by meghanleborious | Jan 18, 2015 | Notes on Practice
This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and is not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher.
I was happy to arrive on time to Jonathan Horan’s sold-out, one day workshop “5Rhythms Fundamentals: Embodied Waves” that took place on Sunday at the Joffrey Ballet Studio in the West Village. I had been away until the night before, and had not set foot in a 5Rhythms room for two entire weeks. During the interlude, I danced (again) at Dance Spree in Northampton, Massachusetts, and also went to several dance events at Kripala Institute, where I observed the New Year. I intended to find a quiet corner of the large yoga retreat center to meditate through the midnight hour, but decided, instead, to attend a lively dance party lead by two teachers. I also went to a class lead by a man who started something called Shake Your Soul; and, although initially resistant, found that I was won over by the end of the class. I thought I would relax, meditate and attend yoga classes, but as so often happens, found I was drawn to dance—whether it is specifically 5Rhythms or not. All of these experiences offered new insight and information for me to experiment with.
I noticed as I entered the room on Sunday that I was slightly nervous. I have entered this same room on the 5th floor of the Joffrey hundreds of times; and I have rarely been nervous. It was hard to identify a cause, but I began to suspect that I was overly concerned with what the teacher, Jonathan, thought of me. I’m not sure what, exactly, I was hoping he would think, but it was an interesting thing to note. I admit that I cared very much what Gabrielle Roth—Jonathan’s mother and the founder of 5Rhythms—thought, and wondered if it might not have carried over.
Martha, an artist and 5Rhythms teacher who is highly regarded in the 5Rhythms community, had created an engaging installation with an active water element that contained references to earth, fire, water, air and ether; and I lingered near it, inspecting its elements as the dance began to move me.
I slipped easily into the first wave, beginning by finding an off-to-the-side spot to unfurl, stretch and undulate. I encountered many friends—people I have danced with for years—and greeted them warmly. I noted that there were several experienced teachers on the floor; and that the room felt deeper, somehow, for their many collective years of practice. Once I felt ready to stand, I rose to my feet in a dramatic rush, lifting first my hips, then back, shoulders, and head, and, finally, raising my hands to the sky and arcing slightly back. From there, I found circular motion easily, connecting joyfully with other dancers. I was also deep in my hips, experimenting with long, low stances; sharp, square edges; and percussive motion. With a good friend, I enjoyed a brief flinging jig, with high spinning steps and air-landed kicks during Lyrical in the opening wave.
Things shifted radically for me after Jonathan’s instructional talk following that first wave. I sat in the circle of participants surrounding Jonathan as he spoke, rapt with attention. In the beginning of the talk, he gazed into the ceiling, seemingly searching for words or waiting for inspiration. I wondered if he could see or hear his now-deceased mother, Gabrielle, and couldn’t resist the temptation to follow his gaze skyward.
Jonathan touched on many significant themes. He talked about the nature of practice—a topic that I love—and how we use the discipline of practice to help us to deepen our capacity for awareness. He also explained that (despite conventional understanding) 5Rhythms is not a dance practice. I remember Gabrielle saying that, too. In a talk she gave not long before she died, she said, “This is just the little black dress I put on for you,” and explained that 5Rhythms is actually a way to describe the very creative process itself, not just what happens in the dance.
I hope I don’t fall into the temptation of getting stuck on the idea that 5Rhythms is dance, but I am so grateful that it is. I do love to dance.
Jonathan went on to explain that 5Rhythms is actually a movement meditation practice. He used repetition, taking the voice of a dancer-seeker, “I taste freedom. I taste freedom!” he said, “Freedom from myself!” He then spoke about noticing if you are “in” or “out”, describing, I think, the quality of awareness.
In class on Friday, Tammy also commented on awareness, saying that one of the goals of practice is to develop awareness to such an extent that we realize we are totally and utterly connected to everyone else. She then invoked one of Gabrielle’s most famous adages: “There is only one of us here.”
My inner talk at this point in the workshop was something like, “I get this. I’m good at this. I’m mostly ‘in’. I know how to open my awareness to whatever comes. My heart gets shattered in this room all the time. This is not going to be very hard for me.”
Jonathan invited us to do a dance of being “out”, and had us take partners in this intentional state of being aware of non-awareness. Although we had a partner, we were supposed to think about something else, look away from them, and otherwise distract ourselves. I found that it was really, really hard to stay dis-engaged. I thought about a painting assignment I once had—to make a “bad” painting. It was hard! The intended badness of it was so engaging that I made a painting I loved, and that planted the seeds for an entire painting series that carried through the following year. It set me free, if only briefly, from the many constraints that I placed on myself in trying to make a “good” painting, and, too, that I placed on myself in trying to be a “good” painter.
Jonathan encouraged us to “be real,” to find our own dance, and to stop performing ourselves. “Do that thing you do, when you are performing,” he said playfully on the microphone, “do that cute thing you do with your hips! Yeah! Do your hipster dance!” He continued; and the bottom dropped out for me. My ego did a triple spin. Every time I tried to move, I felt I was performing. The suspicion I had about wanting to impress Jonathan came drifting back. I felt like every movement I made had some aspect of performing to it. Instead of just noting my inner experience and moving on, in this case I seized up—the ego watching the ego watching the ego. I descended into isolated pain. I did not have the energy I needed to dance with inspiration.
I wondered about the things I could have done differently to avoid this current pain. I should have eaten an adequate breakfast. I was tired because of going non-stop from one physically intense activity to the next at Kripalu; and perhaps I should have paced myself more. I hadn’t hydrated enough, surely. I started to wonder about a possible muscle pull in my right groin that had been tender for two days. I stopped the bold physical experiments—with wide, decisive steps and sweeping, extended arms—afraid I might have seriously pulled the muscle and just wasn’t feeling the damage yet.
Rather than dancing near the front and middle, where there is usually a lot of space and a lot of action, I hovered, instead, near the columns—vague and distracted by the inner discussion I wanted no part of, but was unable to silence.
This reminded me of an experiment Tammy proposed during a Friday night class in 2007 or 2008: that we turn and dance with the emptiness next to us. I happened to be concurrently studying the Buddhist concept of emptiness—that nothing exists inherently in and of itself, including me—and that everything is in a constant state of change and flux. The study of emptiness infuriated me. Wasn’t it enough to know and accept emptiness without having to belabor the point? My ego rubbed and rubbed, blistering me in the process, trying its best to sustain itself. In retrospect, the class that focused on the study of emptiness (in the context of Buddhist Madyamika Prasangika teachings) was by far the most transformative of all the classes I took in a two-year intensive Buddhist studies program. I had no idea whatsoever how to respond to Tammy’s instructions at the time to turn and dance with the empty space next to us; and I found myself confused and irritated.
I think I should explain what I mean by the ego. I mean it not in the Freudian sense exactly, but closer to a Buddhist sense. The self aspect of self that is constantly seeking to prove its existence to itself—projecting its habitual stories, then trying to convince itself and others that its stories are true and eternal. This is the creature that got rubbed so hard in the workshop on Sunday. I can’t tell you exactly what self-story got interrupted, but I’m pretty sure I know it when I feel it.
Jonathan kept asking, are you “in” or “out”? “Are you just going through the motions?” He also said something like, “Can’t you just be real?” At one point, he said, “It’s a choice. In, or out.” This sparked anger. More than anything, I wanted to make the choice to be “in,” in fact I was making that choice, but “in” absolutely wasn’t available to me at that moment. The spark of anger never ignited, thankfully, as another voice in me answered the first, “It might not be a choice in this moment, but in the bigger picture, it is a choice. One that unfolds over time.”
It seemed clear that my ego was having some sort of temper tantrum, and it was downright unpleasant. On some deep-inside level, I think I trusted Jonathan, and was willing to believe that his choices were skillful, even if I couldn’t understand them in the moment. At the end of that wave, the final shape my body took was a twisted curve; and my eyes landed and stayed on the room’s red exit sign, hanging above the studio door.
I left quickly for lunch, hoping to avoid having to interact with anyone. As I sat at a local eatery, a close friend appeared and asked if he could join me. I was happy for his company, though still feeling unhappy and oddly tight. He told me someone asked if he was “having a nice dance,” and he shrugged, saying, “Well, I wouldn’t exactly call it nice.” I said, “Yes, sometimes nice or pleasant doesn’t exactly line up with productive. It could be totally not nice and still be productive.” I went on to share, “My dance so far today is very unpleasant, in fact. I think it might be productive, but it is really unpleasant right now. It would be good if it would shift.” I tried, unsuccessfully, to explain the tussle I suspected my ego was embroiled in.
I returned after lunch, once again on time, curious to see how my narrative would evolve through the afternoon. I wondered if I would remain locked in isolation, or if a different quality would come through. This time, I fell right into the luxury of aimlessness, flowing into empty spaces as they opened up, and being coiled and repelled by currents as I moved toward and away from people. Sometimes I would trail someone briefly as I was tugged along in their wake. Even if I made a choice to go a particular way or to dance with a particular dancer, something would inevitably intervene and send me swirling happily in a different direction altogether.
I thought about how I had gone through stretches lasting months when dance was very unpleasant. I have no idea why I kept going to 5Rhythms classes when things got so very, very unpleasant and stayed that way for so long. I would scurry out at the end, unable, even, to sit peacefully with friends. I told myself that it was the nature of practice—that you keep showing up for yourself, again and again and again—without being attached to what will happen as a result. On Sunday, I was grateful that this period of unpleasantness seemed to have passed quickly.
Up until the time of this writing, I wasn’t exactly sure what the theme or even the title of the workshop was; and I actually had to look it up on 5Rhythms.com. I just knew that it was a one-day workshop with Jonathan in New York and was sure it wouldn’t be a waste of time or money. As it turns out, this was the first of a series of one-day “5Rhythms Fundamentals” workshops, each focusing on one of the 5Rhythms. While I didn’t note an emphasis on the rhythm of Flowing per se, in his final remarks at the end of the day, Jonathan said something to the effect that if you haven’t developed your relationship to Flowing—to finding yourself in the feet and knowing the ground beneath you—there is no point in moving on. I was left with the thought that the teachings of the day had to do not just with Flowing and finding the ground, but also to do with clear-cutting the defilements that corrupt that very relationship. No point in building a house on a swamp!
On Monday, I returned to work after two weeks of celebration, rest and time with family. It might or might not be related to my experiences during the workshop, but the week has been characterized by balance. I have been neither fatigued nor manic, neither hungry nor overfull, and neither bored nor overwhelmed.
January 10, 2014
by meghanleborious | Jan 3, 2015 | Notes on Practice
This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and are not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher.
Today I went to one of my favorite places—a quiet spot next to a river that my grandfather loved. Though it was cold, I sat in meditation on the ground, patiently attending to my breath, to the icy wind grazing my cheekbones, to the sheer bank on the other side of the river, to the glowing late afternoon sun behind the trees, to the ground beneath me, to the moving water, and to everything reflected upside down on its surface.
This week, I was not able to formally practice 5Rhythms; and I find myself considering broad themes within my own practice, rather than specific experiences that have arisen in a given class.
When I started an intensive formal meditation practice in 2007, I slowly came to understand that mindfulness and awareness are two ends of a certain spectrum of experience. Before then, mindfulness and awareness seemed like vague synonyms, but after they became quite distinct. Mindfulness, strengthened in meditation through strategic attention to one thing, such as the breath, is about sustaining focus and overriding the mind’s tendency to disperse itself. Awareness, strengthened in meditation through equanimous attention to everything that arises, is about being wholeheartedly present and open to what is happening in a given moment.
I quickly realized that I had a strong tendency toward mindfulness, rather than awareness. I found I could hold my attention to the breath like a vise. Within a few months, I could sustain mindfulness of breath during almost all of my waking hours. When it came to awareness—and the receptive, accepting, patient quality that awareness engenders, it was (and is) much less intuitive for me.
I came to 5Rhythms and to formal meditation at almost exactly the same time; and both found me eager, dry tinder ready to be set alight. Having two core practices was a lot like having two fluent languages, since it gave me insight into what is unique and what is universal no matter what language you are speaking. What I learned from my meditation teachers, I investigated in the laboratory of 5Rhythms classes. What I learned in 5Rhythms fueled and deepened meditation practice and study. When I found concepts in both traditions that aligned closely, I paid them extra mind.
Today by the river, I got cold as soon as I decided I was done meditating. Nothing changed, except that during formal meditation I was emphasizing mindfulness and concentrating on my breath, and after I wasn’t. I have had the same experience dozens of times—wherein as soon as I stopped formally meditating, something about the environment was unbearable, though I had been perfectly at ease just moments before during the period of meditation. This, to me, offers evidence about the potential power of mindfulness practices to affect how we experience our lives.
In dance, Flowing is where I find my ground. I attend to the physical sensations of the feet again and again, ideally until I feel satisfied that I have established a ground in mindfulness. Until that ground is well-established, it is pointless to move on. Otherwise, I run the risk of causing harm to myself or others, and it is unlikely that I will be available to subtle aspects of practice. During the course of a wave I move back and forth again and again on this continuum between mindfulness and awareness. In dance, often the return to mindfulness is a return to the sensation of the moving feet—a key teaching in Flowing. If I am lucky, I may find myself eventually moving un-self-consciously in Stillness, with awareness of breath and spirit.
Perhaps because of my tendency toward mindfulness, I fall easily into states of concentration. As a child, I set up all sorts of focusing games for myself, such as sitting in the garden and gazing for long periods at a single vegetable, looking into a mirror, or staring at length into the ocean. I never didn’t meditate. I didn’t acquire any language for it or any formal training until my late teens, but it was something that I did intuitively.
In dance, this concentration often expresses as trance states. I go through long periods when dance is quite normal—perhaps psychological, emotional or social—but not archetypal or mystical. I also go through phases when different planes of reality are rendered in sharp relief. I might imagine that I find messages hidden in time, that I communicate with spirit ancestors, or that I see compelling visions, such as jewels pouring out of my palms. I might even feel like I have specific memories of different lives I’ve lived. Sometimes, inside a trance, I catch a glitch in a particular movement and repeat it again and again until its repetition opens the doors of time and offers some key insight.
The transition from Chaos into Lyrical is the time when I am most likely to look up, look around, and notice everyone and everything in the room. My hair, wild with the rigors of Chaos, gets pushed away from my eyes. I often lighten up, and start to move energetically throughout the space, dancing with many, but rarely settling into a dance with one partner. For me, this moment has often been accompanied by the clutch of fear, perhaps in part to do with how I relate to awareness.
There is more that I want to say tonight, as I sit engaging in this rather intellectual examination of how I experience my practice and how mindfulness and awareness get enacted for me. I love to travel these trajectories, but I just stepped outside on a bright moonlit night, standing among windless trees and noting the glitter of winter frost. I remembered that the magic, the beauty, of practice is that moving brings me to life, and wakes me up to the life I am already living. Any frame I care to set up is just a lovely exercise. Really, the words are just a rounding off of the real experience–a quest to understand and communicate what is, ultimately, wordless, timeless and inexplicable.
December 29, 2014
by meghanleborious | Dec 24, 2014 | Notes on Practice
This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and are not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher.
I arrived a few minutes late to Tammy’s class on Friday, once again, although this time I was legitimately entangled—attending a holiday party at my son’s afterschool program with his many small friends and their parents. My son stayed until the end with his father, but when I told him I had to go, he pouted for a moment and begged me to stay, also. “This is what it means to have a practice,” I told myself as I got my things together to go, but I wish I had stayed with him just a little bit longer. It is always hard for me to find the line between commitment and rigid adherence.
Although I didn’t step into the room until the transition from Flowing into Staccato, I still felt that I was able to practice Flowing. Tammy made a suggestion about moving into the empty spaces—an exercise that I associate with Flowing—which allowed me to find myself in fluid motion before progressing on to Staccato.
As the class unfolded, Tammy talked about how good it is to experiment with being in your comfort zone; and, in addition, how good it is to experiment with things that make you uncomfortable—your discomfort zone, if you will. Over the years, I have, at times, made a choice to let myself move with what feels comfortable, good and intuitive. An example of this would be moving away from people I don’t want to dance with. At other times, I have made a choice to investigate my edges and to work with situations that are uncomfortable or downright aversive—for example staying in a dance with someone who triggers anger, irritation or defensiveness.
In one pair dance, Tammy asked us to take turns with one partner giving and one partner receiving. My partner and I paused, unsure of how to relate to the instructions. We settled on one being active (which I thought of as the giving) with the other more or less observing (which I thought of as the receiving). For all I know, my partner may have thought the opposite. I have danced exuberantly with this partner many times, but in this instance we had a hard time connecting. I was similarly confused as I moved on to dance with other partners, eventually letting the instructions go completely.
There was one woman sort of slowly parading around the room, totally out of sync with the rhythm everyone else was in. I had been open to dancing with her on several occasions, and we initiated some dances together. However, as soon as an attractive man came by she would blatantly turn her back to me and move to dance with him. Eventually, I stopped inviting her to dance, and even stopped making eye contact with her. On Friday, I noticed that I ignore her. I guess I feel a little angry toward her. I wonder if I don’t want to risk being rejected, don’t want to waste the energy, or even if some part of me wants to punish her. At any rate, she seemed isolated on Friday. I wonder if she acts toward others how she did toward me. I wonder if she feels left out and can’t figure out why.
In addition to noticing what feels comfortable and what feels uncomfortable, and deciding to work with or against it, there is the question of how we relate to each entire rhythm (a topic I considered at length in the last post and have touched on in many previous writings). Typically, each of us has a favorite rhythm, and at least one rhythm that is definitely not our favorite.
Perhaps considering the Winter Solstice, Tammy encouraged to close our eyes and be in the darkness that is inside us, and to look at all the light inside us. This was convenient timing, as I had been doing just that. I love to go into a trance and move light around inside my body during Stillness. Often, light comes from the ground up; or it starts in my hands and moves from there. In this case, the light originated in my heart and was blue-white as it moved throughout my body in rapidly squiggling lines.
During the interim teaching between the first and second waves of the class, Tammy reminded us of the “rules” in a 5Rhythms room. She glancingly mentioned the “no talking” rule, and went on to elaborate that “no talking” also implies “no texting.” She explained that when we come to practice, we give ourselves a rest from all of the spinning activity of speech, and commit to spending two hours just being embodied. “We come in here,” she explained as she pointed to her heart and drew the gesture down her thorax, with a halting, emphatic forward bow.
Before I did my first silent mediation retreat, silence frightened me. My partner at the time would frequently go into a phase of resentful silence before some kind of explosion, so I would fill the space between us with small talk in an attempt to force things to be ok. I would say that my lifestyle at the time was anything but silent, as well. On retreat, I took on the idea that embracing silence for a period of time is a gift for yourself—a chance to take a break from dispersing yourself and spinning your wheels in constant relation to others. I came to love the early morning vespers—when the filled meditation hall would slowly begin to glow with the pink light of dawn. Within two days, I settled into silent, textured bliss.
Tammy mentioned that not many of us relate easily with Stillness—no great surprise given our cultural tendencies. I connected this idea to working with discomfort, with silence, and with taking a break from communicating with words for the brief duration of class.
Building on the teaching of comfort/discomfort, Tammy asked us to share our favorite rhythm. My hand went up quickly, and I said, “Chaos” with enthusiasm. Immediately after, I equivocated inside my own head, thinking of a long period in the beginning of my 5Rhythms experiences when I felt very connected to Staccato, and of another long period when I engaged in a deep exploration of Stillness. I thought, too, of one class Jilsarah taught on a Spring Solstice when I briefly entertained the idea that I might secretly have a Lyrical nature.
Tammy had us create a dance with everyone simultaneously in the rhythm we indicated as our preferred rhythm. I found that it was difficult to for me to stay in Chaos. Not surprisingly, my experience of Chaos went a bit flat in the second wave, as well. Identifying strongly with anything can be dangerous, I think. The last thing I want to do is trick myself into performing to support how I see myself.
Toward the end of the second wave, I danced with one man who I rarely partner with. We created a lilting, playful ring with baby steps and tiny jumps, backing away from each other eventually with deep bows and beaming smiles.
On this Winter Solstice, I find myself thankful for silence, the ground of all sound; and thankful, too, for darkness, the ground of all light.
December 21, 2014, NYC
by meghanleborious | Dec 18, 2014 | Notes on Practice
This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and are not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher.
Somehow on Friday I managed to arrive a little late to Tammy’s Night Waves class, although I arrived in front of the Joffrey building thirty minutes before the start of class. I would not say that I am chronically late, but I do note a pattern. Class nearly always begins with the rhythm of Flowing—the rhythm that is the most opposite to how I see myself. I have written extensively about how important and challenging the teachings of Flowing have been to me; and wonder if this might not have something to do with my occasional late entrances.
Tammy had several beautiful teaching points. One was to note that there is often a particular rhythm that people distance themselves from. This could show up as just not being into it, stopping movement completely, telling yourself a story about how misguided everyone else is and how on point you are, literally leaving the room (or, perhaps in my case, showing up just a bit late, leaning the tiniest bit away from the teacher of Flowing.)
I reflected on a period lasting a year or more when I noticed that I would go wild with the joy of Chaos, then, the moment the music transitioned us into Lyrical, instead of carrying that joy into levity, I would panic. For months, I could not resist going to check my phone, certain there had been some sort of emergency with my small son. I knew it was just a function of my triggered mind, but I had to go through with checking nonetheless. It was as though the kind of joy that arises for me during Lyrical was too much–harder to face, for example, than grief, guilt or aggression.
On Friday, the room seemed emptier than usual. I wandered for some time before I found a spot to sink down temporary roots to unfurl and stretch. Tammy began the wave subtlely, suggesting that we focus on different parts of the body, leading me to a contemplative, interior mood.
I’ve been reading a book called “Mindset” by a renowned educational psychologist. The researcher’s position is that most people align with either a “fixed” or a “growth” mindset. People with a fixed mindset tend to believe that you are born with certain abilities that inevitably express as talent. People with a growth mindset tend to believe that you are born with a range of capacities and that hard work and the ability to incorporate feedback are the keys to success. The interesting thing (and important for my own insight) is that even seeing yourself as smart, competent, creative and capable can be problematic. In this case, research shows that people will defend their smartness, creativeness or capableness—even shying away from working hard because hard work might somehow disprove their inherent talent, especially if they were to work hard and fail.
People with a growth mindset tend to see failure as a challenge, or as information they can use to grow. This brings me to Tammy’s remarks about people who check out—or even literally leave the room—during a particular rhythm. The growth-minded amongst us are willing to hang with discomfort and challenge, and are willing to at least try to stay in the room even when all our sensors tell us to run screaming. It seems like the rhythms that are least comfortable might offer the greatest possibilities for challenge and growth.
As has been true lately, I found all kinds of new ways to move. In Chaos, there was a marching, driving, military song. Tammy made a suggestion about moving with resistance. I balled my fists, drew my elbows back taut, and marched away—then released again into boundless, unrestrained Chaos.
As the first wave ended I found myself in a shamanic-like trance. Tammy said something about experiencing multi-dimensional breath. I first took this to mean space in all directions, and expanded the ways I was moving to include all possible heights and orientations. Then, I took it to mean all times and spaces that have existed, moving into different territory entirely. During the period of Stillness, I experienced compelling visions.
The fixed mindset/growth mindset information, along with Tammy’s suggestion about staying with it even when you want to check out, led me to think about how I, myself, have been affected by fixed mindset. As a child, I could sense two things about myself. The first is that I had an iron-hard core of strength that ran right through the middle of me. All I had to do was pause and turn inward to sense it. The second is that I was smart. I grew up believing I was smart (I can even remember the moment it first formed as a construct), and being told that I was smart all the time by well-meaning parents, teachers and relatives.
When I was 7 or 8 my Dad was slightly contemptuous when he believed I mispronounced a word. Around the same time, my uncle told me my favorite author, Stephen King, was “a fountain of trash literature.” I took both of these incidents as an affront to my smartness and began to set up architecture to support my vision of myself.
As I was considering the idea of fixed mindset, I also thought about all the energy I wasted wondering if I was a “good” artist. It wasn’t until after I had my son (and no longer had time to waste on neurotic internal dialogues) that I realized the question is completely un-important. Since I don’t believe there is any inherent meaning or any inherent self, there is no point whatsoever in considering this question. What matters more is making, process, progress, challenge and growth.
I went through a period when I realized that I was actually quite arrogant, and that I had developed kind of false meekness in an attempt to hide the arrogance. I had no choice but to express the arrogance for a time, in an effort to find some kind of authenticity. After a recent conflict with my son’s father, my mother told me that I can be kind of “rigid, sometimes” when it comes to things that concern my small son. She also told me it can come across as haughty. Ouch. The same week, I asked my boss to mediate a dispute with a colleague (hoping she would take my side); and she told me if I wanted to make any real progress—right or wrong—I would have to find some humility (implying, therefore, that she thought I lacked humility, at least in this instance). Ouch.
When I get similar feedback from more than one source, I have to at least entertain it as a serious possibility. Do I lack humility? Have I developed a kind of arrogance, perhaps to defend my self-perception as smart? OUCH. (Did I just write that?)
Thankfully, I am willing, even when I want to disconnect from the rhythm at hand, to at least stay in the room. Through practice (both 5Rhythms and in a meditation tradition) I have attempted to root out what the educational psychologist calls “fixed mindset,” yet I keep finding hidden reserves that surprise me.
On Friday, I danced with a friend I love to dance with and was sad when our dance dissolved. One of the last songs of the wave kept switching back and forth between a driving chaos track and a bounding Irish jig and I found myself in every different part of the room, moving quickly through both high and low spaces.
Often writing about my experience of 5Rhythms practice leads me to cathartic insight, poetic awareness or profound gratitude. Sometimes it ties itself into a neat bow by the last paragraph. On this occasion, it gives me more information to consider as I go about making my life, and, hopefully, to use to inform my practice both on and off the dance floor.
December 14, 2014, NYC
by meghanleborious | Dec 9, 2014 | Notes on Practice
This blog consists of my own subjective experiences on the 5Rhythms® dancing path, and are not sanctioned by any 5Rhythms® organization or teacher.
I didn’t think that I would be able to dance last night, but a babysitter came through at the last moment. I was relieved. A week like this should not go un-danced, and I doubted I would be able to make it to another class before next Friday’s. I arrived 15 minutes late and stepped into a room already in the thick of Staccato.
There is a scene in the 2007 film The Great Debaters that I find very moving. The film is a true story about a debate team from an all-black college. Set in 1935, the team surmounts incredible obstacles, wins again and again, and goes on to challenge Harvard’s debate team. In a debate with a white college about whether black students should be admitted to the state’s colleges, the character played by Jurnee Smollett-Bell responds to the opposing team’s position that American society is not yet ready for blacks to attend all-white colleges, and concludes her team’s argument with the impassioned assertion,
“Would you kindly tell me when is that day going to come? Is going to come tomorrow? Is it going to come next week? In a hundred years? Never? No! The time for justice, the time for freedom, and the time for equality is always, is always, right now!”
In the last year, I have written extensively about the rhythm of Flowing. Flowing is the least intuitive of the five rhythms for me, and as such has offered me endless teachings. The idea that everything around us in dynamic, constant flux is, in my mind, the first level of Flowing. Next, I connect with the idea that, despite the reality of constant change and movement, there is a ground, and we can find a way to relate to ground that can steady us through the wildest of circumstances. On another level, I have become empowered to watch for the empty spaces that open up even in a crowded room and move into them, rather than wait opaquely for space to open its formal doors and declare me worthy first.
I have, historically, held myself in Flowing as long as possible, even after I feel the pull to move into Staccato. I do this mostly because I feel I have a responsibility to the people around me. If I really find my ground—know my feet on the earth and know my place on it—it is unlikely that I will hurt anyone, physically, emotionally or energetically.
Sometimes, however, there is nothing to do but take a great, bold stride right into the heart of Staccato. Sometimes you are called out on the spot to speak your truth with full conviction; and if you miss it, you may never get another chance. Maybe (god I hope so) just maybe, if you have danced and danced until the bottoms of your feet know their place no matter what is happening, when the time comes for Staccato, you will know how to step into it with the full force of passion whether you feel like you are ready for it or not.
I am telling all of this to myself, of course, because no doubt it is old news to all of you.
Stepping right into Staccato last night (since I had no choice) I found a low, powerful stance, and began to move around the room, paying attention to my feet at first, then shifting awareness to my hips, knees and shoulders.
For the last two years I have been teaching 10th grade. On Thursday, I facilitated a discussion about the decision not to indict the (white) cop who killed Eric Garner (a black man) with an illegal choke hold. One often-reserved 16-year-old shared, “When I’m walking, if I see a police officer, I take my hands out of my pockets and I put my hood down right away.” The refrain about being stopped, questioned and suspected went on and on as the students shared their thoughts. I learned that many of my students make sure they are home before dark because they are afraid the police might hassle them, find a reason to arrest, or even shoot to kill.
During Tammy’s class, I was distracted because I kept thinking about the discussion, and how I might further it in the coming week. It occurred to me that instead of thinking about the writing assignment I sent him home with, and thinking about how to bring the full manifestation of his unique, spectacular brilliance to the world, my student was forced to waste his emotional energy wondering if he would be unfairly targeted by the police and thinking about strategies to avoid being killed or arrested.
I exploded into Chaos the moment the music suggested it. If I had been born in another century, I would have been pronounced possessed. Chaos, rather than arriving as a tender release, retained its edges and its uncontainable power. I realized that I, like many, carry rage that has been triggered once again by the facts of the Eric Garner case.
I shared notable dances with two close friends, but when Stillness arose at the end of each wave, I found myself still distracted, trying to plan or understand or process the events of recent days.
December 6, 2014, NYC
