Taking up the Journey of Acceptance

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acceptance, admiration, allowing, becoming, beleif, Believing, bliss, body, choice, compassion, courage, heart, human condition, humanity, inspiration, Kindness, love, Support

I write today from a place of admiration and pride about my experience yesterday getting coffee at a Starbucks near my gym. I just finished a wonderful swim and was heading on to my next appointment and desired a little afternoon iced coffee before venturing forward on my to do list. A regular occurrence for most of us during our regular routines and daily experiences.

Today however shifted my perspective. Today I walked up to the counter and quickly realized, after the assumption that there was a young female behind the register, that in fact, it was a transgendered person. Upon that moment my heart just ripped out of my chest with joy simply because of the courage of this person to be standing in their glory at work and in such a public and vulnerable place. Immediately my admiration for this person and my pride in who they are went through the roof.

We exchanged our business; me placing my order and them taking my money and sharing it with the barista. In this moment I began to have admiration for the entire group of people who were working at the time and my heart applaud the fact that we were there in a store with all kinds of people who supported and worked side by side with this person helping to give strength and lift up the courage of a group of people to be proud of all that they all are. At this moment I could not send out loving energy to them all and whisper in from my heart how inspired I was by them all.

Writing this today I am congratulating the transgendered person for their courage and their strength to be who they are in the midst of their everyday life. Being strong enough and proud enough to be who they are. You inspired me with your acceptance of yourself and in turn allow those around you to accept you as a human being full of love and light. Nothing more. Nothing less. You inspired me to have the courage to take up the journey of acceptance for all of those around me at all times.

I honor those colleagues and that store and company for having the courage to raise up the human condition and lift it up to a community during a time of great tension. I applaud this small yet significant success and see it as an example to do the same with all of those around me as well. How might I do this for my students, my friends, my colleagues and even strangers. How might I have the courage to accept more and see everyone as loving energy? How might I weave this powerful and inspiring moment into my everyday life?

And then I wonder, how is it we all can do this? Is it possible for us to see everyone around us with the energy of love and accept them as a fellow and equal human being? Is it possible to accept one another through love? I think so. In this way I see no good or bad, right or wrong or better or worse. We are equal. We are the same. We are love. And if we do this, perhaps we are building the kind of world where all of us will prosper, love and become all that we could and are meant to be.

As I move forward in my day today, may I carry this inspiration with me. May I share it in my actions and in my heart with everyone I encounter. May I honor everyone simply by seeing them as who they are. May I accept all things through love as I take up the challenge and this journey of acceptance. May I be a warrior for the human condition seeing it with my heart and allowing it with love.

I Finished Another One

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change, courage, development, encouraging, faith, fear, gay, growth, hope, inspiration, love, Love Between Men, reading, spirit, Support, words that hurt, words that inspire, Writing, young relationships

I have just closed another book. Upon doing so, I have whispered into the air the words I have been whispering every time I have closed a book for the last 27 years. “I finished another one my dear, (……)”! I have uttered softly these words aloud or under my breath for some time now and have not shared this secret with more than a handful. The secret of the phrase, or the persons name in which I speak.

I have held both of them close for two reasons: 1. Because it has taken me this long to have faith in myself as an intellectual being and 2. Because the persons name was my very first love who, to this day, I am not sure is out. Out of the respect for him, I keep his name silent, but out of the need to share the triumph of courage, I share now.

Several things about this story are important. First off, words hold great weight. They can be used to inspire and educate, to uplift and encourage as well as to degrade and hurt. Even though many times people do not realize the words they speak cause severe damage, they do regardless if they are malicious or unaware. We should all be more mindful of our words and the ways in which we choose and use them.

Second, we must remember that there are so many things in our lives that we have believed to be true that were or are not and that we can over come. Society encourages individuals to believe things simply because one is different or unlike them. Regardless if there is even an ounce of truth to the assumption, because I am different, it must be true. Do not believe this. Listen to your heart to save the heart from ache.

So what does all of this have to do with closing a book and speaking those words? Well, for the past 27 years I have never believed or had the courage to believe that I could read or write well at all. I did not want to read or write out of the fear that someone would think I was stupid and uneducated. Feared being found out that who I was, was not in fact who I wanted to be.

That said, being gay and having your boyfriend tell you you were incapable of finishing a book or even a magazine for that matter even layers the whole issue. Yes, that is what he used to tell me all the time. So of course, when one is in high school, has a boyfriend in the same high school that no one knows anything about and that the fear of anyone finding out scares you, of course the reality of the situation can get a little skewed. Growing up in a world where who you were was a secret and the fear of anyone finding out keeps one from asking too many questions or sharing too many things one would like in situations that need comfort or understanding.

I began to believe this sentiment. I mean, he loved me right? We loved each other. He must be right? I mean what do I do? Not very good at school. Run in a completely different crowd. All the boxes of who I am externally do not match any sense of intelligence or writing ability. Right?

And so I have carried this for a very long time. It has weighed on me through college, my professional career as a dancer and choreographer, grad school and presently my academic life. Living in fear that one would be found out is not the kind of life one should carry around with them. It gets in the way of the good life and the life in which is actually the one you are supposed to be living.

So after all of these years, hundreds of books read, mountains of journals, papers, manuals and blogs; I realize perhaps all these years I have let someone hold me back from realizing all of who I could have been. I gave away my power to be loved. Love like that is not love. It is fear in the guise of love using words to hold close that which they do not understand. Words can trap a spirit from being what it is truly meant to be. So be careful with your words. They might scar someone deeply.

Now, however, I whisper those words and I smile. I giggle as I have come to realize the writer and intellect inside me. I use those words as inspiration. With every book I gain momentum. With every post I find more courage. Writing the EBAS manual was monumental and presently being in the throws of writing my book inspirational. Even if the only inspiration is for myself and the book never sells a copy, although I know it will because my friends love me, it will still be worth it.

And so as I sit here and close the pages of another book, I raise it to the sky and say, “I finished another one my dear, (…..)”!

Training for the Love of Dance

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Ballet, body, body knowledge, contemporary dance, courage, Dance, Dance Appreciation, Dance Forms, Energy, faith, Jazz, light, Modern, nueral pathways, sharing, Soul to Soul, speaking body., Speaking with the heart, spirit, Support, Technique, training

 

We push the body to expand its limitations while embedding spirit with that training.  Even though our bodies are not us, we are our souls that expand as the direct result of our training. In doing this, we build an intimate connection to all the emotions the body goes through while evolving through the rigor and technique as well as the continued rewiring and retracing of our neural pathways. We move mountains inside our physical selves creating space for place while expanding our souls creating space for grace.

 

It is the presence of this grace that exemplifies who we are as dancers; it is the energetic makeup of the performing kinetic body. It does not matter what kind of dance style we perform, what particular genre or technique; training is the act of deepening the physical and spiritual body so that we might allow the heart to speak through all movement.

 

It is this place that we should welcome our brothers and sisters in our forms embracing that we are all warriors of this thing called dance and that we share at our very essence the art of training, We should honor one another despite not understanding why we choose to manipulate or speak with our bodies differently. We should wrap our colleagues in support knowing that we too have needed loving arms to ease the burden of striving to better our physical and emotional selves.

 

It would be lovely to be able to see all our dance forms as building a larger community, understanding and learning from one another so as to expand our voices, build new audiences and drive the art form ever more deeper into our own hearts while sharing our humanity with an ever expanding audience.

 

Training for the love of dance is why we are here. Living for the love of life is why we share.

Thank You Mom!

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beleif, Gracsiousness, Grateful, love, Mother's Day, spirit, Support, Thank you! Blessings, Unconditional Love

There are many things I am grateful to my mother for, but the one thing I am most thankful for learning and for being the recipient of was her faith and belief in me to follow my heart. I would not be doing what I do for a living, traveling the world and making great work if it was not for her continued support to learn new things while following my heart path.

 

I believe the graciousness that came from her is one of the most significant factors in my development as well as my happiness. Although I struggled to fight for my path with my father and with those around me, she was always there encouraging me on to keep on moving in the direction of my dreams. Although she may not have understood them, accepted the people who walked the path with me or could comprehend my contemporary practices, she still, despite not quite seeing where I was heading, supported my journey.

 

This is quintessentially what loving someone unconditionally is all about.  This support, energy, belief and love, is what I have learned most and carry with me always. She taught me to keep on moving forward, or in whatever direction I needed, in order to follow the whispers of my heart. In doing so, without question, she taught me to keep faith, maintain determination, and let the water wash off the back even if you have to swim upstream.

 

She did all of this unconditionally and without question because what was more important to her than living her dream of who she wanted me to be, she preferred I become who I am. I am grateful for her conviction, courage and unconditional love.

Thank you mom for the blessings and beautify of this life as well as for the gift of life itself!

Happy Mother’s Day!

 

Takeing Time for Technique

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Ballet, Believing, choreography, Conscious Living, contemporary dance, Courageous Vulnerability, Creativity, Dance, EBAS, Fierce, hope, joy, Kindness, Modern, Movement, Musculature, patience, peace, Support, Teaching, Technique, training, Vulnerable, well being

The Elemental Body Alignment System was designed to help the learner activate the intrinsic musculature allowing them to immediately connect with firing them and overriding the natural impulse to immediately fire the gross musculature which inhibiting range of motion and promoting an imbalance in muscular engagemen. In EBAS and both ballet and modern techniques in which I teach, this deep activation of musculature necessary for articulating and supporting movement from the appropriate place is crucial in ones ability to successfully achieve the technical concepts given.

Students of all levels are able to access this musculature if in fact they are given the time to feel particular activations and allow the mechanics of the movement to assist them in doing the work or task given. All to often, when I take class or observe classes being taught, there is this push to do everything fast. It is almost as if speed is the benchmark for excellence. Do not get me wrong, speed us crucial for dancers and we should all be able to move well on a large spectrum through various speeds indeed.  However, we do need to be sure we are doing it technically and holistically correct.

When beginning to train and well into the training of advanced dancers, we must remember to allow the body time to fully experience technical concepts. If we don’t allow this gentling of space and time, gross musculature engagement will override the balance and equality necessary for healthy technical principles thus slowing down technical progress and the healthy development of a dancers training and therefore their elongated career.

I for one would prefer a dancer to take more time in the beginning rather learning how to activate appropriate technique with the right balance and promoting the momentum of success for them, rather than beating them over the head with speed causing frustration and in many ways, humiliation. There are better ways of building speed and using momentum and the building of positive muscular feedback loops is the way to go.

You see if the student knows how to activate deeply from the muscles closest to the bone, they will be able to access the fine-tuning muscles necessary for the articulation of all forms of technique. They will successfully be able to repeat those sensations while building confidence and courage identifying what is necessary and how to accomplish the task of speed efficiently.

I often feel as if teachers who give material to students excessively prematurely are simply masking the fact that they themselves have no idea how to teach fundamental principles. I feel they are simply trying to fool the student into thinking they know what they are doing by making the student feel as if they could never do things properly or fast enough to ever make it as a dancer. This certainly does not allow students the opportunity to succeed in our art form not does it promote appropriate and healthy technique.

We need to take the time to slow down learning how to stand and be. We need to allow our students the luxury of time now so they can save time and frustration later. We need to encourage the student to feel technique from the inside out rather than promote training the façade of the body. We need to train dancers who can feel themselves deeply and therefore deeply feel. These are the kind of dancers who speak the magic of the art form to the audience. These are the physical storytellers so desperately missing in today’s work.