Step 16 Wow Dance

 

Step 16     Wow Dance

Mike [Dancing with Pat]  Sometimes when I dance I hear my mind say: “I love you, love, love love you.” 

Pat: Undulate your torso as we speak.

Mike: Wow. My eyes feel connected to my torso now.

Pat: Your “wow’s”could include me when you say them, but they don’t. Your head feels this ecstasy and leaves me out.

Mike: Let me try saying “Wow” to include you while I am undulating.

Pat: Good.

Mike: [This time my eyes do not stray from Pat. As my body makes small undulations I quietly say] Wow.

Pat: Yawning is more embodied than your wows. Try yawning.

Mike: I didn’t realize I could yawn at will. [I keep yawning.]

Pat: Let the yawn stretch through your body. Lay down on all four sides and stretch. Momentum has an ebb and flow. Let the end of one stretch move into a new momentum. Don’t cut off momentum.

Mike: When I cut off momentum, I need too much effort to dance.

Pat: Add the floor as a contributor to your movement.

Mike: So the floor is joining my dance. I can feel it giving umff and substance to my moves.

Pat: And a definition and a structure. You are not dancing simply in air. 

Mike: [I stand up and put my arms around the air and we dance.

Pat: What emotion rises in you?

Mike: Awe.

Pat: What emotions do you feel from other parts of your body.

Mike: [Bouncing on my feet.]  Happy.

Pat:  Allow a sound to come from your movement.

Mike: My belly says, “Omm.”

Pat: Is there an emotion you can discover in your belly’s Om.

Mike: Wow.

Pat: Remember to aim the sound of your wow to my body.

Mike: [I yawn with my whole body, arms opening a wow to Pat.]

Step 16 Dance Yoga

General Principals from Pat:

1. Find symmetry, alignment.

2. Breath into cells--inviting energy into our body, mind and spirit.

Yoga poses are a container for energy to come in.

A psychic process.

We can breathe into tissues we are stretching.

We can even breathe into our sensations.

We can infuse our awareness with our breath.

We can infuse our movement with our breath.

We can breathe into how we are approaching our self:

Breathe into our thoughts.

In every position we can find a “small dance” that our breath and body are making.

This small dance if we allow it can turn into a subtle movement. For example, we can discover a wiggle or bounce when we move or we can discover just what each breath does to our body.

It’s possible to discover one new thing each time we do our pose.

Or try out one new thing.

When we transition slowly in and out of our poses we can discover small dances and subtle movements.

In sum, Yoga is a dance, each position invites breath and energy into our body, feelings, and mind.

Step 1: Dance Center

Step 1: Dance Center

Agenda: Your mantra, move from your center, seems so unclear to me. I know I have a belly button, but where is my center?

[Pat gets down on all fours and pulls me over his back.]

Mike: I’m going to get hurt.

Pat: Just relax and you won’t get hurt.

Mike: That’s easy for you to say. You’re on the floor. I’m dangling off the floor.

Pat: Close your mouth and keep shifting your body until you feel balanced on mine. This is the center of your body.

Mike: [I awkwardly wiggle around on Pat.] What makes you so sure I have a center?

Pat: Close your mouth and you’ll find it.

Mike: [I close my mouth for a few seconds.] A center, a center, my kingdom for a center!

Pat: Keep adjusting your body and closing your mouth.

Mike: [I awkwardly flail.] I don’t think I have a center. Can I borrow yours?

Pat: When you find yours we’ll share.

Mike: [I balance for a moment.] I feel it. Can I get off now?

Pat: If you found it you wouldn’t want to move away from it so quickly. Now that you’re balanced be still and let your center find you.

Mike: Who would have guessed there’s a center to my body. Can I stay here forever.

Pat: as long as you remember to search for it. Try feeling your center when you roll off me.

Mike: I’m going to lose it.

Pat: Losing is a step towards finding.

Mike: [I close my eyes and roll off Pat with a thud.] Ouch!

Pat: Even if you’re in pain, don’t lose your center. Feel the center of your body with your hands.

Mike: Isn’t this banned in Boston?

Pat: We should ban people who don’t live from their center.

Mike: [Feeling under my navel.] I feel my belly contracting and expanding.

Pat: Sense with your hands the breath from your belly. Allow your breathing, from your center, to make a sound.

Mike: Haahhhh!

*****

Grace Notes: I tell Pat I like using the word “OG” instead of such an abstract word like “center.” “OG” stands for the Organizing Gang of organs, flesh, bones, and blood in or around the center of my body.

After we agree to use the word “OG” Pat gives me a gift for a lifetime:

Lifelong Homework

To Continually Dance in a Playful Body

With and Through

OG, Feet, Heart and Head

1. Be aware of your small dance (awareness of how your body is moving even when you’re not trying to move). Feel how your OG, feet, heart and head are dancing together. {Dear Reader, you can be aware, while reading this, how your body is moving.}

2. Your awareness can help shape your small dance into a larger dance. {Readers, why not move, stand, dance while reading?}

3. Be aware you’re always dancing with everyone and everything.

4. While standing, sense that your soles and feet and legs are interacting with what you’re standing on. Be aware your feet and legs are supporting you when you sense anyone or anything with other parts of your body. Feel that your feet and legs are sensing--through the other parts of your body-- who or what you are meeting. {When you read my writing our feet are also touching.}

** Refelctions: Our OG might include what the Buddhists

call “nothing.” I wonder if all our physical parts include

nothing? I can feel nothing in the pit of my stomach. Perhaps

this feeling of nothing is what you mean when you say

“center.”

It feels even richer to type from this center--this pit of mystomach. And of course have the rest of the OG join in.

This OG including nothing can radiate love. Each of these parts are loving one another and together they can create a symphony of love. But even though I can feel this love dance I must also remember to pay attention to the physical components of this love.

Pat adds: We need to practice saying “yes” and “no” from our OG. And often find at least a hint of “No” in Yes. And at least a hint of “Yes” in “No.”

**