Thirty Days of Thoughts: Day 15

Tags

Believing, conscious body, Conscious Living, conscious movement, courage, Courageous Vulnerability, healing, love, momentum, Movement, movement meditation, moving forward, Soul to Soul, spirit, walking, walking into ourselves

6/16/21

Looks as though this is day fifteen of Thirty Days of Thoughts and I am tickled with all of the momentum that has been happening on many levels. I am giddy about the wonderful shifts that have been happening and grateful for the challenge. I believe this is also the longest streak I have had in a very long time. Much to celebrate indeed. 

Some of the wonderful things that have occurred are the focus, inspiration, dedication and follow through that is opening up some wonderful feelings of courage and confidence. In addition to this there is more balance that is happening in so many aspects of my life. 

One of the joys has been a sense of pulling out to see how much time there is in a day to accomplish so many wonderful and joy filled things. I have been walking more and more as well as for longer distances. Which the boys absolutely love. In addition I have added running back into my life that is fulfilling a great love and joy of movement but in a very different way than the ongoing EBAS practice which has also increased. 

On top of that my meditation practice has also increased and has become such a joy to focus on the breath and body in a very different way. It’s a joy to get back to the balance of body, mind and spirit while increasing energy and focus. Not to mention the creativity that is happening as well. 

It feels very much like a wonderful reboot or upgrade really. It’s also nice to know that it is never too late to begin again, reboot, reconfigure and remap your life in so many ways. Oddly, as I find myself aging I feel a strange sense of vitality much like I had when I was in my twenties. It’s as if a youthful and invigorating heart is awake and alive again with hope and the potential for opportunities. 

So I am grateful for all of the wonderful things that are coming from this practice in addition to the voice that is evolving and the skills that are becoming. This is a practice as I have mentioned before just as it is clear that one’s life is as well. Life as a practice seems so appropriate to give oneself the space one needs or deserves to live well with joy and with pleasure. 

Thank you for walking this far with me and I look forward to spending the next fifteen days with you. Let’s see where the sweet mysteries will take us. 

Thirty Days of Thoughts: Day 10

Tags

Ballet, Believing, choreography, conscious body, Conscious Living, conscious movement, contemporary ballet, contemporary dance, courage, Courageous Vulnerability, Dance, EBAS, inclusion, love, Movement, movement meditation, movement wellness, Soul to Soul, spirit

6/11/21

I am looking forward to presenting at the annual Corps de Ballet conference coming up at the beginning of July. I was invited to share my research with them through the lens of the Elemental Body Alignment System (EBAS) connecting the work with their theme; Suspended in Grand Renversé: Embracing the “Big Upset” and Ballet’s Relationship to Liberatory Practices. 

I am excited about this particular sharing as I will be making the connection with The Five Element System of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and EBAS to the ballet form and how this time of return might be the right time for rewiring our practice and welcoming more folks into the form through a sensorial approach to the form rather than the traditional aesthetic approach which has isolated so many from the fold. 

In this sharing I will be turning our focus to the sensations and imagery the elements offer as a new window into the experiential discovery from the inside out, rather than the outside in. Since the five elements of: winter, spring, summer, late summer and fall correspond to yin and yang organs, emotions and energies; this shift will allow access to an internalized visioning as well as emotional connection and qualitative correlation to qualitative dynamics. 

By referencing the actions and movements in EBAS like the Spinal Awakening Series, we will be able to see how the kidneys are connected to the contraction as the first articulation and movement in awakening our practice in EBAS. Winter is the first element of the wheel just as the contraction is the first articulation of EBAS. Wonderfully, the plié is the first exercise in the ballet form as well. Looking at how the kidneys rise and fall or rather descend and ascend in the “waters” of the form, helps us to feel or sense the buoyancy of the floating vertical pelvic bowl and the animating of our backspace through the kidneys. 

This is just an example of the kind of information we will be swimming in as we explore how layering and weaving all these concepts through the somatic lens and the experiential body practice opens the floor to all bodies who wish to explore the movements of ballet through their own perspective and potential. The practice becomes one of internal connection rather than external manufacturing and manipulation. Imagine the freedom of sensing and then reflecting then ultimately radiating that imagery and energy through movement and spirit? 

Back to Body

Tags

artful body, beauty of the body, body, body knowledge, changes, conscious body, health, health and well being, Home, humanity, listening to the body, open body, speaking body., well being, wellness

When I return to my body

I return home

When I sit quietly with this beautiful body

I sit in immense gratitude

When I remember my body speaks

I remember to listen in love

When I am lost and the noise of the world immense

I look within to find the grounding of spirit

When I return to spirit

I return to body

 

Learn to Listen to your Body.

Tags

bodies in motion, body, body knowledge, conscious body, health, open body

 

Learning to listen to the body is at the center of training the body in any movement modality or technique. There are countless lens’s in which people engage in movement or physical practices in which they are drawn to and find a connection with. The most significant realization across this vast spectrum is that the body is the constant in every single one. And while different aesthetics or practices focus on different aspects of the body, ultimately, the body functions as a human body regardless.

If we allow ourselves to turn inward to recognize sensations of movement and techniques we allow ourselves to connect more fully to our physicality and to the spirit within that vessel. When we focus on the external picture, image or end result we no longer feel with the heart but see something outside and separate of ourselves. If we can learn how to see with our sensations we will learn to feel with our hearts. If we learn to do this more deeply, we will find a deeper consciousness with our physical tool and understand how to ask more graciously of it and build a sense of communication with a body that has an intelligence we seldom allow to be tapped.

Our culture doesn’t quite afford us this luxury. But in fact, it is not a luxury at all. What it is, is absolutely necessary. We can no longer work in a disconnected fashion any longer and expect to function authentically if we separate the head from the body and the brain from the body’s brain. The art of movement; artistic, fitness or sport, deserves a more profound relationship with spirit and body in order for more soulful action, physical sustainability and holistic well being. It is time to honor the body as a significant partner in our journey rather than a work horse to ride for selfish satisfaction only to be discarded when it no longer can support the human ego.

What if it is possible to gain without pain? What if it is possible to achieve without the brutality of body? What if you might train faster while achieving greater physical success? It is possible. It really is possible. The key to achieving this is simply to choose the present moment of practice in order to feel the information being shared in the now. Our past has brought us to this place in life and in order to move forward we must accept that it has served us up until now but that we do not have to let it hold our physicality from experiencing the magnitude of our potential. We can be so much more than our ego let’s us. Let your body speak to you and tell you what it needs. Listen to the wisdom of its physicality to speak the truth of what it can be.

 

And So It Begins

Tags

art, athens, Ballet, Believing, bliss, body, body knowledge, conscious body, Conscious Living, contemporary ballet, Creative Flow, creative process, Creativity, Dance, development, dreams, EBAS, Energy, faith, modern dance, Paris, research, travel, VCU Dance

As I finish up my last day here in RIC for a while, I am profoundly grateful for the opportunities that are opening up before me. Thankful for the freedom to move about the world and share my work and passions with people from all over the globe. I marvel at what dance has done for my life and for how it has carried me to places that I could have never dreamed of as a young man.

As a matter of fact, I had no clue I was a dancer. No clue that I would end up where I am creating three dimensional visceral landscapes, teaching how to create internal space and design external realities or bringing consciousness to the energetic pathways of our technique. I often wonder how I turned down this road.

Yet, I am on this journey. Happily and gratefully on this journey.

This trip to Athens is to present my perspective on teaching by sharing my  research, Training a Conscious Body: Redefining Pedagogy Practices in Contemporary Dance Technique for Increased Architectural Support and Physical Integrity. I am excited to share these examinations and talk about learning through sensation rather than imitation and the reexamining of time within the classroom.

The travel that follows will be to teach and to collaborate on the Paris Semester Abroad program for our students at VCU to take part in Spring 2016. I am excited to meet up with Michael Foley as well as Colleen Thomas-Young to share and organize all of this goodness. What amazing people to walk that journey with. Very grateful to Michael for his brilliance.

In addition, I will be meeting up with my dear friends Keith Bell and Josh Sessions to have a writing retreat. Both myself and Keith are working on books and we are going to spend our time writing in the cafes for even greater inspiration. A little fantasy come true I guess.

And one of the most synchronistic events will be having breakfast with Linda Kohanov. I have long admired her research and work with horses and had the luxury of participating in one of her leadership workshops this spring. She is an inspiration to me and I am tickled to be able to meet with her and hear her stories of the wonderful sharing she is doing with her work and the release of her book Power of the Herd in French.

I am truly grateful!!

And so, this begins the journey.