by meghanleborious | Sep 7, 2014 | Notes on Practice
August 30, 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 dreamt of rainbows.
They came dancing in.
(2010)
While on vacation in Cape Cod, I saw the most vivid rainbow I have ever seen. It manifested in its full expanse, from foot to foot, and there was a second, slightly-more-faint arc dancing around the first.
I arrived late to Tammy’s class Friday night, and with a horrible pinch in my back. Truthfully, it was my own fault that I arrived late. I wanted to get some special body lotion that is sold in a nearby health food store. I would have had just enough time if I was staccato about it, but when I got there I found myself distracted by all the appealing things.
The pinch—an angry nerve in my left middle back—started while I was waiting in line for the bathroom at the store with a heavy bag on one shoulder. It was excruciating to breathe; and I found myself inhaling as shallowly as possible to avoid the sharp stab of pain.
When I entered, I was nearly fifteen minutes late, and the room was crossing the threshold from Flowing into Staccato. The pinch persisted. Although everyone was picking up in energy, I lay down on my back. I tried my best to breathe deeply although it was agonizing. After a little while, I got up and tried to move. A sharp “ouch” escaped me despite the rule against speaking, and I crumpled back to the floor.
I feel guilty when I miss Flowing. It’s like abruptly jumping into a conversation when you don’t know what the conversing people are talking about. The idea that the ground of Flowing is what keeps us all safe is a teaching I have heard many, many times. When I feel pulled out of Flowing and into Staccato, I often try to delay it, feeling like it is my responsibility to thoroughly attend to Flowing before I even think about moving with the vigor and exuberance I ache for.
Not only did I arrive late, but I was working with this terrible pinch. I have had pinches before, and I know that they usually dissolve after a short time, but I did have one that hung on and hung on. Miraculously, the pinch eased and I stood up on the dance floor. The room was fully in Staccato, and filled with friends who I was eager to dance with.
I imagine that my dance looked like Staccato; and I was in sync with the people around me, but privately I was in Flowing. I softened myself as much as I could, avoiding the emphatic collisions between adjacent muscles that I so love, and kept my mind on the sensation of my feet touching the floor as much as I attended to my smiling partners. In part, I was afraid to experiment with any tightness or edges inside my body because I did not want to re-engage the unpleasant nerve pinch.
As so often happens in dance and in life, the obstacle of the pinch showed me something new. Being socially in Staccato, but privately in Flowing gave me something delightful about how to be soft. After Tammy spoke during the brief interlude between the two waves of the class, I moved from Flowing and into a patient Staccato with a lanky, lithe friend who I love to dance with. Energy rolls fluidly down his arms and out his feet and he moves easily to the edges of himself. Even while going wholeheartedly into Staccato with all its gorgeous stops and levels and angles and edges, I retained a trace of the enhanced softness that I had investigated earlier. For the first time ever, I was heartbroken when the music shifted into Chaos and we separated.
My energy flagged briefly at this point, and I lingered near a column where I wasn’t too much in the open. Shortly, the song switched and I was wild in Chaos, flung about with momentum in diagonal, spiral, asymmetrical motion. Still, in Chaos, I retained a trace of the softness that I found by accident earlier in the class, owing to the fact that I was afraid to re-engage the muscle pinch.
During the interim teaching, Tammy called our attention to a group of objects, carefully lit on a little table by the east wall of the studio. She explained that at one time this had been called an altar, sometimes it has been called an installation; but that the woman who first arranged objects for a 5Rhythms event in this way, Martha (Peabody), calls it “visuals.” Tammy shared that she likes using “visuals” best because it has the “most space” of the three options.
On the way to the class, I had been thinking about the theme of space. Before we left our rental cottage at Cape Cod, my son, Simon, and I decided to visit the beach one more time. Astonishingly, yesterday’s intricate sandcastle was intact, beautifully eroded to sheer castle cliffs by surrounding waves at now-passed high tide. Our closing gesture was to stand facing the vast horizon, scanning the sea, with our arms outstretched, and to breathe and take in the vast space around us.
This week, when Simon and I stepped out of the Queens Art Museum and into Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Simon held his little arms out wide and said to me, “Wow! Look at this Mommy! Look at all this space!” while taking a big breath in.
One thing I notice with interest is that in a driving, rhythmically-complex chaos song it is during the brief interludes that have no apparent beat that I feel most alive with creative inspiration.
Chaos emptied me into a low, arcing investigation of diagonals as the force of the solid floor rocketed my foot up and across me again and again. Soon, Tammy had us partner and wove in a song with traditional Irish music. I found myself kicking and bouncing, barely touching down, short of breath—joyful and free.
At the end of the class, as we moved into the sublime rhythm of Stillness, I closed my eyes and let spirit take over. I saw rainbows moving through me and out the palms of my hands, eventually moving in luxurious ribbons around the entire room.
We saw a rainbow
Perfectly rendered, vivid,
Partly doubled—
A shimmering mirage of form
Adorning endless space.
(2014)
by meghanleborious | Aug 13, 2014 | Notes on Practice
August 10, 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 danced myself empty today.
I showed up tired and a little sore from Friday night’s dance and a long (unaccustomed) run yesterday; yet stepped immediately out of pain and into delight.
Friday, too, when I arrived my neck was sore from lugging heavy things around, and my energy was low. Somehow (how does it so often happen?) I enjoyed an almost-instant entrance into embodied movement, and shared exquisite dance after exquisite dance. An active stillness shared with a new friend emptied me right into the next exercise that Tammy proposed. She asked everyone who was feeling “invigorated” to move to one side of the room; and she asked everyone who was not feeling invigorated—feeling inertia—to move to the other side of the room. I didn’t even wait to hear the options, and reported directly to the invigorated side. I was filled with gratitude that I could move with such joy, specificity, and, indeed, vigor. Tammy instructed us to partner and I found myself with a loved friend. We moved through a wordless wave, ending with unselfconscious shapes. One of my feet pounded a heartbeat as we rose from a crouching huddle, facing each other. The people who were feeling inertia were instructed to look occasionally at the people who were feeling invigorated, and vice versa.
Lately, I have noticed a slightly wrathful aspect to Tammy’s instruction. A few weeks ago, she admonished people who cavalierly leave the room during class to chit-chat in the hall or sip water, saying that if you are doing that, “you are shitting on this practice!” Today she explained that a Sweat Your Prayers class (as the Sunday class at the Joffrey that I took today is designated) is designed as a map for people to come in and practice applying the 5Rhythms waves teachings in their own experience. She encouraged people to take at least a few classes so they understand the basic practice. She also very emphatically explained that if you come to a 5Rhythms class, you damn well better be ready to do the 5Rhythms—not any other related kind of dance, specifically mentioning Contact Improv. 5Rhythms begins with finding a ground first, in the rhythm of Flowing, and the practice builds from there; and we find a way to relate to each of the rhythms as we move through a wave. To bring her point home, Tammy said, “This is not free dance. It is dance that frees.”
Tammy also felt that most of us had skipped over Staccato completely in the first wave—the rhythm of the heart, of emotion, of feeling—and rushed from Flowing straight to Chaos. I confess that I arrived late and this might be a factor, but it seemed that the music stayed in Flowing and Flowing/Staccato, then went straight to Chaos. I was actually holding back a bit, waiting for the music to guide me to what I thought was “full” Staccato, but we went instead straight to Chaos. I didn’t mind her instruction though, and assumed there was something in it for me, regardless. She cut the music after Chaos instead of guiding us to Lyrical and Stillness with her song choices, and everyone continued to bound and shake and began to vocalize wildly. Tammy said something like, “Well, that just reminds us it is a full moon!”
I cried when Tammy said, “This is not free dance. It is dance that frees.” Lately, I cry with gratitude when I hear key phrases in 5Rhythms teachings that I have heard again and again; and when I hear the litany of the rhythms (Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical and Stillness). Recently, a friend who is new to 5Rhythms mentioned another form of dance—Bliss Dance, I think—and said, “It’s pretty much the same as 5Rhythms, just with a different brand.” I kept quiet. For all I know, she may be right. I don’t really know. I haven’t done all the other forms of ecstatic dance. But the more I learn about 5Rhythms, the more I realize I don’t know.
My current understanding is that the container of 5Rhythms can hold absolutely everything, but there are a lot of things it is not. As spacious as the practice can be, it also has the diamond-hard indestructibility and vivid specificity of Vajrayana Buddhism, for example, which is often represented by a ritual knife or sword. Indeed, it is not free dance. As beautiful as free dance is in its own right, Tammy explained that the 5Rhthyms are something different, including a map that forms a ground to work from and that holds us in continually moving. (Please note that only when I have quoted or paraphrased Tammy are they her words—the others are my own reflections.)
I have often considered how I can fully engage with the rhythms and yet avoid conforming to something or falling into habitual patterns. Lately, I like the idea that exploring the rhythms is more about how I point my attention than about how I am actually moving.
Something about Tammy’s admonitions to all of us opened a doorway to a dance of incredible depth. I like that she put her foot down. I don’t have time to play games with myself. Nor do I want to be in a roomful of people who do. Her words made me feel safe, like I could relax inside the room and go wherever spirit moved me to.
By way of aside, I note that one of the things I admire about Tammy is her authenticity. She seems to call the words forth as she forms them, without insisting on a pre-planned theme. It is like she has to let whatever comes, come, seemingly without editing. As she finds her way through, she more often than not arrives in powerful territory, striking notes that open new possibilities for being in the dance and for being in the world.
I danced with many beautiful humans, including a wild, creative, edge-filled staccato maelstrom with a friend I love to dance with, immediately following Tammy’s staccato reminder.
My back neck seems to have loosened recently, allowing me now to see the space behind even with my body facing the opposite direction. I was softer than usual, and I shifted playfully in and out of the shadows of each rhythm as I moved through the room.
As I said, I danced myself empty. From the place of empty, my mind decided to take on a thorny emotional issue that could easily have led to self-abuse at another time. Last night I had a dream that I was at a 5Rhythms workshop. It was in the attic of an old and complex house. I think many of the dancers were naked, and dancing hard. Someone told me she wanted me to come downstairs with her, she had to talk to me. I feared that she wanted to castigate me, and was reluctant to follow, but shortly, I did decide to go with her. What had been a fire-escape ladder to climb up to the attic now had a broken rung on top. It became even more impassable somehow, and was just a stepladder standing straight up on a couch. I was terrified. The woman tried to help me by talking me down but I got more and more afraid. I think I even asked if we could call the fire department! My palms were slick with sweat, loosening my grip. Another woman started to climb up the ladder (now it was sort of suspended, dangling at the bottom) and I became completely flustered and upset.
In a later dream scene, I was walking down the street and a teenage boy, clowning, fell off a wall and almost on top of me. I moved and was not hurt, but I told him, “You are responsible for your body! You have to be aware of where your body is in space!” He half-listened, still with a joking attitude, and I moved toward him, re-iterating, with increasing vehemence. This is very similar to a conversation I have frequently with my son, Simon, including the unnecessary increase in vehemence at the end.
There were many additional twists and turns to the dream, but the message seems clear. I have occasional access to some exquisite, timeless, maybe even transcendent realms, but that I haven’t figured out how to bring the practice into daily experience in a reliable way. And that I often think I am in trouble. Sigh. I guess I am a work in progress.
For me, this connected to the day before. I drove to the beach with two adult friends, and with my son, Simon, and his small friend. We sat in brutal traffic; and several people bypassed the line completely, cutting in at the last moment. I kept myself in check, but this infuriated me. I tried my damnedest to keep these rogue drivers out of the line, mostly without success. My face was contorted with anger and my speech peppered with kid-friendly expletives, such as Mr. Peepee Head, Tinkleface and Doodieball.
Later, Simon grew tired. He is four now, and very determined to direct himself. When it was time to change and pack our things to go, he became defiant. Instead of taking the time to work with him, I grew exasperated and mean. My voice got hard, I pulled him to the water to wash sand off while he cried. After an ice cream treat, I insisted that he throw his own trash away, again dragging him when he refused. We repaired shortly after, but I felt sad and ashamed that I had been so unkind with him. As we were pulling out of the parking lot, some people walked behind the car. One of the adult friends said, “Oh, screw it. You might as well hit them! We’ve already seen your angry side today.” In my mind later, I was tempted to be defensive. At dance, I felt instead gratitude to him for planting this seed.
I have worked through so much anger in my life, that sometimes I am tempted to fool myself into thinking I have conquered it. Not so. This dance helped remind me that I have considerable work to do. I don’t aspire to eliminate anger, but to relate to my experience of anger in a way that allows me to avoid causing harm from an angry state, such as I did with my cherished little boy yesterday at the beach.
Today, I could look at this without making excuses; and, at once, without self-abuse.
Toward the end of class, I found myself inside a trance. A gentle breeze blew through my body, coiling softly around my spine. A circle formed at the top of my head and guided me in movement. I saw and felt the energy of my own body, connecting with the energy of the earth and with the space of the universe. As the music slowed and stopped, I started to sob quietly—with heaving, jagged breaths. My sister—dancing in the same room for the first time in months—gently embraced me and rocked me while the sobs subsided.
In the end, although I wasn’t conscious that I had skipped over Staccato in the first wave, there was an emotional lesson I needed to take in that I wasn’t available to until I found the deep Staccato of the second wave.
Tammy gathered us together again. I made my way to sitting, bleary with snot and tears, and quickly returned to the beauty of a blue-skied Sunday, the day of a full moon and indeed a super moon—when the moon is unusually close to the earth, perhaps bringing its glowing celestial body close enough to kiss.
by meghanleborious | Aug 4, 2014 | Notes on Practice
August 3, 2014
This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and are not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher.
Taught by teacher-trainee Alex de Willermin, the second meeting of the Family Waves class—the first 5Rhythms class in New York City to include both kids and adults—took the sea as its theme.
Alex coordinated an installation with various objects that reference the ocean; and started the class with a physical demonstration of an ocean wave. She held her arms in a wide wingspan, then swept to the farthest corner of the gathered circle, starting low—just like a wave gathering itself and traveling along far out at sea—then drawing itself up into a form, then crashing, then taking a little rest by the shore before it is drawn back to the sea again. She explained that we would do the same thing in the class, except we would be dancing a wave.
She also took a few moments to set some ground rules about safety and personal space—especially relevant for my son, Simon, and his small friend, who continued in this class (please see the post from July 29, 2014) to do sprinting laps around the perimeter of the dance floor.
I was delighted that Simon’s father—who was my partner for eight years—joined us. It might be interesting to note that when we were together, I had fervently wished that he would do a 5Rhythms class with me. He was not even slightly receptive; and I came to imagine that if he would just step into the rhythms, we could work out our many ongoing conflicts and find the shining love that brought us together initially. I let go of that fantasy long ago, and was delighted to connect with him, remembering even the tenderness and wild attraction that characterized our first years together.
He came on this occasion because his brother was visiting from Charlotte with his teenage children. His brother had agreed to attend the class as a way for us get together during their brief local visit. He was accompanied by three of his kids and another nephew—all verging on adults now; and I greeted them happily as they entered.
We commenced in a circle, holding hands, which I suspect was a strategy to pause the sprinting laps around the perimeter, while Alex gave initial instructions. She did something a few times that I thought was very effective and that you don’t often see in adult classes, which was to turn off the music briefly while giving us instructions.
I confess that I was still (as I discussed in the last post about Family Waves on July 29) slightly pre-occupied with Simon’s sprinting laps and wishing he would engage more with the people in the room. Despite this, I was able to move fluidly and joyfully. I note that he was less of a maniac this class than in the last one; and I praised him at length after the class was over for this seeming improvement.
I was overjoyed to dance with a new friend who came with her baby son, numerous good friends, my niece, nephews, brother-in-law and, of course, with my former partner. I had several interesting side-by-side dances with my brother-in-law, when he moved with precise, conscious movements, seeming to go deep within. At one point, Alex had us form a circle and take turns dancing in the middle in groups of four. Some were hesitant, but most warmed up to the idea before long.
Alex ended the class with the Elizabeth Mitchell version of the song, “Peace Like a River.” I let myself fall into a spin–my favorite place. Simon approached me and I slowed slightly, scooping him up, then holding him loosely as I continued to spin and spin, smiling and laughing, as I had done during pregnancy and throughout his infancy and now-passed babyhood.
Simon and I danced all the rest of the day. In the evening he told me, “There is a song singing in my head,” He sang it and it was, “I’ve got peace like a river in my soul. I’ve got peace like a river, I’ve got peace like a river, I’ve got peace like a river in my soul. I’ve got joy like an ocean in my soul. I’ve got joy like an ocean, I’ve got joy like an ocean, I’ve got joy like an ocean in my soul.”
I put the song on; and we continued to dance, delighting each other with new movement experiments and reflecting on how much fun we had, dancing with our friends.
Family Waves is New York City’s first 5Rhythms class for both children and adults. It meets the first Saturday of every month at 11 AM at White Wave Dance Studio in Dumbo, Brooklyn. The class is taught by rotating 5Rhythms teachers and teachers-in-training.
by meghanleborious | Aug 3, 2014 | Notes on Practice
July 21, 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 did not dance for two consecutive Fridays; and was eager to get to dance on Friday night. There was a tiny flavor of fear, too, after a few days away, that the magic would have disappeared and I wouldn’t be able to move at all. I should not have worried, since I was swept away by the strength of the crowd shortly after I entered the room.
The first wave was delightful; and Tammy brought us together briefly before starting the second wave. She shared that she had challenged herself to come up with something that she doesn’t like about 5Rhythms; and that the only things she could think of were easily dismissed as functions of her own ego.
Tammy also went through the litany of the Rhythms quickly, for the sake of new dancers: Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical and Stillness. I felt a wave of emotion. I have heard that very litany hundreds, if not thousands, of times now. This has been my path.
Once, at a Buddhist training, a senior teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition began talking about a file cabinet that contains all of his Buddhist certificates and training documents, “This has been my path,” he said, and he surprised himself, choking on one gasping sob. “This has been my path.” Tears poured down his cheeks as he was briefly overwhelmed with emotion.
I felt similarly in this moment. The emotions I could identify were devotion, heartbreaking gratitude, a kind of wonder, and gigantic, pulsing tenderness. There seemed to be enormous energy in my throat that would gather and release. I cried periodically throughout the class; and rested my forehead to the floor after the conclusion of the final song and wept.
Before the second wave began, Tammy invited us to investigate balance through different parts of our bodies, starting with asking us to remain balanced on one foot for as long as possible, then to shift onto the other foot once the suspended foot chanced to touch the ground. I was delighted, experimenting happily with the edges of balance, finding that I could go quite far from my center of gravity and still stay alight.
I remembered an exercise Tammy had led us in during a Waves level Shadow workshop several years before. During an investigation of Chaos and its adjacent forces, Tammy had us move into the very edge of balance, and in fact tip past it (I believe she used the phrase “drunken sailor”) I was thrilled then, as I was on this occasion. By way of aside, I note that I was six months pregnant at the workshop; and, unlike many pregnant women, I never fell or had any significant problems with balance during pregnancy. I didn’t even move like a pregnant woman for that matter; and I attribute it to dancing hard all the way through.
I absolutely love exploring my edges, exploring boundaries, walking on the edge of a sharp blade. I can be rebellious when subjected to conventions—sometimes even an intensity-junkie. It is on that very edge—of moving, of relating, of creating—that things get most fertile. The conventions that cause me to round things off, rather than perceive the pointed specificity of the spectacular phenomenal world, fall away. Dazzling light spills all over the place.
As is so often the case, the experience of the dance itself becomes a metaphor that challenges and inspires me. Within dance, every edge that I explore and identify shifts once again—leaving my heart more and more open to infinity—the ultimate unfathomable edge.
by meghanleborious | Jul 29, 2014 | Notes on Practice
July 14, 2014, Brooklyn, New York
This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and are not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher.
Family Waves, the first regularly-occurring 5Rhythms class in New York City to explicitly include children, met for the first time on July 5th at White Wave Studio in Dumbo, Brooklyn. My son, Simon, who is now four, has absolutely been raised in 5Rhythms, but I kept feeling like I couldn’t get him on the dance floor as much as both of us wanted. Kids are welcome to attend most adult classes occasionally, but it is out of respect for the adult participants, who may want to work with material that is not kid-friendly, that I hold back. I kept trying to get an informal group of dancers with children together, but it never worked out. I didn’t want to bother any certified teachers with my little project, but I finally got over myself and started to look into the possibility of actually producing a formal class. Now, it has become a reality; and I pray I can raise my son within the practice, like some people choose to raise their children within a given church.
Beginning in pregnancy, I have learned a lot about myself, my son, and about our relationship through dancing together—both in formal and informal situations. When he was tiny, the best way to soothe him was by holding him and dancing and spinning. I would dance, placing him occasionally in a baby seat next to me, but holding him in my arms most of the time. In fact, the times that I have felt closest to him have been while dancing. Or perhaps I should say, the times that I have noticed how incredibly close we are—how deeply connected—have been in dance. My heart has been broken with tenderness again and again as we work our way through a wave together.
One of the most important lessons from my own practice that I was able to apply early in Simon’s life came from learning to look for empty space and move into it, as we do in the rhythm of Flowing. When he was tiny, dancing with him in Tammy’s Thursday class at Sandra Cameron studio, I was able to articulate this important lesson. When he was an infant, Simon needed me when he needed me. Everything was urgent, so whenever I tried to do creative work, I would again and again have to drop it. Because of Flowing, I had learned to trust that empty space would always open up again, so I could easily drop what I was doing, knowing that before long I would be able to return to it. I learned to keep careful lists and logs, so as soon as space did open up I could move into it, and not waste precious time evaluating priorities and questioning myself.
When Simon was a toddler, I was proud of the way he would bound into a 5Rhythms room, open to dancing with almost anyone there. People were very welcoming and willing to engage him. At that age, he would often wrap his arms around my ankles, laughing, and refuse to let go. This gave me a brand new dance; and I investigated every possible way to move with one leg stationary. I found an entirely different way to move my hips, and discovered a range of subtle movements I would not otherwise have found. Just as in life at the time, I chose to use a constraint (how some view having a child); and consider it an interesting element to work with to push me deeper. I exploded creatively; and despite the many times I had to put Simon’s needs first, his existence provided a framework that allowed me to grow in unexpected ways.
We were out of town the night before the July 5th class, and got on the road early to arrive in time to open the studio and get set up. Simon and I had been discussing the event for weeks beforehand. He was uncontainably excited; and dressed in his Spiderman costume, since it was a special occasion. The first class was taught by soon-to-be-official 5Rhythms teacher, Jason Goodman.
Jason had obviously given a lot of thought to how he would teach the class. He began with Flowing music without lyrics to give people time to settle in. Before long, he explained that the 5Rhthyms are a secret language that your parents know about, addressing the children. It is no less than the secret of how everything is, he shared. I am sure they took it in, but they were all very ready to move! Especially mine.
Simon’s friend, Hugo, joined us and the two of them raced around the perimeter of the dance, occasionally bumping into people. Hugo’s parents and I kept trying to engage them by picking them up, swinging them and making silly faces. Part of me was shrinking, wishing Simon wouldn’t be so wild and thinking I should try to control him. I kept trying to take a breath, move my attention to the whole room, but I was overly focused on him, feeling slightly disapproving.
One of Jason’s choices for music during the rhythm of Chaos, The Gummy Bear Song, brought the house down. Everyone (including Simon and Hugo) wore a giant smile and danced emphatically and energetically.
A good friend, mentor, and the dancer who introduced me to the 5Rhythms came with her ten-year-old daughter. They were both wholehearted and joyful, and the ten-year-old moved around the room, engaging every child. She has also agreed to act as a consultant for the Family Waves class; and has offered many excellent ideas to help create an event that appeals to a range of ages.
As I reflected, I had to keep reminding myself that it was perfect and appropriate that Simon was racing around like a maniac. That is really WHY I have been willing to take this on—to help him keep the joyful embodiment that he has now. The task is to learn to layer embodied awareness on top of that. I also realized that I have to let go of trying to control him and of trying to control the situation. I have so many hang-ups myself (as I have written about in many previous posts) about being too energetically gigantic, of taking up too much space. He is a little kid—he should take up exactly the amount of space he needs. I think in the next class, I will explain that he can’t touch anyone unless he looks in their eyes first, and can’t bump anyone, but that other than that he is free to move how he wants to.
I feel very thankful as I write this. To Jason for his generous instruction; To Tammy for her kind support; to Gabrielle Roth for her vast vision and for articulating the 5Rhythms; to all of the joyful bodies who attended; and for my spectacular son, Simon, who, like all children, deserves to grow up happy, embodied and heartful; and who deserves every opportunity to dance his absolutely perfect, this-is-my-truth-now, unique, wild and precious dance.
Family Waves, a 5Rhythms class for kids and their grown ups, meets the first Saturday of each month at White Wave Studio in Dumbo, Brooklyn, from 10.45 AM-noon. The next class will be taught by teacher-in-training Alex de Willermin and will meet on August 2nd.
