Step 69 I Or Thou

Step 69    I Or Thou

Pat:  [Speaking slowly] On the floor relax your legs . . .  knees . . .  calves . . .  arms . . .  armpits . . .  torso . . .  heart . . . neck . . . eyes  . . .  head. 

Mike: Ahhh.

Pat: Be aware of your sensations . . .  weight . . . breath . . . momentum.

Mike: [After a while.]  I feel hugged by the floor and air and the stuff in this room—including you.

Pat:  [Turns on Amazing Grace.] Now we’re ready to dance.

Mike: [Rolling away from Pat.]  I lose my sense that everything in this room is sacred as soon as I start to relate to you.

Pat:  Hold the tension between solo-ing and duet-ing with humor.

Mike: [I hide my head in my hands with eyes closed and then blindly reach out for Pat until I find him.]  Sometimes happy, sometimes blue, glad that I ran into you.

Pat:  When we’re truly aware our world and we are always bubbling into more than we are.  

Mike [Opening my eyes.] Peek-a-boo-I see-you.

Pat: When we are truly ourselves we will feel a spirit of “we” born of the synergy between us—even if we don’t feel it.

Mike: [Smiling] I feel a laugh moving from my smiling pelvic bowl through my smiling jaw bones.  Laugh with me.

Pat: [Pat takes my hand, leads me to standing, and then I lead him and he leads me until we don’t know who is leading.]

Step 66 Painfully Touched

Step 66 Painfully Touched

Pat: [Holding my hands.] 

Mike:  Touch feels foul.

Pat:  Listen to what the foul feeling says.

Mike:  [I pull my hands away.]  It says: “I feel foul because I do not allow touch to pervade my entire body and mind and spirit. “

Pat:  [Offering me his hands again.]  You confuse the painful touch you received as a child with the present touch.

Mike: [I take one of Pat’s hands.]   I feel my gut blocking the invasion of touch.

Pat:  Great. You know what’s going on.  Invite our touching to radiate through your arm through your torso.

Mike: [From standing totally rigid I begin to relax.]  It’s not so bad now.

Pat:   You’re free to join and shape the dance that arises from touch in a way that your body, mind and spirit enjoys and desires.

Mike: [I sway holding Pat’s hands.]

Pat:  Swaying is habitual for you. Inspired by your swaying discover a move that surprises you.

Mike:  [I lead Pat in jumping up and down.]

Pat: Fun?

Mike: Fun.

Step 65 Warming Up

Mike: Here’s an easy way to warm up. [I bear hug Pat.]

Pat: [Pushing me down to the ground and sitting on my shoulders.]   Being warmed up means you’re so at home with you that you DO NOT NEED TO GO ANYWHERE ELSE.  

Mike: [I push Pat off me.] 

Pat:  Warm up by discovering how you are moved to move.

Mike:  [I stretch and crawl on the floor.]

Pat:  A warm up is continual awakening.

Mike: [Eventually, like a slow motion movie of a plant growing, I spiral to standing at ease.]

Pat:  Even when you feel you’ve warmed up--continue to be at ease while continual awakening

Mike:  [I stand in a tree pose.]  It’s challenging to be awakening and at ease at the same time.

Pat: You don’t have to try to do anything!  Just wait until movements arise out of your ease.

Mike: [When I am moved to I dance into an at-ease pose and back to a tree pose and then back to at-ease.]

Pat:  When you are moved to, dance around and in my space without touching or interfering with me.

Mike: [I put my foot between Pat’s feet without touching them.]

Pat: There is a synergy of energies when we have both arrived into our own place.

Mike: [Pat starts turning around and with my foot between his feet I turn too.  We move slowly and then with our arms up faster and faster.]

Step 60 Energy Connecting

Step 60   Energy Connecting

Mike: How can our energies connect?

Pat: Be aware of your weight, structure and sensations before you focus on energy.

Mike: [I do jumping jacks.] 

Pat:  As you do this feel your weight releasing to gravity and  the earth springing you up.

Mike: I’m buoyant.

Pat:  Buoy away—sensing your torso moving one of your limbs to point towards my torso. Feel your arm’s connection to your torso. 

Mike: [I point my hand towards Pat’s hand.]  And my torso feels its connection to my arm. 

Pat:  Energy can be going out or coming in from this line or channel between us. 

Mike: Pleased to meet you from afar.

Pat: [Extends his hand from afar.]  When you feel my hand’s energy from afar the big question is: “How can we connect with a grounded sense of self?

Mike: [I lie on the floor and feel my weight release to the floor. I again extend a hand towards Pat.]  Keep in touch

Step 58 Eyes Dance

Step 59  Eyes Dance

Pat [While we are freely moving.]

There are two ways that should be part of all your seeing.

I.

Move with eyes closed for short periods.  Feel your internal body/self.  When you open your eyes your internal body-self interacts and plays with all your eyes see.

       II.

Look around without staring.  Let your eyes go on a ride and find ease.

1.   Now look at me without staring.

2.   Look at the space between our bodies.

   3. Look at the space between the parts of our bodies.

   4. Look at the space where our energies meet.
   5. Look at my body. Follow a contour or flow through my body
    6.Look at your body. Follow a contour or flow through your body.
    7. Look at your environment. Become more centered by taking in your plant and walls. 

   8.Your centered body is now more available to me when you look at me again.

   9. Look at me the loving way you look when you see this beautiful sky.

Step 56 Balancing

Step 56      Balancing

Pat: Focus on your experience as you lie on the floor and begin moving slowly.  Rippling through your body is an internal momentum--letting the different parts of your body articulate so there is a wave moving from one body part to another.

Spiral to standing, allowing your balance to shift the way a rope has a little play in it. Standing allows your pelvis and heart to hold your head up. Your arms help your balance and lighten your heart.

Enjoy falling into or away from balance and enjoy arriving into balance.  Play, in an emotional way, with the play in your body.

Go through stages in your development while you are dancing. You might focus on the kinesthetic: sensation, breath, physical structure, floor, gravity, momentum.

Of course focusing only on the physical without focusing on your emotional, mental and spiritual interactions misses much of the soul magic of the dance. 

And if you let your eyes, emotion, heart, or smiles dominate you may go into your mind and out of the physical magic of a dance.

Notice how what you are focusing on impacts you and your partner.

Step 54 Ways To Be Moved

Step 54     Ways To Be Moved

Pat:  Respond, elaborate and exaggerate your unconscious movement.

Mike: [My breath moves my arms to be wings.]

Pat: Be moved by your emotions.

Mike:  [I close my eyes and squeeze tears.]

Pat:  Be moved by your images.

Mike:  I see a small boy playing in a sand box. The sand oozes through his fingers. [My fingers tickle the air.]

Pat: Be moved by your desires.

Mike:  The air tickles me. [I smile through my tears.]

Pat: Be moved by your visions.

Mike: [I pour a glass of water over my head.] Sensations feel fun and funny.

Pat:  Lick a drip to feel humor flowing within and without.

**