by meghanleborious | Nov 30, 2014 | Notes on Practice
November 29, 2014
This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and are not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher.
I have been away from New York for a few days visiting my parents in northern Connecticut. Since I couldn’t make it to Tammy’s class on Friday night, I decided to attend a dance event in Northampton, Massachusetts called Dance Spree, which I have attended perhaps nine or ten times now. It is held in a lovely room—a spacious ballet studio on the fourth floor of a historic building, with a kinetic sprung wood floor. The event begins rather late-at 8.30 PM-and continues until midnight.
I was one of the first dancers to arrive, and found my place on the dance floor, stretching and unfurling in the face of patient, tonal music. Lately, to warm up, I find arc after arc, pulling my sides, drawing my leg around and down, and moving in attenuated circles on the floor. Although no one there is thinking of the 5Rhythms, I found Flowing quickly and began to move with freedom and creativity. Slowly, people began to arrive. The last time I was at Dance Spree, I was a little disappointed that people seemed reluctant to interact. This time, I found quite the opposite, but it didn’t seem like anyone was interested in interacting with me. Instead, several couples peopled the dance floor, and seemed exclusive to their individual partners.
This irritated me. I felt like they were performing, and were unwilling to move in the collective field. I decided to dance with my own self in the mirror, and found inspiration there, though the couples kept encroaching. I found I wanted to move just to get away from them. I even considered leaving early. Slowly, the couples started to re-sort, and people began to dance with different partners. My irritation shifted, though I still felt somewhat separate from the room. I continued to move with freedom and creativity, experimenting with known forms and finding new forms as I worked with what came up.
For the most part, I liked what the DJ was playing, though I craved the compelling narrative of a 5Rhythms wave, and especially craved the intensity of fully-expressed Chaos. If a song had even a lilting break-beat or a slight suggestion of Chaos, I released my head and body in spinning, rising and falling arcs since I didn’t know if another chance would arise to fully release myself..
Dancing to a song I found interesting, I began to experiment with awkward, sharp, inturned edges—the polar opposite to my dance recently, which is characterized by sweeping gestures, spinning, and rising and falling balances. Another dancer, one of the hyper-coupled people I noted in the beginning, began to fall into my dance.
I turned to him, receptive, and we stepped into a closer dance. We weaved and moved together for a few short moments, when he began to speak,
“Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you. I won’t even move you against your will. Only if you want to move,” he said.
This surprised me. In a 5Rhythms room, there is no talking. Maybe a whispered, “I miss you.” Or a quiet, “I loved your show,” but certainly not this level of communication. In fact, it felt so incongruous to me that it was surreal, almost like I was tripping. I could only murmur, “Hmmm” and nod.
We danced a little more and he continued, “It can just be like you are a tree. You can just stand there and hold your space. And I can move and even use you to move me. Then, I can get quiet and you can move and I can be the tree.”
I experimented with these instructions, awkwardly.
He explained something about squiggly fingers, moving into the partner’s joints, and demonstrated, showing me something about finding U’s and V’s with one another’s bodies. It seemed there was a lesson about receptivity, and at once a lesson about holding space.
“You can just be there, and hold that space,” he said, “you don’t have to be so wibbly wobbly.”
I felt no aversion to him, and was instead very interested in what he had to teach, though I felt a strong sense of my own limitations. I thought of the sharp, handsome friend who I write about occasionally, who I can’t quite hang with, and who I can’t quite figure out how to interact with.
Occasionally, I have been breathed into the most exquisitely intimate partnerships, but I felt like this dancer opened a portal into one of the places I have yet to let go, yet to fall into, yet to discover, about interacting with the people around me.
“This is my job,” he said, “and now I have to stop teaching!”
I thanked him, and he thanked me, asking my name at once. “In love and kindness,” he said, bowing, as he moved on, into another partnership.
I left before the event’s conclusion, around 11pm. I had a solid dance, though there was nothing of catharsis, nothing of intensity. Instead, the sense impression I have of the night is of patient curiosity. Maybe this new teaching, which came to me by way of a different field, will find its way into my practice in the coming weeks. To be quite honest, I hope so.
by meghanleborious | Nov 24, 2014 | Notes on Practice
November 24, 2014
This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and are not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher.
One of my favorite things to dance to is the flight of pigeon flocks, especially as they are directed by a keeper from a rooftop. They arc and swoop in great, epic, collective gestures. My arms and body swoop and arc and spin as they do. Four years ago this month, I was teaching then-infant Simon to dance to the flights of birds just as I got a call letting me know that my friend, Howard, had died.
Recently, I have been wondering about something within my practice. How willing am I to fully take on the rhythms and to try on whatever instruction comes to me under this category? At what point does following the instructions become an orthodoxy, and hinder progress instead of supporting it? Is there a point that I should ignore the instructions and follow an inner guide? Likely, this is a shifting continuum that changes over time, but it is something I consider often. It makes sense to take intuition as a guide, but (un-enlightened as I am) I wonder if I mistake my own complex conditioning for intuition. I have no time to lose, after all, and I want to adopt the most productive mindset so I don’t waste too much of this short, precious life I’ve been blessed with.
I have been studying the history of western civilization lately, where the Ancient Romans have a big role. It seems, the Romans had many different ways of divining the future, including analyzing the flights of birds.
On Friday, I stepped into Tammy’s class feeling slightly unsettled, and, as often happens, was quickly folded into the room, forgetting my ill-ease. There is not a theme that dominates my memory, and there doesn’t appear to be one emerging here, but I noticed that nothing hurt, that I had a perfect amount of energy, and that I was neither holding back nor overexerting.
A neighbor asked Simon if he was good. Being four, he said, “No!” laughing as he said it. The neighbor said, “Well, what’s bad? If nothing’s bad, then you’re good, right? That’s how it works!”
In a dance of partnership, Tammy instructed us to investigate what feels like too close and what feels like too far. I fell into a friend who was the perfect ally in this investigation. He is sharp, confident, very handsome, unflinching. It makes me nervous to dance very close with him, yet I always want to engage him. Perhaps he is just matching me, but I perceive that he has an exceptional capacity for precision—many razor sharp edges that are not aggressive–but vivid, articulated and wild in the most cosmic sense possible. We stepped sharply in and out of each others’ fields, spinning and stopping, behind, beside, around—stretching the space between us, then snapping back together and rolling away from each other like two grooved cogs.
I also continued a dance begun during Tammy’s Faint of Heart workshop with a friend who witnessed me as I moved and who I witnessed as she moved through a body parts meditation. We fell forward and back, rotating up and down like coins spinning and slowing, coiled softly around one another’s spines, holding each other’s eyes by arching backward even as we spun all the way around.
Looking for answers from the sky, my eyes soar upward, into vast space, and I realize, once again, that I am but a tiny little piece of this vast, poetic dance, and that my own little dance is one of an infinite number who collaborate in creating the world, moment by moment, gesture by gesture.
Note: There is a post that precedes this one that has yet to be published. It should be up within 2-3 days (once it is approved by everyone mentioned in it) and will shed additional light on some of the topics discussed in the current post.
by meghanleborious | Oct 27, 2014 | Notes on Practice
October 26, 2014
This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and are not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher.
Lately, I have a very strong sense of being in the middle of many exciting trajectories. My very first post was about Lucia’s Waves workshop in December, 2013; and the key insight that I experienced during the workshop was that I am very much in the middle. At times, I have missed the middle completely because I thought I was still warming up! There is no point in pacing myself, as I sometimes do, so I will have enough left once things really heat up. I can easily talk a good game about being in the middle, about being present now, and about not holding back; but being in the middle in a satisfying way also requires a lot of dedicated work inside the many ongoing beginnings. I think the experience of being in the middle might actually be the pay-off for faith and discipline. Getting older might have some upsides after all (!)
I am being vague. Thank you for bearing with me, dear readers, if, indeed, you have. Let me locate myself in relation to the dance first, then I will be happy to share specifics about my own experiences.
Amber taught Tammy’s class on Friday night. Have I mentioned that I love Amber? It is immediately apparent that she has always been a dancer, and that she has an exceptional ability to teach exactly what needs to be taught. As I stepped inside, pausing and bowing to the room as is my habit, Amber said something on the microphone that let me know she saw me come in. I was impressed and felt she seemed to be able to see everything in the room. One of the first songs she played was a thick, tonal track from Massive Attack and I found myself wanting to pull and slide low to the floor.
During her talk, as we paused and rested in a circle around her, Amber reminded us of the two-year anniversary of Gabrielle Roth’s death—the beloved founder of the 5Rhythms practice. She also taught the core Flowing practice of walking and dancing through the room while seeking empty space; and advised us to consider slowing down. I found a new way to dance the low spaces between people, and kept touching one hand down, swooping one wing, then curving back into higher open spaces.
One man raised his hand after her talk because he wanted to make a suggestion. He said, “I appreciate all of your teaching and insights and exhortations and all of that, but could you just let the music teach us during this next wave?” She said something about loving to dance and he said, “So do we.” I bristled. Amber is part of “we”! How dare he try to include me on his team that made her into an Other! Her response was perfect. She ended with “I think you will probably get your wish,” but not before she explained that in a class like this (a Waves class), we especially come to dance the 5Rhythms and to practice the basics. If we just come in and do what we always do, there would not be any growth. Rather, we come to try on new things and to take on new challenges. I loved that she was sharp and clear and held her ground, without being defensive or emphatic in any way.
As much as I found in the content of what Amber said, I found that the space she created lead me to alternatingly expansive and constrained expressions of abject joy and excitement. New forms kept finding me and; and I felt I was dancing the fullness of many things, the tenor of joy, and the squirmy, specific, arcing and leaping and undulating forms of the creative process.
The things I spoke vaguely about before include several different projects. First, as an artist, I have nearly finished a large body of work that continues to reveal itself to me in delightful glimpses. Shockingly, gloriously, it has dumped me right into the next body of work. If you will excuse a reference that only a few will get, it is just as Mahayana practice might dump you abruptly right into Vajrayana like a great mountain stream emptying in a rushing crash into a deep, dark cavern’s pool. In another trajectory, my avatar as a 10th grade teacher, I have made a little progress, too, and have been sharp and strategic about using what skills I have in the service of students and of the school community. On another note, after an arduous process, my little son skipped pre-K entirely and entered right into public school kindergarten, where he is thriving and happy—no longer the beginning of sheltered pre-school, but full-on even including homework. In addition, we are nearing the one-year anniversary of this blog. Although I am still learning, I am beginning to sink deeply into the process of writing, and to find my voice within this ever-evolving content.
Most relevant to this blog, my own 5Rhythms practice has also opened up in a new way as I take on a role of service within the community through organizing the Family Waves class, New York’s first 5Rhythms class for both children and adults. I have had the excellent fortune to work closely with Amber as the frame reveals itself, and I have benefitted immensely, learning from her and being influenced by her approach to her own practice and to her own life. The Family Waves class itself, as well, has moved into a stage of middle now, and I am thrilled that the community is growing and is acquiring its own identity and vision.
The last movement of the night on Friday was, for me, a breathy trance. The dance loaned me two big, feathery angel wings that I spun gently inside of, forgetting everything but the magic of movement and the quiet grace of being alive.
by meghanleborious | Oct 21, 2014 | Notes on Practice
October 19, 2014
This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and are not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher.
Occasionally, I suffer with this weird pain. It feels like the sciatic pain I had in my legs during pregnancy, but it is in my arms, too. I feel it most in the heels of my hands and the bottoms of my feet. It is worst right before my period, and can be very intense. It makes me feel afraid. In addition, contrasting my accustomed cavalier attitude about germs, I have been acting like a germophobe in the last two weeks. Anxiety about ebola (whether justified or not) has ricocheted through my mind and body; and I have been subject to the tightening of fear.
Walking into class, I wondered how the pain in my hands and feet would affect my ability to move. I experimented with giving it its full shape, holding my hands, rubbing and pulling at the sore surfaces, curling over, holding my shoulders like they held up tightly folded wings. Thanks in part to Advil, the pain started to subside, and I found myself deep inside a thrilling and tender dance.
I danced with one enigmatic friend, who I have been increasingly drawn to over the last few months. For a long time our dances were similar, but recently have taken on many new aspects. We found ourselves in a soft, tender, breathy dance in the Lyrical phase of the first wave, and I found that I kept turning the soles of my feet toward him—a humble offering and expression of gratitude. On my own, I pressed both my hands down onto my chest in a physical expression of a heavy heart. By the time Tammy stopped the music between the first and second waves, tears were coursing down my face. She had us sit in silence for several minutes. I couldn’t help but think about times when the collective field has been unbridled joy, such as when Obama was first elected, and how much I noted the contrast, feeling on this Friday such gravity.
I did not plan to go to the Sweat Your Prayers class today, but decided to accompany my sister, Courtney, and attend. My sister’s heart is very, very heavy right now. Her best friend, who she has been close with since middle school, is very sick. She will begin receiving hospice services this week. She will have her 39th birthday in November; and she has a seven year old son. Courtney saw her yesterday. I wanted to respect her need to experience her pain without interfering, and also kept feeling drawn to rub her upper back and to move with her. I hoped that I wasn’t being too pushy, but stayed with her as often as it felt right. When my favorite dance partner—my wild Vajrayana-like friend who travels with me into unexpected pockets of reality—came to invite me to dance, instead of falling into a dance with him, I kept close to my sister and the three of us danced together. I wanted to just hold her and hold her. Sometimes there is the mistaken wish that if I can just love someone enough, I can take pain away. Really, I think it is too much pressure on them, and I am just not that powerful. Then the pain becomes about me instead of an honest expression of the loved one’s reality. Instead, I tried my best to hold the space and be as supportive and loving as I could be. And, too, I shared exquisite dance after exquisite dance, including several with the friend I bared my soles to on Friday.
During the final of several waves, the music dropped out during Chaos. The room went wild, and we spontaneously turned the room into a big Chaos circle. I took a turn in the middle, leaping and whirling with all the explosive love of living that came to me in that moment. When the music came back, Peter (who was subbing for Jonathan) continued with the circle format.
Courtney and I left a few minutes early, as I had a firm appointment I could not change. I left feeling amazed, amazed, amazed, as I am on so many occasions at the ability of the 5Rhythms to hold everything, in every way it is needed.
by meghanleborious | Oct 5, 2014 | Notes on Practice
October 5, 2014
This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and are not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher.
Everything is perfect. Even when it is all a gigantic mess.
I showed up to Tammy’s class on Friday, which was substitute-taught by 5Rhythms teacher Kierra, feeling like my circumstances were impossible and unworkable. I doubted I would be able to move at all. When I walked in, I ducked behind the person who was greeting people at the door because I wanted to walk in naked, on my own terms, not in the lens of another’s gaze. Rather than finding a spot to stretch and de-compress, as is my usual practice, I wandered about distractedly for some time. At one point, I realized I had traversed the room and couldn’t remember how it happened.
I have at least three full-on careers, and several additional professional trajectories—the most challenging of the three is my work as a 10th grade teacher at a New York City public school. The students are delightful—even when they are challenging. The adults, on the other hand, are not always delightful. I have only one kindred spirit in my school community, and she, herself, is marginal to the politics of the place. On Friday, I presented an issue that I feel passionately about and that I thought there would be receptivity to, and was resoundingly defeated.
I found myself talking with a new friend about 5Rhythms on the topic of how each of us relates to rhythm. “I realize, after many years of metaphoric bumps and injuries, that I have a different beat,” I said. She thought I was making a joke, so I clarified, “For a long time, I thought it was just a rebellious teenager thing that I have, but I believe it is deeper than that. I can do the big beat, the rhythm of the room, but very often, left to my own devices, I find myself finding the tiny rhythms, finding the metarhythms, finding myself in the air when most people around me are stepping on top of a downbeat.” This realization, in the context of my school dilemma, made me feel sad. Sometimes I feel so different. (A little sweep of sad gets me as I re-read this.)
Walking in, I was tight, withdrawn, wrinkled. Caught in a story of how I don’t deserve to be wrong. Miraculously, within moments, I remembered that everything is perfect. Even when it is a gigantic mess. Kierra put on a popular song with the lyric, “Say what you’ve got to say…” I danced it to its edges. I rose and fell; I walked and retreated; I emoted and enacted; I spun and stopped and arced and bit. Then, she put on a song with an epic swell and I found the grace and dignity of it, the point, the reason to bother even when it seems pointless and impossible.
Whereas I came in feeling like I wished I had kept my mouth shut at work, wishing I hadn’t come out of the closet as a reformer, after these few songs I had a totally different take. There is no point in being attached to my own experience or to my own righteous position, nor to disowning it. I said what I had to say, there is integrity to my position, and now I will take the consequences and see where things go.
As Flowing unfolded in the first wave, I noticed that I felt vulnerable. I was very aware of the spot in the middle of my upper back—the place behind the heart where an arrow could easily kill you—a part of my body that I worked with extensively in my first year of practice as my elaborate armor began to dismantle. Once I noticed I was feeling vulnerable, and that my back was vulnerable, I decided that I might as well be uniformly vulnerable, to all people in the room and with all parts of my body.
In the interlude between the first and second waves, Kierra prefaced her thematic offering with, “I invite you. I invite you. If it is right for you, if it feels right for you, you take it on. If not, that’s OK. I invite you, not I command you.” She was speaking my language already. I really want to be invited, not commanded. And, as a teacher, I want to invite and not command my own students.
She then said something to the effect of inviting us to take on the idea of being in harmony with the seasons. Next, she said that if we were living close to the earth, this time of the year in this region would be one of harvesting. I thought about my own harvests. About how as a visual artist I just had a wonderful artwork exhibition—the culmination of years of hard work. I also thought about how as a teacher, I have honed some skills and competencies that I can now employ. And about abundance and the fact that I am blessed in infinite ways. When the music started again, I doubled over, determined to feel my feet connected to the floor, the ground, the earth. I lifted each toe with my hands and placed it deliberately onto the floor. Then, I carefully isolated each part of each foot, feeling its connection to ground. Tears arose—of gratitude and release.
I shared many exquisite dances. With two experienced dancers, all of us threading and swooping in and out of each other. Several with my favorite dance partner ever, who I could dance with as a full time job and still find totally uncharted territory in every new minute. With a friend who I seem often to meet in playful Staccato and who I love to keep my eye on by bending backward, even as I spin and dip in our shared orbit.
Sometimes salvation is too much to hope for. I walk into the room feeling terrible and I leave feeling worse. Sometimes, sometimes if the stars are aligned and I have not eaten too much or too little and if I am willing to let everything move and if the sun is not in my eyes…sometimes I can walk in my truth, that everything, absolutely everything, is perfect. Even when it is a gigantic mess.
