Weekend of Contact Improv

A few weekends ago I attended a Contact Improv Retreat. I had the delightful and rich experience of dancing with some people I know very minimally and dancing with complete strangers for the better part of two days.

We started with a "structured" class where the instructor, Yves, gave us some starting points to work with. We crawled, played with moving from low to upright positions. We then worked with partners, holding another's arm with our eyes closed while we let our partner lead us around. I found this exhilarating and frightening at the same time, especially when my partner pulled me while running. Flying, feeling air in my face, trusting my partner completely to make sure I didn't run into someone or something. And once that trust was there, just enjoying the ride.

Then the dance began. I danced for several hours, loved having so much room to work with, really taking up space and allowing myself to move uninhibited, dancing with people, pushing, pulling, flying, running, falling, rolling. Because of the vastness of the space we were in, I was able to be in perpetual motion for longer periods of time--to really see the flow through, to follow the momentum to its natural end, which was a new and liberating feeling.

I especially loved moving to the live music: a cello, piano and drums. Between the musicians and dancers, I was given such a rich tapestry of elements to play with and off of. Such an amazing experience that I didn't want to end.

I guess it's not news that physical contact with others can be healing. We know that babies need to be held, touched, even have skin-to-skin contact with their mother or caregiver to bond, to feel secure and to grow into empathetic adults. Giving a kid a hug can cure just about any minor ailment.

I think as adults, we forget how good connecting physically with another human being can be. We may enjoy that physical expression with our spouse or significant other (with or without the sexual component) or our children. We may hug our extended family or friends as a greeting or maybe hug someone we know is having a hard time.

But how often do we really take in those bits of affection, of connection, that we're getting? How often does it become simply obligatory or rote? While dancing in contact with others, there is tenderness, care, exploration, sensuality, playfulness and everything in between. Moments of stillness, many times taken when a position feels particularly restorative or comforting, allow time for one to really take in that connection. It is truly a beautiful practice.

The Flawed Healer

I used to believe, naively, that healers and other people in the helping professions were healed themselves...that psychologists must not have issues, that energy healers never got sick...that somehow these people had the key to their own well-being. It was always disillusioning to me to discover the person I'd been seeking guidance from was flawed, sometimes greatly so. How could I trust what they were telling me if it didn't work for them?

Now I think, how could they be helpful if they didn't experience those things? How can you help other humans if you yourself don't have human emotions, human ailments, human thoughts? It seems obvious now. It is in our own suffering, in our flaws that we are able to help others because we are able to empathize. And it is our own suffering or discontent that pushes us to find answers, encourages us to find peace, however we can, and in so doing, help others do the same. At least if we don't get stuck in it.

Sometimes it works the other way around. Sometimes when we are striving to help others, we help ourselves as well. This is nowhere more evident than in a parent/child relationship. If we can relate and listen to our children, perhaps we can heal that child who was never heard. Or if we can honor our kids' "selfish" side, maybe we can learn to honor our own Self that has been neglected. And if we can truly show unconditional love to our kids, we might just be loving some lost part of our own inner child.

It's sort of a chicken or the egg kind of thing. It's cyclical...it's hard to give someone what you haven't gotten yourself ...but it's sometimes even harder to give to yourself.

I have many energy healing modalities at my disposal and when I am in pain or out of sorts, I can achieve a certain level of relief by using them. However, many times I find the result is more drastic when someone else works on me and my work on them is more effective on them than their own is. I can only speculate that this is because we can't see the forest through the trees, so to speak. Perspective changes everything and we usually don't have great perspective on our own issues. Or maybe it is the sheer act of purely receiving that is so healing...either way, we have the potential to help each other heal, if we could just see the connection, the reflections of ourselves in everything. I think we need to play both healer and healee in order to find balance and peace.

Being human, accepting all that that means, and being a healer or teacher are not mutually exclusive. Quite the contrary...speaking as someone who wants to help people heal, it helps us be more compassionate. And speaking as a patient or client or student, having a leader or healer who is human and embraces that, shows me that I, too, with all my human issues, have the same potential to help others.

Spring

I love spring. I love the smell of the rain and the trees just beginning to bud. I love the anticipation of seeing the first sprouts coming up from the earth and the mystery of what those sprouts could be (especially because I often forget what I planted the year before).

Every day I go out and tour my own yard as if I'm seeing it for the first time and in a way, I am. Each day brings new wonder, new surprises. Spring is still hopeful. It isn't quite late enough to discover that those lilies I planted didn't make it or that the blueberry bush didn't produce. There is still so much potential.

I have planted shrubs before and waited anxiously to see them budding in the spring only to discover them dead. A few days ago when I walked around my yard, most of the new shrubs I planted appeared to be dead. Since they're new and I can't remember exactly what they are or when they're supposed to bloom, I decided break off a tiny piece of the branch to see the inside. I was delighted to see green. I have decided to take that to mean the other ones that appear dead are really just waiting, protecting themselves until it's warm enough to emerge. That's the wonder and beauty of spring.

Every year we gather with friends for a spring celebration. There are nature crafts for the kids, potluck food and drink for the adults and a planting ceremony. We all write down on slips of paper what we want to sow...wishes, goals, ideas. We take turns digging with a shovel and bury our hopes with a plant or seeds. We also have a bonfire and let go of anything we need to and take a turn sharing where we're at and what spring means to us. It's a beautiful tradition, one that I look forward to. For many of us, it is the hope, the light, that means so much.

For the past two years, I have gone into my dance studio above the garage in the spring to find a bird trapped there. They had somehow found their way in but couldn't find their way out. The first was a male cardinal, the second year a mama robin. In both cases, I was amazed to find that the bird allowed me to cup my hands around it and carry it to the open window to let it out. I can't explain how honored I felt by that. Perhaps they knew I could help or perhaps they were just too scared to struggle or fly away, I don't know. And though I was helping the bird, it felt like I was the one being given a gift.

The gift is being allowed to touch something that usually seems so separate. As a human it is a privilege for me to connect with another life that I usually just admire from afar, that is so light and free. I am touched by being part of returning that thing of beauty to its freedom. In this way, I am part of the hope that spring brings.

Love and Logic

I have a friend who is in love with a man from another culture, one where he is expected to marry a woman of his family's choosing. The man loves her, too, but is torn between that and his loyalty to his family and their expectations of him. It is very likely he'll have to make a choice. His family will probably disown him if he chooses to stay here. Their situation is complicated and at times, seems to my friend, impossible. They are from two different worlds and yet they are in love. Knowing this, knowing that there is a good chance that this man will choose his family, hasn't prevented her from seeing him, from loving him.

If only love made sense. If only we could reason with our hearts, make them love who is best for us. It's funny how we'll try....we'll try to find logical reasons for why we love who we love but the bottom line is that many times, most times, there is no logic. We feel what we feel.

They say that love is blind. Maybe that's true or maybe it's that love sees all...goes beyond the surface to see the potential in someone. Sometimes that potential comes to fruition and sometimes it doesn't and if we act on our love for that person and their potential we are making a willing choice to take that chance.

And what is romantic love anyway? Is it the chemistry between two people, the physical attraction? Is it the enjoyment or comfort we get from being around someone? Is it the feeling we get when we look at someone across the room or look into someone's eyes and can't look away? Is it the desire to know that person? To be near him/her? All or none of the above?

None of these things are logical or can be rationalized, no matter how we try. Nor can we control them. The only thing we do have control over is our actions, how we respond to the feelings we have. I suppose that's where the mind, where logic can be helpful. It has the potential to temper our actions but we don't always listen. And sometimes it can pay off and sometimes it doesn't. I guess the wisdom is in seeing both potential outcomes and being willing to accept either one.

Contact Improv Utopia

I recently became involved in a contact improv group that gets together to "jam". This consists of improvised dance between two or more partners who are sharing a point of contact the whole time. Not only are you touching, but you are experimenting with weight, momentum, physics. There is weight sharing, rolling, lifting.

There is something special about sharing dance with other people, especially in this context. Because it is improvised and because you are working with others, it requires you to really tune in to your body and your partner's, to respond to their movements, give your weight over to them and let them give their weight to you and the whole while, each taking responsibility for your own bodies.

I was struck at the last session just how much these dances reflect the ideal relationship. There are moments of give and take and there are moments of moving away and coming together. And most incredibly, there are moments where the two parties are giving and receiving at the same time by leaning into one another, neither one bearing more weight than the other but simply supporting each other. It is the sense of standing strong on one's own, while still providing and receiving support that makes it such a great model. It seems like such a beautiful example of a true partnership...autonomy and connection happening simultaneously.

How wonderful would it be to live in a world like that...supporting each other by leaning on each other. For me it's just another example of how extremes aren't necessary...opposites (giving/receiving) can happen at the same time, harmoniously.

Dancing in this way also reminds me of something I learned awhile ago about forming through resistance. In the womb, the baby grows and develops against the uterus of its mother. The uterus provides containment and resistance but still yields to the growing baby. In the same way, as we are dancing with the weight of our bodies against another's, I feel like we are growing spiritually, emotionally. Gently pushing against something or someone in a connected way allows us to expand ourselves and know ourselves in relation to others.

For more information on Contact Improv, go to: http://www.contactimprov.net/

Dance

When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a dancer. I'd dance in the living room, on my porch...I felt so beautiful when I moved. Free.

My mom took me to an audition at a dance company in downtown Chicago when I was about 8 years old. It did not go well. I couldn't make my body do what the instructor was asking. I was off rhythm, embarrassed by my lack of grace and coordination in the eyes of my "judges". What had seemed so natural and graceful, what had given me such joy, was now something I was failing at.

Taking ballet classes didn't do much for my confidence. The dancers were all thin and tall and didn't have breasts (something I had more than my share of from an early age). My feet didn't turn out like the others', no matter how much I tried to make them. But I still danced on my own, making up routines for my sister and her friends and dancing in the living room.

In college, I still wanted to dance but had given up on being a dancer. I accepted what I thought to be true at the time...that my body was not built for a dance career. Becoming a dance minor was the only way I could take all the dance classes I wanted to, so I took those classes, purely for my own enjoyment.

I took ballet, toe shoes and all (another disaster), jazz, tap and modern. It was the first time I'd ever taken a modern class. Each modern class was different, but I soon found that in general, this was a dance style that seemed to fit my body type. Most of the movements utilized gravity rather than defy it...the instructors encouraged us to use our weight and it felt wonderful.

I read "My Life" by Isadora Duncan and was so inspired by her, by the notion of dance coming from within and it seemed to reflect my own experience with and relationship to movement. Movement from within came so naturally while echoing someone else's movements often seemed awkward and foreign...something I could get "wrong."

I went years without dancing. It's hard to believe, now that I'm doing it again, that I could go so long without it. I have rediscovered my love of moving, of releasing into a dance... I have a dance studio above my garage where I can turn on music and simply move.

It is unfortunate that modern dance is not readily available to the public and that many of us have bought into the notion that only certain bodies can dance or be graceful. Perhaps, like me, people have watched a dance performance, a ballet or a show on television and been impressed with what those performers can do with their bodies. And we should be, it is impressive. But it is not the only way to experience dance. It is not the only form that can be admired. Watching someone truly in their body, enjoying their body and its rhythms, working with gravity but not being overtaken by it...there is beauty in that.

At an unschooling gathering last year I watched my friend's son perform a dance he had created. It was nothing you'd see on television...there were no recognizable, technical moves. But the movement was coming out of him and through him and his motions were remarkably fluid and he was responding with passion to a piece of music that he loved. It literally moved me to tears.

Art, in all its forms, should be accessible to everyone. We don't need to teach people how to create art...we need to be reminded of the dances, the songs, the pictures, the stories that we all have inside of us and be given opportunities to express them. Some people like to be given a vocabulary for that expression and that's okay, too. It's a start. And of course some bodies have limitations. Certainly some people are more in touch with their bodies and have a kinesthetic intelligence that enables them to do astounding things that are amazing to watch or to express things through movement that can't be put into words. And that truly is a gift.

For me, there is such joy in moving without restriction. Listening to a piece of music that evokes some emotion or that reflects how I'm feeling and being able let those feelings move through me in a physical way is exhilarating and healing.

One of my best friends once choreographed and performed a piece about an abusive relationship she'd been in. I'd never seen anger look so beautiful. The beauty was in the movement and it was in the face of my friend battling her demons.

Now I look at my physical limitations as a gift. If I had been gifted in ballet and all of the technical ability I wanted, I may have missed out on finding the dancer within. I may have become a dance performer and lost sight of the dance waiting to emerge from each person. Every person, no matter the size or shape. There is a reason I identified so much with Isadora Duncan's words and philosophy. They mirrored my experience.

The grounding nature of some of the modern vocabulary lends itself well to the average body. If I didn't have an average body, I might not have known that or been able to share it. And that is what I want to do...help people to love being in their bodies, dancing.

Free.

Creative Destruction

Driving in the car the other day, out of the blue, my 7-year-old son said to me, "So, basically, life is like a long dream and when you die, you wake up."

"What made you say that, honey?" I asked him

"I've just been thinking about it," he replied, "I don't think people go to a great place when they die. That's just stupid."

"Well," I said, "everyone has different beliefs about what happens when you die. And it's not stupid for people to believe it. They're actually just trying to find a way to cope with something that is scary and sad for them. That's not stupid, that's smart. They're giving themselves comfort."

"What's so scary and sad about dying?" Ari asked. "You just get a new life."

Death and destruction are an integral part of the life cycle. Seems obvious, yet we spend so much time trying to avoid it. What we eat, how we live...we run from death, some people more than others. I have always been afraid and disdainful of destruction. I do everything in my power to nurture, to preserve. I'm anti-war, I'm a vegetarian...I never really appreciated the element of destruction. I never wanted to acknowledge the destructive power in myself.

When my son was about 4 years old, he was playing with his wooden train set . He placed train pieces opposite from each other and said something about one train killing or destroying the other one. My initial reaction was discomfort. I wanted to chastise him for enjoying the pretend act of destruction. But I caught myself because I realized that it was a normal thing for a child, particularly a boy, to want to express. I didn't want to make him feel bad about the completely natural aspect to his being.

Creation and destruction are parts of us, whether we want to acknowledge both in ourselves or not. It is only in destroying something that we make room for the new. If we look at the world around us, even as something is being created, another is being destroyed and vice versa.
It is the cycle of life...as the leaves die and fall off the trees, they are creating the fertile ground for new seedlings to thrive. Plants that we think of as weeds have all sorts of healing properties, yet they choke out the "desirable" plants, ones that are prettier to look at. We want to always see beauty and we don't always see the beauty in things that are destructive.

It isn't that destruction is bad... it's that when destruction and creation are out of balance there is a problem and the way in which destruction manifests or the way in which people choose to express their destructive energy is the part that can be ugly. Killing another person, destroying someone or something (literally or figuratively) for destruction's sake or doing so without balance or consciousness serves no purpose. But accepting the natural process of destruction as part of our world and part of ourselves can bring us one step closer to integrating the creative and destructive elements in both.

That is what I am after, what I am seeking...to integrate, to blend both of these extremes into one harmonious energy, a united being. In order to do that, I have embraced the destructive power in myself. The only way I can do that is to know that I am creating in the process of destroying and to be clear on what that is. Getting a "new life" as Ari would say or maybe just a new me. It's not always easy to actualize, especially being human and having so many attachments and feelings about change and others' reactions to our changing.

I think we do ourselves a disservice by running from death, from the darkness, from all that is "bad". I believe balance only can come by accepting these things as part of life, as part of us. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is life. This is us. Maybe it doesn't have to be...maybe there is a way for them to be truly one force, creation and destruction living not at two ends of a spectrum but within each other. But if we only choose one of these, whichever one that is, there will always be the other extreme. We can't run from it, we can't ignore it or detach from it. It will find us...as an individual, as a society, as a planet.