My musical Flo-tation device

Monday, September 24, 2012 in Music | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

I will dance to almost any kind of music, but there are few artists whose discography I know intimately, memorizing not just lyrics but CD track numbers, knowing that she hits the high note on the studio album but sings more alto on the unplugged edition. And because I am generally not a concert-going person, it takes a pretty huge musical obsession for me to shell out the big bucks to see someone live.

Meet my current obsession:

Florence Welch. Oh, Flo, how I love you. And how appropriate, too, that her name jives so well with my blog?

Ever since I heard “Cosmic Love” in the trailer for Water for Elephants and then starting seeing more of her music being used on So You Think You Can Dance (especially Caitlynn and Marko’s routine to “Heavy in Your Arms“), Florence and the Machine has become a regular guest on my computer playlists and in my car stereo. I ordered both Lungs and Ceremonials on Amazon; by fate, they were waiting at my house the evening I came home from a wildly wonderful 5Rhythms class on a Friday night in March. The fact that I had just danced for 2 hours didn’t stop me from dancing nearly 2 more as I excitedly slid the CDs into the stereo, my hungry body inhaling and consuming every last morsel from “Dog Days Are Over” to “You’ve Got the Love”, “Only If for a Night” to “Bedroom Hymns.” Her music simply fell into my lap at the right moment, my 5Rhythms-inspired energy field attracting and trapping each song like a moth to a light.

Watching Florence’s videos, particularly “Shake It Out,” added a new dimension to my love for her. Even now, just thinking about the scene with her in that black velvet dress, being seductively dipped and flung about by the mysterious masked men in the private bedroom (minute 2:05, to be exact), I get the chills. The way her fingers grasp her partner’s hand, flutter on the back of his shoulder…every move of hers is so deliberate and precise, as clear as the notes she sings. The whole video reminds me of most of my 5Rhythms experiences, one minute drunkenly careening left and right with my wide eyes fixed on some invisible force that has possessed my gyrating body, the next minute fixed in one spot, my trembling fingers reaching out for another’s arm, the way Florence stands in curious stillness as a gold mask is placed upon her nervous-yet-open-to-experimentation face (1:33).

That said, it’s not just Florence’s music and lyrics that move me; it’s her. She carries herself with a fascinating combination of elegant confidence and poignant possession, her eyes and hands fluttering with such delicateness during one song and then widening psychotically during the next. Her videos made me as obsessed with her demeanor as I was with her music, and I wanted to see her live. I didn’t care about production value—things like pyrotechnics, fancy choreography, or special guest appearances. I simply wanted to witness an artist completely one with her music, like watching a Kripalu yogi enter Stage 3 meditation-in-motion, prana at the helm. I wanted to see and feel that energy.

I missed out on her first Ceremonials U.S. tour when she was in nearby Atlantic City, but lucky for me she returned to my backyard in South Jersey 4 months later. I bought my ticket while at work; my manager knew how crazy I was about Florence and actually rescheduled a meeting so I could be at my desk at 10 a.m. when the tickets went on sale. I scored a great seat three rows behind the pit, smack in the center.

However, in the time leading up to the concert, I started to regret my purchase. I had only bought a single ticket for myself; none of my friends were obsessed or had already seen her in Atlantic City. It was pricey, and buyer’s remorse and the fact that I’d be there alone started to eat at me. I was afraid her music would make me too emotional, that I’d have some kind sobbing fangirl reaction and not have anyone there to help me through it. I actually tried to sell my ticket!

Well, luckily, no one bought it, and I eventually grew comfortable again with the notion of going alone.

But the beauty of the night was that I was not there alone. I was surrounded with men and women who were as touched by Florence’s music as I was, who felt that raising their palms to meet Florence’s was also a way of following the heartlines in their hands. So often I took my eyes off the stage to glance behind me, amazed at the hundreds of pairs of eyes all glowing from the glory of her sound. When I looked back at the stage, I felt like Florence was singing just for us—not for money or stardom or fame or fortune—her connection with the crowd so palpable, as if each time she reached her arms outward she was collecting the energy we were exuding, transforming it, and then radiating it back in our direction, a continuous loop of musical magic.

Here’s what she offered:

• Only If For a Night
• Drumming Song
• Cosmic Love
• Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)
• Spectrum (Say My Name)
• Lover to Lover
• Heartlines
• Leave My Body
• Breath of Life
• Shake It Out
• No Light, No Light
• What the Water Gave Me
• Dog Days Are Over

As you can see in the photo above, her stained glass, art deco-inspired set was pretty impressive, the background changing with each song; however, my eyes were focused on Florence for the majority of the performance. Again, the way her body reacts to the music made the concert a bit of an art show, like she was a living, breathing sculpture. During “Cosmic Love” she teetered on her toes like a beginner ballerina, but immediately afterward during “Rabbit Heart” she was making a mad dash in the aisles, returning to the stage with burning shakti eyes, her body popping sharply as though she was having a seizure, the music reverberating from her head to her toes.

Before Florence, the only other musician to whom I gave myself fully was Alanis Morissette. When Alanis performs live, her fingers and hands curl a bit rigidly into what look like spontaneous mudras; Florence’s hands have a similar energetic reaction but look more like the hands of a Reiki healer, a nurturing, angelic quality embodied in each fingertip.

When her beautiful hands weren’t doing the speaking, it was her eyes that grabbed the audience, at times so possessed by the music that she appeared to be in a trance. “Breath of Life” was probably the most viscerally powerful song for me; the music is intense, and she progressed from commanding the stage to losing control, her body thrashing around in a hypnotic dance of chaos—my body followed along. Emotionally, I was touched most by “Heartlines”; again, when she extended her palm to the audience, I felt like she was transmitting some kind of blessing, and I raised my hand in return. (I totally cried at the end.)

I loved that the audience knew by ONE drawn-out organ note that “Shake It Out” was next, and having the chance to see “What the Water Gave Me” live turned what was a so-so song for me into a new favorite. Now when I hear that song, all I think about is Florence whipping her flame-red hair around, casting a spell on the music that comes from her mouth. She’s a magician! A witch! An alchemist!

Her concert wasn’t so much a performance as it was an act of service: I have this gift, and I need to share it with you. It was one of the first times I understood why fans throw themselves at artists’ feet; I was so touched by what she was giving me that I knew no other way of expressing my gratitude than lifting my arms to the heavens, grabbing at the invisible energy above our heads, and lowering it to my heart, saying aloud, “Oh, she’s so beautiful.”

Crossing thresholds, coming home

Monday, September 10, 2012 in 5Rhythms, Class Reviews, Dancing, Music | Tags: , , , | 5 comments

I think there’s some kind of universal phenomenon that when you’re by yourself, wearily and contemplatively driving down an empty road in the middle of the night, whenever you decide to click on the radio, the song that comes to life will be speaking EXACTLY to you. Even if it’s Nickelback or Carly Rae Jepsen or some awful modern-day remix of a song from the ’60s you used to love…somehow, in your vulnerable and delirious state of mind, that song is suddenly the most significant ballad of your current life. You nod along, yelling an emotional “Yeah!” to the deserted road, alternating between laughing giddily at the appropriateness of every word and sobbing between the bridge and the final verse.

I’m really bad at following modern music, so I didn’t know anything about “my” song the other night/morning, except that I had heard it played a lot during the Olympics. Google has since informed me that the song was “Home,” by Phillip Phillips:

Hold on to me as we go
As we roll down this unfamiliar road
And although this wave is stringing us along
Just know you’re not alone
Cause I’m going to make this place your home

OK, so, in all honestly, these lyrics are nothing amazing. Road metaphors? “You’re not alone”? Song Clichés 101. But again, at eleventy-baglock in the morning, Phillip Phillips had become my personal troubadour. Clearly, he had worked with the universe to get his song to play on my car stereo the very moment my desperate hand reached for the radio button.

A 5Rhythms class with Peter Fodera earlier in the day (a Waves class, too. See line 3 of the song. THE RADIO GODS KNOW.) had put me in this state. Peter had spent some time using new direction with us, material from a “Threshold/Gateway” workshop he’s recently developed.

His description:

Every journey begins with the first step, and often taking that first step through the threshold is the most difficult part of the journey. Gateways are often guarded by challenges or difficulties that we have to overcome in order to continue down the path. Beginnings take a great deal of faith and surrender.

As a way of getting us to take these first steps into each rhythm mindfully and with clarity, Peter abandoned the traditional 5Rhythms structure of transitioning seamlessly from one rhythm into another and instead stopped and started the music for each rhythm, giving us specific instruction for beginning each one. With his use of the word “threshold,” I kept thinking of a house, each room being one of the rhythms. What Peter was having us do was enter each room with a new perspective, maybe opening the front door with gratitude and appreciation instead of flinging it open in a mad rush.

  • For Flowing, Peter scattered rubber snakes all over the floor as a reminder of staying grounded, the way snakes are. We were to dance only with our feet—no arms—with instruction to be aware of the snakes but not to pay attention to them.
  • For Staccato, Peter cranked up a thumping, throbbing, bass-filled song and instructed us not to move. When we were allowed to move, it was only briefly, before we were asked to come to stillness again. It was torture! However, the lesson was clear: True Staccato emerges only when you give it time to speak, when its message is fully developed and ready to scream out to the world. As much as I wanted to shift into Staccato the second I heard that music, being still and giving things time to stir inside made the eventual hip-centric dance more intensely powerful than anything I would’ve done straight out of Flowing.
  • In Chaos, we were encouraged to let go of our heads, maybe even positioning ourselves on hands and knees and just letting the head go wild. I was at first resistant to this instruction, but when the wild music started, I had a vision of me standing in front of an out-of-control train, headlight blinding me, the engine roar growing louder and louder. It was so vivid that it dropped me to my knees, and then there I was, on my hands and knees, giving in to Chaos.
  • Lyrical, a rhythm for which I tend to use my whole body, was initiated with instruction to dance from the fingers and hands. Any other day, I wouldn’t have liked this specificity, but given that Chaos had rendered me a sweaty, sprawled out mess on the gritty wood floor, I was OK with letting my torso and legs remain dead weight and my fingers do all the work. I eventually got off the ground and found myself engaged in a wonderfully lighthearted ballet guided by my hands.
  • In Stillness, the focus is on the breath. Peter instructed us to be mindful of our inhales and exhales, maybe only moving on one or the other. This was a good lesson for me, because sometimes my Stillnesses are so poignant that I hold all the emotion in my throat and forget to breathe.

So here we were, crossing these thresholds in an attempt to come home in our bodies. However, even in a house/practice you are so familiar with, sometimes entering the room/rhythm in a new way or different manner throws things askew. How refreshing it is to step into your kitchen on a Sunday morning, coffee in hand, breakfast on the table? But what if you enter that same kitchen in a distracted tizzy, grocery bags flying everywhere as you attempt to put everything away in 5 seconds before you have to rush out the door again?

Changing up the manner in which you approach a rhythm can make the whole house feel like it’s falling down. I’ve always seen Stillness as the sturdy foundation of my dance but during Saturday’s class I felt more like I had descended into the heart of my home, the basement, without a flashlight. I was still in the same place—the deepest spot of my home, an earthen room of quietness where heat and electricity originate—but without that flashlight I felt lost in my own home. I got scared. The breath didn’t flow as easily, and I could feel my body tighten and tremble. I tried to feel my way around and remind myself where I was; every now and then I got glimpses of daylight, but I allowed the fear to overcome me. My Stillness shifted into uncontrollable shaking and sweating, an unnerving vibration coursing through my center like a furnace ready to blow.

It was one of the few times during a class that I wanted to exit the floor. I was facing so much resistance; emotions and thoughts were getting the best of me. However, two things kept me planted:

1. Like the song lyrics from above, I knew that everyone there with me was on an unfamiliar road. None of was alone; we were all there for each other. It was a safe place, a space for openness and exploration, a metaphorical group home for our souls and spirits to grow, heal, and learn.

2. As a Kripalu yoga teacher, I am very familiar with the practice’s philosophy of “BRFWA“: Breathe, Relax, Feel, Watch, Allow, the five steps to handling any kind of strong emotions or physical sensations. I dealt with a very similar situation during a yoga class in 2006; the recommendation is to simply ride the wave.

So I stayed in the basement that Saturday afternoon in Stillness, BRFWAing through the unease rather than running out the cellar door. If I ran away, my dance—my home—wouldn’t be complete, despite its internal tremblings and instability. I simply wanted to be there to the end.

Let there be light

Tuesday, September 4, 2012 in 5Rhythms, Dancing, Mornings, Music, Weather | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Even though the sun has been rising later and later, I’ve been pretty good at sticking to my early-morning walk routine all through the summer. In June, I’d need my sunglasses at 6 a.m.; nowadays, not so much. Still, most days I am able to catch the rising sun gleaming off the underside of airplanes descending into Philadelphia, making all jets look like red-bellied Southwest planes, metallic birds with torsos aglow.

However, not all mornings are ideal for the outdoors, including today. With the remnants of Hurricane Isaac drifting toward the Northeast, today started drizzly and gray, a reasonable and seasonable temperature of 70° but the suffocating humidity ruining any notion of comfort (or straight hair). Mother Nature had decided my morning workout: Today I would dance.

Leaving my sneakers in the porch and remaining barefoot, I lit an orange pumpkin-scented candle, bowed my head to the flame, and began to flow.

It’s hard for me to dance first thing in the morning without some kind of guidance, so I made sure to compile a playlist before diving in. One might think that starting with a high-energy techno or rock beat would help shake off the sleepies, but I always prefer to follow 5Rhythms’ gradual build-up structure of Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical, and Stillness.

The 5Rhythms structure is kind on the body, the way an opulent meal is to the senses: Flowing is a bit like a glass of wine before the appetizer of Staccato, which is then followed by the hearty and chow-down main meaty course of Chaos. Finally, there is dessert, sweet-like-blueberries Lyrical, the prelude to the final course of Stillness, that moment at the table when you’re sipping coffee with eyes half-closed, smacking your lips, and inhaling the memory of your fulfilling meal.

Here’s the music I chose to represent those sensations:

  • Warm-Up: “Damascus,” Conjure One, featuring Chemda
  • Flowing: “To Zion,” Trevor Hall
  • Flowing: “La Guitarra,” B-Tribe
  • Staccato: “Black Velvet,” Bonnie Raitt
  • Staccato/Chaos: “Drumming Song,” Florence and The Machine
  • Chaos: “Greg Didge,” Music Mosaic (from the album Didgeridoo Trance Dance 2)
  • Lyrical: “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” Carlos Santana, featuring India.Arie
  • Lyrical: “Pequeño Vals,” Marlango
  • Stillness: “Singapore (….),” The Candle Thieves
  • Stillness: “Swelling,” Sarah Jaffe

Most of these are songs I’ve danced to in other classes; I find that once I’ve experienced the music in a class setting, it has more weight, the same way hearing a song in a movie soundtrack makes it 10 times more intriguing. For example, every time I hear “To Zion,” I imagine gliding around the wheat-colored carpet in Kripalu’s Main Hall during Dan Leven’s Shake Your Soul class; the frenetic didgeridoo song brought me to the floor, the wall, my feet, and back on the floor again during a mid-summer night’s Dance from the Inside Out class. I remember waltzing around the spacious floor of Studio 34 with an imaginary dance partner to “Pequeño Vals,” and well, hell, I just love Florence. She had to be in there somewhere.

The sweetest thing about the practice was that after an hour of dancing, the flickering flame of the candle I had lit at the start of the dance was being upstaged by something greater: the sun!

This day—filled with thunderstorms, flash floods, and tornado warnings—had about 60 minutes total of scattered sunlight; I am happy to have experienced at least 5 of them as a sweaty, satisfied mess of a body sprawled out on the living room carpet.

”Dance is important…. It can be a reason for a person to get up in the morning”
~ Jeanguy Saintus

The pitfalls of partnering with the kitchen counter

Wednesday, August 29, 2012 in 5Rhythms, Dancing | Tags: , , , | 2 comments

When I am dancing by myself, I tend to find “partners” in various inanimate objects around the house, throwing my body against the carpet during an episode of chaos, draping my leg over the back of a chair, grasping onto a door frame as though it’s two arms on either side of me, pressing my back against the wall like there’s another human being supporting my weight, or engaging in a pas de deux with a set of curtains during a moment of stillness.

The aftermath of clawing on the carpet during Chaos

Recently, I even discovered that I can balance my arms on the kitchen counter while walking my feet seductively up the back of one of our wrought-iron chairs. It’s my sexy dance that I do while waiting for my corn to heat up in the microwave.

While I enjoy my creative ways of turning the whole downstairs into a jungle gym, there is one big thing missing from my dances with furniture and flooring: connection. No matter how hard I press my hands into the archway dividing the living room from the dining room, I won’t feel a pulse in return. My skin makes contact with paint and drywall; any energy radiating through my palms stops where the wall begins.

Even the curtains, so wispy and balletic in nature, are unable to cradle me like human arms. They make for a beautiful prop but not a true partner.

Many times during a 5Rhythms class, we are asked to take a partner. Sometimes the instruction is to do nothing other than dance your dance while simply being aware of the other’s movement. Sometimes, especially during workshops, the instruction is more specific and requires some level of trust, such as the time I had to dance while blindfolded, depending on my partner’s energetic cues to prevent me from colliding with other dancers.

The beauty in this work is that–unlike dancing with a wall or a kitchen chair–there is now some level of connection. The energy/prana/chi emanating from my hands and feet has found a safe place to flow, and in return, my partner’s energy mingles with mine. It’s a dance of mutuality.

For example, during last week’s 5Rhythms class, I happened to be partnered with the studio owner, Rhonda, for the last 10 minutes of Stillness. Our connection has been growing stronger by the month, but this time it truly came through during the dance: We linked hands and arms, leaned on each other for support, rolled on the floor together, held the weight of the other’s skulls in our hands, ran fingers through hair. It required a lot of trust and a huge opening of the heart. It’s not something everyone can do right off the bat, but that night it felt like we were conversing on an emotionally deep level that words would never be able to justify.

To end class, we stayed with this partner for an eye-gazing meditation, in which each person stares into the other’s left eye. This was the Stillness to end all Stillnesses, because, really, what act is simultaneously so still yet so moving? On the outside we may have been motionless, but it’s darn near impossible to look someone straight in the eye for 5 minutes and not feel things stirring inside. After class, we were both a bit weepy.

In this type of work, you may not know your partner’s stories or have an answers to their questions, but you can offer your unbiased presence. Likewise, the mere acknowledgement of your existence by another can be so comforting, a silent yet powerful dance that surpasses any exchange between human and home furnishings.

High in the ’80s

Monday, August 20, 2012 in Class Reviews, Dancing | Tags: , , , | 3 comments

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how my summertime dancing has pretty much worn me down to the bone, so I guess it was a blessing that there were no 5Rhythms events on the calendar this past weekend. Instead, I was able to attend something much lighter and less intense—an ’80s-themed YogaDance class led by Nikki, who admitted to being sick and feverish but still managed to be her usual firecracker self.

To be honest, at first, the ’80s theme almost scared me away. I was born in 1980, so I never felt particularly connected to the songs that made the decade. I mean, for most of that time period, I was listening to Rainbow Brite books on tape, Jem and the Holograms cassettes, or music that came along with my Barbie and the Rockers doll. It wasn’t until the ’90s when I started to fully understand the music of my times; you know, classics like Kris Kross’ “Jump,” Bryan Adams’ “Everything I Do (I Do it For You)” (which can make 12-year-old girls in love with their classroom D.A.R.E. officer weep…true story), and, of course, “Ice, Ice Baby.”

The tipping point that got me to go to the ’80s class was the fact that a decent number of people had already RSVP’d, and, well, I’m beginning to understand and appreciate the power of a group. I’d get to dance, sneak in a “doesn’t-feel-like-exercising” workout, and be around some fun people. I realized that I genuinely wanted to be part of the party!

…And a party it was! There were scarves! We “Vogue”d! Heck, we even re-created the chair/water scene from Flashdance‘s “Maniac”!

However, it took me a while to get into the groove. The premise of YogaDance is to move through the chakra system; most classes start with the lower “feeling” chakras and work their way up into the “speaking” and “thinking” chakras. I was so much in my head at the start of class that diving first thing into the muladhara and swadhisthana chakras just didn’t feel natural. I struggled to find my sultry cat during “Stray Cat Strut” and may have let George Michael down with my half-assed rendition of “I Want Your Sex.” I’m curious how my movement may have been different had these numbers come later in class, after I worked through the mental chatter.

The disconnection I was feeling was unsettling, so I thought back to the reason I came to the class: The power of a group! I shifted my attention to everyone else, being aware of not just my own movement but of everyone around me—fully acknowledging their smiles, exuberance, and connection to the music. I loved seeing YogaDance newbies just let it all loose, watching fellow dancer Suzie rock out like Cyndi Lauper, witnessing women belt out the lyrics to “Tainted Love.” Before I knew it, I had been infected (with love!). People frequently tell me that my passionate movement inspires them to dance deeper, but that Friday night I really needed others to be my lighthouse.

Even with the ’80s theme, Nikki constructed appropriate ways to dance into the more sentimental upper chakras. She used a beautiful ballad version of “Time After Time” (by Cassandra Wilson) as music for an Irish circle dance that may have brought tears to my eyes. (OK, it did.) For our last song, Joe Cocker’s “Up Where We Belong” was the soundtrack to our individual prayer dance. I loved how some people bust out into a full-blown lyrical dance (me) and others sat in stillness but yet bursting with gratitude. Everyone’s prayer was one of love, but they were expressed so uniquely.

I didn’t even realize it at the time, but Nikki sneakily led her class for an additional 30 minutes. The hour-long class I was originally reluctant to take had grown into 90 minutes without my knowing, and I have to thank not just Nikki but every other person in that studio for showing me just how fun an evening of INXS, Michael Jackson, and The Cure can be.

Naked

Tuesday, August 14, 2012 in 5Rhythms, Dancing, Movies | Tags: , , | 2 comments

During a 5Rhythms class this past weekend, guest teacher Daniella Peltekova ended our first Wave by playing the closing song from the movie Babel, Ryuichi Sakamoto’s “Bibo no Aozora,” a simple and sweet piano-and-strings melody that accompanies what is perhaps the film’s most powerful and achingly sad moments. In this final scene, the deaf Japanese teenager Chieko, her handicap a giant wall hindering her ability to connect emotionally and physically with others, is so desperate to experience human connection and touch that she invites a police officer over to her apartment and stands nude in front him. After he rejects her, she moves outside to the balcony of her high-rise apartment, standing naked against the railing—perhaps contemplating suicide—until her father finds her and embraces her clothes-less body.

Even if Daniella chose this song simply for its melody, I found the connection so appropriate for the practice of 5Rhythms, where every class is a metaphorical shedding of clothes until we are standing in Stillness, so exposed, so vulnerable, so naked.

I think back to the days I used to go clubbing every Friday, when I’d be surrounded by women in halter tops and mini-skirts, my body packed tightly against others’ breasts and bare arms. There was a lot of partial nudity going on there under that disco ball and dry ice machine, but bumping and grinding to Beyonce in a tube top and jeggings is nothing compared to throwing yourself head-first into a 5Rhythms Wave, putting it all out there on the dance floor: screams, cries, laughter—everything–good, bad, beautiful, ugly.

Even in the winter, when my standard 5Rhythms dance attire consists of a long skirt, leggings, a hoodie, toe socks, and perhaps even a scarf, I am more naked than I am when changing in the gym locker room.

When I say naked, I mean vulnerable, being radically open to any and all possibilities and realizations. Reaching for another’s arm. Allowing another’s arm to touch yours. Making eye contact with that stranger with the tears in his eyes. Unleashing the angels and demons inside of you during Chaos and then caressing this new (and sometimes scary) sense of self during Stillness, exploring this new you with precision and awe, like an archaeologist tracing a magnifying glass over the walls of an Egyptian king’s tomb.

Emotions crop up. Hearts expand. Curiosity grows. Mysteries unfold. The naked soul is exposed.

Dance prayer

Wednesday, August 8, 2012 in Dancing, Friends, Video | Tags: | 7 comments

A very good friend of mine is undergoing major surgery (read: 14 hours) tomorrow morning, and so I shall sweat my prayers for her.

May the long time sun
Shine upon you,
All love surround you,
And the pure light within you
Guide your way on.

May you wake up on Friday morning filled with love, light, and happiness!

Thrashing, crashing, and being still

Monday, August 6, 2012 in 5Rhythms, Dancing | Tags: , , , | 5 comments

Winter time—with all of those holiday obligations, family gatherings, office parties, and pollyanas—tends to seem like the season of overdoing, but I believe my peak of exhaustion always comes in the summer, as in, right about now.

Ever since Daylight Saving, the hours of extended sun, the increasing heat, the mating bunnies and the birds, and just being able to walk outside without the need for a coat the strength of a sleeping bag has led to one huge steaming pot of prana churning in my gut that makes me want to dance, run, swim, frolic, chant in Sanskrit, and speak in tongues, all at the same time. The moment those clocks leaped ahead one hour, so did my heart, and my calendar has since been jam packed.

I have given my fullest to every engagement—whether dancing Nia, 5Rhythms, Let Your Yoga Dance, Wu Tao, Journey Dance, or even just dancing in the living room with the air conditioner intentionally off so I mean it when I say I’ve sweat my prayers—but now that it’s August—today is unbearably sticky and humid and everything August is supposed to be—I am tired. I am exhausted. My feet are dirty, I haven’t showered, my hair’s a mess, I am sleep deprived, and my husband just told me that I smell (it’s true).

This is me.

I attended a special 5Rhythms workshop this weekend, a 7-hour extravaganza titled “Riding the Wave.” This was the class description:

In this summer Waves workshop lies an invitation to experience moving with ease, effortlessly, from a place where we allow ourselves to be moved, a place of being rather than doing, a place where we let the music play us, where we become the dance. Come explore how to let go and ease into the caressing waves of the 5Rhythms, and allow them to carry you to the quiet shores within.

It sounds so idyllic, doesn’t it? Summertime waves. Seagulls. The seashore at sunrise. Ebb, flow, back, forth. Ahhhh.

Not for me. My dance was more like last year’s Hurricane Irene. A board-up-the-windows-and-prepare-the-sandbags kind of dance. The kind where it’s very tempting to just follow the “evacuation route” sign from shore to mainland, but instead I opted to stand out at sea and allow the waves to take me.

The exhaustion never sets in right away. I mean, check out this picture of me right after class, with teacher Rivi Diamond.

I am glowing! I survived a storm! I have salt all over my face and dirt on my feet, and I am loving it!

Part of this glow is that, despite throwing myself through one hell of a wave, I was fully supported the entire time. That’s the one really, really beautiful thing about dancing as a group—it’s a tribe, and everyone is there for each other. We do not dance to critique or judge or compete. We move to be moved, and when that movement gets scary or sad or intense, so many people are right there alongside of you, some friends, some strangers.

For example, this is me and Lauren:

I met Lauren once before, briefly, at a previous workshop. We didn’t even remember each others’ names this time around. But we were paired together for a “waves-versus-steady shore” dance, in which one person danced their waves and the other acted as the watchful island, a witness and support system to caress the crashing water. I felt comfortable with Lauren and wasn’t afraid to let my waves crash around her. Likewise, I enjoyed being Lauren’s shore, her movement stirring my sand, bits of me breaking off and entering her ocean so that we became one unit rather than two parts.

And this is my new BFF Valeria:

Valeria and I partnered up at the beginning of class, after instruction to make eye contact with someone you know least. We were complete strangers at noon and left the building at 7 p.m. hugging, kissing, exchanging contact info, and vowing to do coffee and dinner and dancing! We danced “Summertime…and the Living is Easy” together, easily following Rivi’s instruction to hold onto the partner’s head, neck, shoulders, back, and hips, the one partner’s hands being a supportive “shore” for the other’s ebbs and flows. At the end of class, during our final check-in with each other, Rivi gave us permission to tell our partner what we needed: talk? tears? distance? a massage? Valeria and I didn’t exchange any words, but our conversation was touching and profound. It was such an honest display of emotion and longing, with tears, snot, massage, and gentle touch. It is how every human should be held and received.

Even during the most wickedly intense portion of class for me—Chaos—the supportive shoreline was always there. We had stretched out in a giant circle; those needing to ride the wave went in the center, and those with more solid footing stayed on the perimeter. That perimeter saved my life. I was drowning in dance, throwing myself in the waves, screaming (literally), thrashing my now unbound hair, but my eyes always found a steady support there around the “life preserver” ring, whether just a smile or gesture or transfer of invisible energy. This tiger was on a rampage, but the cage around me expanded and contracted as needed, never constricting my movement yet giving me a sense of loving containment. In return, when I saw friends in need, I screamed, shook, and vibrated along with them.

Near the end of class, I experienced a brief sensation of aloneness as I walked through a “graveyard” of bodies, people spread out in various shapes of savasana. It was as though everyone’s old self was dying, melting into the earth, and I was joining them in this passage. It was a bit sad, but when I closed my eyes I saw all of my classmates’ faces so vividly, each of them crying along with me. It may sound mournful to have that kind of vision, but it was actually an uplifting one, a bit of an energetic reminder that everyone hurts, everyone cries, everyone needs each other.

So yes, there was much thrashing and crashing during the workshop, but also so many moments of “steady shore” support, whether rocking shoulder-to-shoulder like a human raft out in the Caribbean, watching an amoeba of human beings expand and contract like seaweed, and using the rhythm of Stillness to support each of the other 4 rhythms (what a relief to dance Chaos with the undercurrent of Stillness!).

I emerged from the waters sun-kissed, salty, and a survivor! That was one helluva ride! But, as I mentioned at the start of this post, I’m feeling it now. It’s summertime, and the living is…sometimes exhausting. But the truth is, I don’t think I’m ever going to chill out and stop dancing. As long as I’ve got the rhythm of Stillness guiding me home, I think I just might be OK.

Our “beach.”

Flowing, growing, and turning 32

Monday, July 30, 2012 in 5Rhythms, Dancing, Walking | Tags: , , , | 9 comments

May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.

This was the quote I drew from a bowl full of folded pieces of paper that sat in the center of a circle of women gathered for the Embodied Meditation program I took last month at Kripalu. The quote, from Rainer Maria Rilke, brought a smile to my lips—here I am, author of Flowtation Devices, randomly selecting a verse about allowing my essence to flow.

I re-discovered this piece of paper this weekend, tucked inside of my wallet. It was good timing—it was my birthday weekend (today’s my actual birthday!), and it reminded me about all the flowing and growing I’ve done this past year.

When I started dancing 5Rhythms two and a half years ago, I never imagined it would become a life practice. It’s a little bit like what happened with yoga—I started taking classes because I danced and thought it would help with my flexibility, and soon I was trying to learn Sanskrit on my own and reading about the yamas and niyamas. With the 5Rhythms, I was looking for a cardiovascular workout that wouldn’t further damage my aching hip, and now I use the dance as therapy, a practice in interpersonal communication, and as a means of fostering connection with not only the people I dance with but the world around me.

I was so thrilled to take a pre-birthday 5Rhythms class this past Friday, a class during which my dance really felt like a 31-year-old transitioning into her 32nd year. I had strong eye contact with others. I laughed. I was spontaneous in my movement with others. These things were once so hard for me, because back in the day I just wanted to dance; I didn’t quite grasp the connection bit yet.

At one point, I partnered up with a female classmate who usually keeps to herself. I can see she always feels the music very deeply, but it is rare for her to engage. However, during Friday’s class, something opened up between us. It was a Lyrical song, and we were both still feeling the vibrations from Chaos. The dance that emerged was new for the both of us—a very sensual, feminine, sometimes intertwined-arms partnership, our eyes locked, our sweaty hair matted on our cheeks. It felt like a motion picture version of the Visions of Arcadia art exhibit. I wasn’t trying to force this connection, but I began the dance with an intention to be radically open—to let what I do flow from me like a river—and the result was quite rewarding.

Off the dance floor, I try to move in the same manner. For instance, every morning I go walking around my neighborhood before work. I frequently pass a woman who keeps her eyes straight ahead and never gives me so much as a half-nod when I pass her and say “Good morning.” But every morning, I keep trying. “Good morning!” ::silence:: It was tempting to just give up and greet her with the same muteness, but something clicked late last week—I got a return “Good morning!” Granted, it was rather mumbled and void of much emotion, but it was connection! (And I may have given myself a little victory fist-pump after I passed her.) 🙂

My greater commitment to conscious dancing this past year (attending more classes, classes in other areas, workshops) has been so helpful in getting the real me to emerge. Sometimes I say that the dancing has changed me, but I think it has just taken what has always been inside of me and transformed it into action.

For example, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been walking around with my iPod in and just wanted to break out of my stride and DANCE when a particularly powerful piece of music came on. Well, the other week, I did. I dance walked! Around the creek, with joggers and cyclists and dog walkers. I can’t tell you how awesome it felt to be outdoors, saying Yes! to dance when my body craved it so much. Instead of thinking, “Ooooh, how I love this song. It stirs my heart. Wish I could dance. Wish I could dance. Wish I could dance,” I just did it. I danced!

And then Saturday afternoon, there came a beautiful sun shower; well, a sun downpour, really. I stood in my upstairs hallway, hypnotized by the combination of brilliant sun and driving rain, soaking the tree leaves outside the window, falling on the roof. I had a sudden desire to run outside, naked, arms outstretched, and take it all in, the way characters in European avant garde movies do. The impulse was so strong that I ran to my dresser, pulled out my bathing suit (it was the closest I could get to naked without having the cops called on me), and dashed outside. Who is that girl in the Speedo, standing on her front walkway, arms outstretched? Me, and it felt amazing. Not just the sensation of standing in a downpour with the sun shining on me but the sensation of listening to the voice inside of me that craved so desperately to fully take in this meteorological display.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Ikhlasul Amal

I have no reservations on my birthday today about “getting older.” With age comes practice, experience, and wisdom…and a few wrinkles and dark circles under my eyes as humble indicators of the ever-unfolding journey.

5Rhythms Friday: NYC edition!

Monday, July 23, 2012 in 5Rhythms, Class Reviews, Dancing | Tags: , , | 7 comments

My first experience with 5Rhythms was in April 2010. The class took place in a suburban yoga studio, which resides in the basement of an office building. The space is warm and nurturing, but—being in a basement—there are no windows, no view of the outside, and the ceiling hangs low enough that jumping with your arms above your head is something to do with caution.

It is a sweet spot, a second home where I have experienced moments of great tenderness. The monthly class draws a small crowd, enough to have moments of connection with everyone in the room. Metaphorically, the space is a bit like a living room fireplace—cozy, sensual, with the invitation to sink in, let go for a moment, and then return to softness before drifting to Stillness with an empty glass of wine in your hand.

And then there’s New York.

New York City is the heart of 5Rhythms, the headquarters for the practice.

If my monthly class in suburban New Jersey is a crackling fireplace, dancing with Tammy Burstein on a Friday night at the Joffrey Ballet School is a 6-foot high roaring bonfire at Burning Man.

This past Friday marked my first 5Rhythms pilgrimage to Manhattan, thanks to the transportation coordination of one of our tribeholders (I would have never gotten there myself). I was both excited (working with a master teacher, dancing with so many personalities) and terrified (little suburban girl in the big city!).

The funny thing is, to get to the 5Rhythms space, you have to climb to the 5th floor of the building, brushing past leotard-and-tights-clad Joffrey Ballet dancers. In the locker room, I change into my Target yoga pants and flowing floral shirt from Kohl’s as the young girl next to me donned in skin-tight Capezio ballet wear fixes her immaculate bun in the mirror. We walk past rehearsal spaces with girls lined up along the barre, the sound of an instructor counting off “and 1, and 2, and 3, and 4,” everyone’s movement synchronized, coordinated, legs and arms moving as one.

I realized that that terrified me more than anything—the memory of always aiming for perfection, the instant sense of competition when slipping into ballet shoes and lining up with other girls whose battements were just a little higher than yours, whose triple pirouettes looked more solid than your doubles. Being in that environment—if only for a few minutes—made entering the 5Rhythms space that much more relieving, a coming home of sorts.

The barres were pushed to the sides of the room; the only light illuminating the space was a strand of Christmas lights strung around the perimeter, the setting sun outside, and the ever-glowing lights of Manhattan at dusk. People of all shapes, sizes, races, and dance attire begin filtering in the expansive space, and like that we all knew what to do. Just get out there and dance. Music played, we moved. The feeling of being surrounded by so many people (40? 50?) who looked so comfortable in their bodies was incredible. It was a struggle at first to sink within myself and find my own dance when all I wanted to do was step back and watch everyone else. A woman sat off to the side and sketched the whole night. I wish I could have seen what her eyes saw.

I didn’t make too many connections during the first Wave, and that disappointed me. So many brilliant people were in this space, and I yearned to share a moment of movement with them. As I slowed down into Stillness, I almost let this melancholy take over me until Tammy said to the group, “Learn to be confident with yourself the way you would with another.”

Those words were all I needed to hear. As the next Wave began, I knew that I had to dance for myself first. The purpose of the practice wasn’t to seek out acceptance from others but to find it within. The magic is that once I stuck to that creed, connection began on its own. I shared a heart-thumping, fourth-chakra Chaos shake-off with one person; a theatrical Broadway-esque dance to “This Little Light of Mine” with another; and a slow and intimate linkage of hands and arms with Jason, Tammy’s husband. As I shimmied past others, there were brief but personal moments of connection, whether through eye contact, an exchange of vocal out-breaths, or fancy footwork.

The second Chaos of the evening was by far the most powerful, when it felt as though every body in that room was gasping for the same breath, sweating from the same pores. As the pulsing techno music reached its climax, everyone in the room joined in a guttural scream, arms flailing, sweat drip-drip-dripping. It felt like I was in an amusement park, riding every attraction at once—descending down the first hill of a roller coaster, spinning on the Gravitron, pulling the cord on the freefall. I was simultaneously losing control but being so acutely aware of it, dropping and spinning and plummeting yet also feeling like everything was suspended in time. It was the stillpoint in the Chaos, a moment of such madness but with a mysterious current of calmness underneath.

Crystal-clear clarity washed over me after Chaos into Lyrical, my senses open to everything around me: The clocktower next to our building chiming nine times, echoing in the cavernous streets of the city below. The pinpoint top of the Empire State Building peeking above the flat-topped buildings in front of us. The aroma of pizza wafting through the open windows, the light breeze brushing my cheek. Car horns honking, trucks idling, engines revving. The reds and greens of the traffic lights glowing. Silhouetted bodies around me moving like chess pieces coming to life. The sight of another person’s apartment across the street, a painting on the wall. The muffled sound of piano music coming from the ballet studio below. All of these things became part of the dance, the movement of just being.

I sucked in all of these elements around me as the final Stillness began, my hands caressing the floor as though it were another’s chest, coaxing them into this sweet stillness with me, my fingertips brushing over an invisible collarbone, sternum, rib cage. There was nothing but floorboards under my skin, but I felt so much life. When I walked outside onto 6th Avenue, the subway rumbled below in return, my feet vibrating from this underground turbulence: the chaos, the stillness, the musical meditation of Manhattan.

Photo Courtesy of Flickr User muckster

About the Author

Name: Jennifer

Location: Greater Philadelphia Area

Blog Mission:
SHARE my practice experience in conscious dance and yoga,

EXPAND my network of like-minded individuals,

FULFILL my desire to work with words in a more creative and community-building capacity;

FLOW and GROW with the world around me!

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