesterday that had my husband and I in our pajamas until 3 p.m. trudging around the house like those depressed little wind-up dolls from the Pristiq commercial,
a 70-degree morning with sun blazing through the blinds and lighting up my beautiful carnations was enough to get me giddy.
I made an ambitious to-do list of everything that needs to be done before I leave for my parents’ house for Easter dinner, started sipping on my coffee, and felt the caffeine fly through my system. My body was buzzing with excitement over the weather–I wanted to frolic outside!–but I had other things to do first: throw in a load of laundry, wrap an Easter present for my mother-in-law, do my PT exercises…oh, and meditate. So there I was, attempting to do the most “still” thing ever, and it felt like I was tumbling around in a clothes dryer, my mile-a-minute brain thunking against everything thought it came in contact with. So although I was sitting there, hands on my lap, meditating…was I really doing it, or was I lost in some abyss of ungroundedness?
This mental frenzy reminded me of an analogy my 5Rhythms teacher used last week to explain the entire concept of 5Rhythms; specifically, a “Wave,” the term used to describe a linear completion of the five rhythms: Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical, and Stillness. The analogy, not surprisingly, was surfing.
My high school friend Wendy, now a Hawaii resident!
Surfing, my teacher explained, isn’t just “getting swept away” by the waves. Although it looks like the surfer is totally just going with the flow, allowing the ocean to do the work and the person just happily cruising along, there is a very strong connection between the person, the board, and the water. A surfer doesn’t just quickly pop up from kneeling to standing without some kind of intention, without some kind of relationship (kinetic, energetic, etc.) with the board and the swelling waters around her. When the surfer stands, she is grounded. There is connection with that board, a connection running from her eyes to her arms, to her torso, legs, feet, nerves, blood, muscles, and beyond. But to the naked eye, it’s just a big ol’ wave with a teeny tiny person going along for the ride.
Dancing the 5Rhythms is so very similar. If a newcomer stepped into a studio and found a group of people sweeping around the floor in Flowing, it would be so easy to assume that these people are caught up in some kind of mystical flow, moving around like directionless kites on a breezy day. And during Chaos? Clearly, everyone is out of their minds, possessed.
But just as I’m sure surfers would say their sport is mix of being grounded and letting go, so is dancing. Even during the most wild, sweaty, head-tossing, feet-flying Chaos, we are still in connection with something. Maybe it’s not the physical ground (especially if you’re leaping and jumping), but it’s spirit, Self, god, an intention, universal connection, so on and so forth. We are only able to let loose by staying close to something. In yoga terms, rising into an inversion or bakasana is like taking that brave step up on the surfboard, but even then during flight the yogi is connected to the ground, hands firmly pressed into the mat, core engaged, breath and mind in sync.
A very literal expression of this was done in my last 5Rhythms class. During the start of Chaos, the teacher gathered everyone in a circle, holding hands. The music was frenetic, deep drum beats, and we were instructed to let everything go, move the body, shake the feet and legs, toss the head–but to keep our hands connected. It was one of most powerful moments of Chaos I have ever experienced, even though I wasn’t flailing around the room, corner to corner, wall to wall. Here I was, confined to this space between the person on my left and the person on my right, my arms only able to move so much without snapping mine or my partners’ out of the sockets, but I was letting go, being swept away, dancing outside of my brain. The connection was what had made it so intense, being supported by those other dancers’ hands, being part of this circle in which everyone was holding on tight but simultaneously letting go.
I have a few more things on my to-do list to check off before I head out to dinner. I’m going to try my best to surf my way through them all!
There is something especially sacred about 4th Friday 5Rhythms that sets it apart from classes on other days, in other places. Maybe it’s the fact that it takes place in the evening, after dinner. The sun is lowering as I drive to the studio, and when I emerge two and a half hours later, I am surrounded in darkness and guided by moonlight. Maybe it’s because it’s the end of the work week, and what a great feeling it is to leave the office, kick off my shoes, and dance the night away, sweating away the stressors from Monday through Friday and freeing space in my heart to welcome a wonderful weekend. Or maybe it’s the physical location itself–a yoga studio tucked away in the basement of an office building, our little secret dance hangout. It’s invisible from the outside, but once you go down those steps there is a warmly lit, womb-like space with beautiful wooden floors and Sanskrit words with English translations decorating the wall trim: peace, light, breath, space. This is the spot where transformation begins, where the week ends and something new begins.
Maybe it’s because I did a powerful meditation yesterday morning on the concept of flow in the universe, about being a conduit of energy between everything and everyone, or maybe it was just the fact that I had off of work yesterday for Good Friday and spent the entire afternoon on a girls’ day out at the mall with my sister and grandmother, but I felt *charged* last night when my feet hit that studio floor, even though physically I felt somewhat drained from being on my feet all day. New students showed up; people whom I thought wouldn’t ever return came back. One of the new students had the most satisfied smile on her face the entire time, her eyes closed, her face beaming. I couldn’t help smiling in return whenever I looked at her; she looked like she was at the best concert in the world, grooving along to the music and swaying to the sounds around her.
I paired up with another new woman a few times, a Nia teacher actually (I think I may try her class!), who, I would hope as a Nia teacher, really felt the music and was such a powerful partner to work with. At one point, during a staccato number to very primal Native American drum beats, we must have looked like natives calling out to the sky or Mother Earth or dancing around a fire pit. It was so earthy, filled with passion and intensity. She flung her arms up as I threw mine down, and we alternated back and forth, a silent but dramatic language between our bodies. We were still in the rhythm of Staccato, but I’m pretty sure Chaos was banging on our rib cages, demanding to be released. Luckily the teacher’s next song was something a little less intense, because had he changed the track to something full-blown Chaos, that woman and I would have turned into banshees for sure. The fire in our eyes…it was like that transition in 28 Days Later, going from a regular human being into a red-eyed, blood-thirsty maniacal zombie.
Two hours later, during our final moments of Stillness, I found myself sitting on the floor, my hands in Vajrapadama mudra, a gesture to cultivate cosmic consciousness, believing that through connection with everything around us, we will find the trust within ourselves to do what needs to be done.
Source: Spirit Voyage
After that, my hands closed into Anjali mudra and I drew them closely to my head. As my hands approached my face, I sensed an amazing warmth coming from my third eye. Or maybe it was warmth from my energy-charged hands radiating toward my head. Either way, there was a strong attraction, and class ended with my prayer hands resting between my eyes. During the silent moment of rest between class ending and the beginning of our sharing circle, I nearly fell asleep, but I think it was just a kind of savasana, a way of absorbing everything that had just transpired and “waking me up” for the next stage of the evening.
Because once I got in my car, I was ON. I was a new Jennifer, and every song that came on the radio in that 20-minute drive home felt like it was playing specifically for me. You know that feeling–when you’re in a good mood, maybe it’s a Friday night, you just had a great date, you got a raise at work, whatever–and suddenly every song in the world is the most rockin’ beat ever, and you become enamored with whatever the DJ plays? That was me last night, blasting the stereo, bouncing in my seat to Alanis Morrissette (“You Learn”), Van Morrisson (“Brown-Eyed Girl,”), UB40 (“Can’t Help Falling in Love”), Adele (“Rolling in the Deep”), and even Pink (“F–kin’ Perfect”). I came home and just couldn’t sit still–needed.more.music. I escaped upstairs to our iPod stereo and scrolled through our music library, playing more Alanis, singing along to “The Couch” just to prove to myself that I remembered all of the disjointed lyrics, feeling totally in agreement with “One,” rocking out to “So Pure” (IT’S ALL ABOUT DANCING!!!!), and then switching over to U2 for “All That You Can’t Leave Behind,” followed by “Beautiful Day,” at which point I was truly in some other zone and changed the lyrics to “Boo-tiful Day,” because I was holding my stuffed animal pug (Boo) and making him “dance” along with me.
And then I finally got tired for real. Just like that, my body said, OK, that’s enough for now. And I went downstairs, checked some e-mail, washed the dishes, foam rollered a bit to work out some muscle kinks, and went to bed at 1. Just another 4th Friday/5Rhythms kind of night.
CHAOS was the start of my Friday night. I had planned to leave work early, go to the gym, and be home at a decent hour for dinner with my husband. Instead, I hung around the office much later than anticipated, getting sucked into the world of blogs, Facebook, and all things technological. By the time I finally disconnected, it was too late for the gym and I was very bent out of shape about my time management and ability to balance computer and off-screen time, which, by the time I came home, spiraled into a complete meltdown about how I suck at life and don’t have time to even read a book or fold and put away the laundry sitting in the basket upstairs, whereas VeganAsana somehow manages to be a college dean, professor, mother of several children, yoga teacher in training, and regular blogger, Twitterer, and social media contributor. (Oh Lorin, how I envy your life management!) After much of the tell-tale signs of CHAOS (crying, sobbing, waving fist in the air), my husband finally talked me down into LYRICAL, encouraging me to go for a walk outside with him. A side-by-side walk with Bryan is always therapeutic (especially when he cracks me up by describing a certain flower’s odor as “a cross between urine and fish”), and by the time we reached the creek at the far end of our neighborhood, I was finally approaching STILLNESS.
(Side note: As a result of the meltdown, I took Erin’s advice and signed up for the Chopra Center’s 21-Day Spring Meditation Challenge to try and soothe my nerves. In addition, I’m also seriously considering enrolling in one of those Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction programs. As much as I totally GET mindfulness and its importance, sometimes I just really stink at implementing it!)
FLOWING was my Saturday afternoon, spent on the rowing (flowing?) machine at the gym, followed by strength training. As long as my hip isn’t bothering me, the erg is one of my favorite pieces of gym equipment; actually, one of the only machines I feel comfortable using (elliptical, StairMaster, and recumbent bikes are out; treadmill is iffy; stationary bike is OK). It’s easy to get into a “flowing” kind of groove on the rowing machine, and it seriously works nearly every muscle! Also, I find strength training to be very mind-centering, especially if I’m listening to inspiring music. Sometimes I leave the weight floor as focused as I am after a yoga class!
Saturday evening was very much CHAOS, starting with an overnight train fire that completely threw off our plans to get into Philly for karaoke that night. (Just to clarify: We weren’t on that train; the fire occurred the night before.) Timetables were helter skelter, our friends’ station was completely shut down, and then once we finally got into the city, the escalator underground halted to a standstill and freaked everyone out. To make matters even more chaotic, it was POURING BUCKETS, like, some of worst rain our area has gotten in years. We had umbrellas, but after walking the 8 blocks to our destination through flooded intersections, we were soaked! CHAOS!
However, once we were settled in our little private karaoke room for six, the evening was more STACCATO than anything. Exchange of good food (except for the gizzards and hearts) and drinks, having fun with friends, and holding up the microphone with confidence. My hits of the night were Ludacris (“My Chick Bad”), Tiffany (“I Think We’re Alone Now”), half of Sir Mix-a-Lot (“Baby Got Back”), some of Lady Gaga (“Alejandro”), and Black Eyed Peas (“Boom Boom Pow”).
Belting out “I Think We’re Alone Now” by my childhood idol, Tiffany!
Bryan and Sara duet to “Love Shack.”
Trying to sing Sir Mix-a-Lot with Sara’s “back” in my face!
Sara and Amanda go all out with “Thriller.”
After two hours of STACCATO, it was back to the CHAOS outside again, this time with lightning! Back at our house, we settled into a nice LYRICAL atmosphere, with pizza, dry clothes, and cartoons.
Sunday afternoon was my actual 5Rhythms class: 2 hours of Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical, and Stillness! My kinda new, found-through-social-networking friend Susan is warming up to the 5Rhythms, so she joined me for the 45-minute drive to class, which was a nice FLOWING experience. We have a lot in common, so we talked non-stop to and from. Sunday afternoon classes are somewhat difficult for me (I always feel sleepy?), but one of my favorite moments was during CHAOS, when I started doing really wild, jarring movements on the dance studio barre, tendus and degages that were out of control, as if saying, “Take that, ballet!” I also had a great STACCATO “duet” with one of the other students, Phil, whose moves are as wacky and out-there as mine; we look like pantomime actors engaged in some kind of dance dialogue.
After class I reluctantly headed over to the supermarket, usually a practice in CHAOS. However, this time I brought my iPod and listened to some trancey drumming music the whole time, and it totally helped keep me in a state of FLOWING. My surroundings were still CHAOS (especially that dreaded deli section!), but by focusing on the music and my own specific actions, the experience became almost a practice in meditation.
This weekend will mark my first 5Rhythms class without one of my favorite props: my hair.
To clarify, I still have hair, just 8 inches less of it. I went from this:
to this:
Although I was rockin’ the Lady Godiva look by the end (and its pure weight was what finally drove me to get it cut), I truly loved my My-Little-Pony-tail-on-steroids head. My untamed hair was like a dance partner in 5Rhythms classes: It flowed when I flowed, bounced when I staccatoed, and clung to my sweaty face, neck, and arms during chaos.
Sometimes during 5Rhythms I’ll pull at my hair like I’m a psychiatric patient. Or I’ll very deliberately unravel it from a braid during Stillness, very aware of each individual strand.
During one particular Chaos set, I remember releasing the braid from my hair and using my wild-woman locks as a fifth limb. I felt very Alanis Morissette at the time, and moving like that wanted me to keep my hair growing longer and longer, even though I kept talking about needing to get it cut. But that night it felt like part of me, like energy and blood and prana and all that good stuff was running through it as much as in my arms or legs.
It’s kind of funny that I allow my hair to be so wild during dance these days. Back in high school and college, I hated the feel of loose hair on me as I danced. I was constantly on a quest for a rubber band strong enough to turn this:
into something more like this:
By my senior year of college, I had had enough of constantly readjusting my hair after each pirouette and chaine turn. I only knew of one way to keep my hair in place:
Chop it all off!
The old dancer me was about neatly packaged buns (That’s what she said!), meticulous French braids, and slick ponytails. My hair was to be unmoving, proper.
Now I understand that my hair needs to dance the 5Rhythms as much as the rest of my body. After all, isn’t 5Rhythms about “letting your hair down,” so to speak? 🙂
Before I knew about 5Rhythms, I was desperate for a dancing outlet, a place where I could go for a few hours, let my hair down, and just dance, dance, dance without the need to impress, attract, or provoke. Even back in my high school days, there were some Friday nights–when the rest of my friends were at the movies or out playing laser tag–I’d stay at home, put on Q102’s live dance party broadcast, and just sweat it up in my living room. Similar at-home (or in-dorm) dance parties continued into college, and then into real-world time. The scene was usually this: husband sitting in the den, engrossed in some kind of laptop program; me in the adjacent living room, flying around, clawing at the floor, frantically changing CDs on the stereo when my sudden desire for Coldplay usurped the trance music I was currently engaged in.
A few years ago, I found a bar/club nearby that hosted dance parties on Friday nights. I was intrigued and open to the idea–there was a dance floor, ladies got in for free before 10, being in New Jersey it was non-smoking, and there was no drink requirement. The music went till 3 a.m. (although the latest I ever stayed was 1:45). I began to go to the bar on a regular basis, sometimes with friends, sometimes on my own. I became one of the “regulars,” and upon my arrival each week, I’d get high-fives and massive sweaty hugs from the old-timers who always stole the show with their flashy and perfectly choreographed moves. I soaked up the energy around me, dancing the night away under strobe lights and exchanging moves with other dancers. The club was known for its diverse clientele: people with rhythm, people without; old men, 20-something boys; giggling girls at a bachelorette party, older woman trying to do ballroom dance, so I rarely felt like anything I did would be strange. It was exhilarating, and the process of getting into that state of ecstasy was wild: I’d start with some really basic movement, close my eyes, and let the music direct my body as to how it should respond next. The movement just springs up on me, a little here, a little there, and then BAM! I’m gone. It was like driving along a bunch a back roads at 25 mph for several minutes and then suddenly coming upon the highway and being permitted to crank up the speed to 70, windows down, radio blasting.
As time went on, however, the novelty wore off and the true nature of nightclubs/bars came through. I’d have to leave early some nights because I was being harassed by drunk guys who thought that my dancing with them equaled some kind of commitment. I got tired of men’s crotches being thrust in my face as I was trying to flow on my own. People spilled beer on the dance floor; creeps stood in the darkened corners of the room, staring at the women. Guys didn’t understand the concept of wanting to dance by myself and took my alone-ness as a secret desire to hook up. One time I was exchanging some awesome moves with a girl who could really dance, but when a guy broke between us, she fumed off the floor; later I found out she was a lesbian and was trying to come onto me. Some nights the crowds were so big that I could hardly move, and my dance was reduced to nothing more than shaking hips and a bobbing head, even though my body craved for expansion.
I’ve had no desire to return to the bar scene since starting 5Rhythms a year ago, which, coincidentally, are held on Friday nights. After my first 2-hour class, I knew this was what I had been looking for all along. A space to move uninhibitedly; a floor on which I could skip, twirl, or slide; people who are drunk on liberation and happiness; no dark corners in which creepsters could hide and stare.
This past Friday, as I was driving home from my monthly 5Rhythms class, I turned on the radio and Daft Punk’s “One More Time” sounded through my car, a song that played every.single.Friday at the club as though it were the official soundtrack (In fact, the radio station was broadcasting live from that very place). My mind was instantly transported back to the club, and instead of feeling nostalgic, I felt suffocated, trapped, and violated.
Why? Because I had just come from 2 hours of some of the most freeing movement of my life. I was on a beautiful wooden floor with 10 other individuals, allowed to lie down when I needed or run around the studio in fits of chaos. The tempo of the music changed from slow to fast to moderate to slow, and my pulse was able to ebb and flow instead of being hijacked by nonstop allegro. At one point, I felt the desire to run my hand back and forth across my neck, as though my hand were a saw and I was trying to cut off my head. It was weird and abstract but natural, and no one gave me funny looks. Sometimes when others were moving wildly, I just rocked in place, my arms dancing as though I were Shiva, my hands vibrating with invisible energy that I cradled and stroked. My interaction with the other people in the room was never a “dance-off” or an invitation for romance: 5Rhythms is a place to be sensual, not sexual; playful, not provocative. It’s a place where my braid can become loose and stringy and there’s no need to rush to the ladies’ room to fix it in front of a mirror; it’s a place where I can crawl around the floor like a drunk lion and not get stepped on or kicked out. It’s a place where I can bring a new friend and not be worried the whole time that she’s going to get stuck in a corner with Bump-and-Grind Bill or Dry Hump Harry, a safe place where she can stand against the wall with her eyes closed when her body calls for a break.
When I leave 5Rhythms, I’m glowing, not saturated with slimy sweat and doused in the odor of others’ cologne and perfume. My body is vibrating, but my ears aren’t ringing from hours of dancing around damaging decibels. I’m exhausted, but a content kind of exhaustion where I can sit at Starbucks after class, sip on a soy chai with my friend, and chat for a half hour, not collapse into bed feeling like I’ve been hit by a truck.
“One More Time,” nightclub? Probably not. I’ve found a different kind of dance party.
Flowtation Devices 