Spot

When we turn in dance, we must “spot.”  That means to pick a spot on the wall that you keep your eyes glued to while you are turning.  Then you whip your head around immediately to find the spot again.  In this way you can turn many times without becoming dizzy and you can end up where you want.

If you focus your eyes all around the room as you turn, you will get dizzy and disoriented. 

 

The metaphor here is pretty simple -- what we focus on is what we experience – but sometimes we focus too much on what we think we desire, and when we end up there, we’re not really sure it’s where we wanted to be after all. 

Maybe you are the kind of person who can focus on a goal without limiting your expectations.  I really admire that.

I have not been able to expand my view of what I believe is possible for me to achieve.  Somehow I get stuck in the painfully familiar place of feeling “not good enough” and think it might be better not to focus on my goal at all.   I tend to make them smaller as time goes on, anyway, inadvertently limiting myself.  

Every now and then I think I should just let go and make an uncontrolled turn and see where I end up.  It’s not pretty.  And I can end up on my ass. 

However I know that there are certain things that I can focus on while I’m “turning” that are important to me and can be accomplished immediately.  Although they are simple, it’s easy to succumb to fear and forget my intention.  I guess that’s why it’s called a “practice.”

I can stay present in the moment and choose to do what brings me joy.  I can decide to trust my process and be open to every opportunity.  I can remember to be kind to myself and everyone else.  I can remember that love is all that matters. 

So I feel that if I can make these things my “spot,” then no matter how uncontrolled my turn is, I’ll end up in a place that’s probably pretty good.  And maybe even better than I could have imagined.

Have you found your spot?

Love Song

Once you are sick of a song -- or if you can’t remember why you first fell in love with it – you just don’t want to dance to it anymore.  If that music doesn’t inspire you to move, you start to feel as if your shoes were made of lead.  It’s hard to tread lightly or to even pick up your foot to go forward.

However, sometimes you can change your perception of the song.  You might hear a drum or sax thread in it that you really hadn’t noticed before.  Or you can perceive a depth in the music that at first you may not have appreciated.  You might try to do a new movement to an old song that makes it fresh again.  

You can’t force yourself to love a song.  There is a certain chemistry between you and the melody that’s ephemeral and not explainable.  Once you get tired of a song, if you can’t appreciate different things about it or re-capture your synchronicity, it is difficult to move to its beat.  If your movement supports the song and the song supports your movement, there is mutual reverence and love, so your appreciation can grow.  Repetition brings familiarity and familiarity can breed deeper understanding, love and respect.  

If you don’t listen to the music while you are dancing (or feel its beat) you will be either ahead of it or behind it—you will not be in sync.  This is like thinking about what you are going to say while the other person is trying to communicate – you just won’t really hear what he is saying.

Familiar songs can evoke deep emotions.  Listen to Louis Armstrong singing “What a Wonderful World.”  I defy you to be unemotional.

Old songs that we love go deep into our hearts.  We may forget to appreciate the songs we are familiar with, but the experience of hearing and appreciating them again, can renew us.  

Love never dies; it’s the only thing that’s real.  

It’s the same with relationships.  Sometimes it’s essential to go your own way, but it is also healing and inspirational to remember why you first fell in love – even if you’ve moved on.

Hear the Music

Sometimes when there is a new person in my class who is struggling with the choreography, I try to help her during the class from my place in the front.  One of two things often happens:  either I’m shouting “RIGHT foot, RIGHT foot….” and the person, very intent on the movement, is just not hearing me, or I (belatedly) realize I am indicating the WRONG foot and it’s a good thing she really wasn’t listening.

I try to deliver the “right” message.  Sometimes I’m not heard at all.  Other times, I’m wrong.  Whether I’m right or wrong, though, it feels really good to be heard. 

In life, as in dance, when I am understood, the validation goes both ways -- I feel validated and so do you.  We understand each other.

Often we don’t hear what another person is telling us.  Maybe it’s because we are focused on thinking about something else or maybe we are thinking about how we are going to retort, rather than really listening.  There’s also the chance that we don’t want to hear or simply can’t absorb what another is trying to communicate.

I remember this from the sitcom Malcolm in the Middle:  The youngest son, Dewey, has just seen a television ad about a toy he wants.  He asks his mom, Lois, if she’ll get it for him. 

Lois says, “No, sorry, Dewey.”  In his mind’s eye, Dewey sees Lois saying instead, “Hmmmmm.  I don’t know.  Ask me again.”

Dewey asks again.  This time Lois says, “I said no, Dewey.  It’s too expensive.”  What Dewey hears is, “Gee.  Maybe.  Ask me again.  Louder.”

And so on.

I remember being in a serious relationship that was stormy.  (I take equal responsibility for this.)  I wanted to convey to my partner that I wasn’t happy and that I didn’t want to live the way we were living.  I was trying to initiate change in the relationship.  It felt like I was banging my head on a brick wall over and over again.  I knew I was not being heard, but kept at it.  I got tired of hearing the sound of my own voice.  I’m sure he was, too, but I have a long fuse, so I stuck with this relationship. 

But then, tired of speaking just to move the air around, I turned a corner.  Once you turn that corner, you can’t go back.  You are just, profoundly, done.  

When all efforts brought the same results, finally, I had to leave and I said so. 

His reaction was, “What??!  You’re leaving me???? Why????”

Really? 

Why? 

Ask the neighbors.

We are only responsible for how and what message we send another.  We can’t take responsibility for how that person receives it.  

There’s a part of us that knows when a person is not receiving our communication and we want to take hold of that person and throttle him until he listens.  (I told you it was a stormy relationship.)  

But we can’t.  Or we can try, but that’s a whole lot of head-banging for nothing.

No matter how much you love another person, or how much chemistry there may be, when you can’t hear each other and then, further, believe what you’re hearing, there is a corner that will be turned.

Hearing each other -- really perceiving what is being communicated -- is what makes us peaceful and happy together.  Once we understand, there could still be problems to surmount, but the struggle is half over when we’ve really listened.

If you can truly hear the music, whether it’s just in your head or blaring from a speaker -- that’s when you can really dance.

Patronus

I was a student in a dance class in which the teacher did not encourage joy and self-expression, but instead created competition and feelings of inadequacy.  When I was in college I paid for a series of Modern dance classes, which wasn’t easy for me financially.  The teacher had us do a specific movement across the floor.  When I was done, she looked at me and said, “And you -- this isn’t a jazz class!”  Mortified, I left and never went back.   I didn’t have any confidence and that incident leeched out any that I might have had.  So, I lost the money.   I wanted to forget the whole thing.

 If you’ve read my blog, you know that I love the Harry Potter books.  I have to tell you that it’s hard for me to bring this up again.  I find it a little embarrassing, but here goes.

In the books there are creatures called Dementors who suck all the joy out of a person.  The way to guard against this creature is to create a Patronus, which is the embodiment of happy feelings and memories.  The Patronus chases away the Dementor.  If you can’t make a Patronus, then you are stuck with experiencing all the worst things stored in your memory. 

I was watching a dance reality show where young kids (tweens) are competing for a dance scholarship.  In theory, that is wonderful.

However, the main judge is very tough and unnecessarily harsh.  In interview after interview the young dancers said, with catatonic verve, “I’m not here to make friends.  I’m here to win.”  

It’s not that I’m against competition.  It’s truly a great achievement to train and excel.  But does it mean that you can’t be friendly?  Or that making friends somehow makes you less able to win?  Doesn’t that attitude crush the simple joy of expression right out of a person? 

 

Having something in common should be the basis of friendship – of encouraging and even learning and sharing with each other – whether it’s a passion for dance or for deep sea fishing.  . 

 

When I was in college, and I went to that Modern class, I did not have a Patronus.  My Patronus grew as I got older.  I danced because that was in my heart.  Whether I was good or bad at it, I loved it.   I kept my Patronus close to me as others told me I was crazy, and not very bright.  

If you dance what’s in your heart, that’s your Patronus.  Then the dance Dementors won’t be able to suck your soul.

 If you live from what’s in your heart, no one can make you feel bad about your choices.

What’s your Patronus?

Do-Over

When you do a dance performance, sometimes you can, of course, make a mistake.  Because it’s a performance, you can’t stop the music and begin again.  In the moment, there is no do-over.  You just have to go with it.  

When I participated in a group dance performance, choreographed by Luisa Tanno, she said if you make a mistake, just fully commit to it.  It happened that during the performance, blunders were made and we just put our energy into the movement and acted as if those errors were exactly what we meant to do -- and danced on.  The audience did not know there was anything amiss and, in fact, loved it.  Those mistakes actually looked really good.

When you make a mistake during a performance, just commit to it and make one of these two choices: get back on track when you can or just continue.  Either of these can work.

In life, we can make errors of judgment that we realize right in the moment of doing them.  We then have two choices: continue in the same vein or stop and admit a mistake has been made.  In our lives, we can stop the music and begin again. 

When I was growing up, the adults around me would never admit they had made a mistake.  Even when I knew that they were sorry, they could never say it.  It was almost as if children were not supposed to ever believe that elders could make errors in judgment.  I believe that was a 1950’s parenting thing, and pretty common.

However, continuing in those mistakes did not make them look good, despite what they thought.

We’ve all been in situations where we want to hold onto our point of view just because we committed to it, even when we hear that quiet voice in our heads telling us we are in error.  We don’t want to back down because we believe that somehow we will lose our power.

The truth is that there is no power in sticking to a position that we know in our heart is wrong.

In a performance, you can brazen out errors and they can be beautiful.  In life, brazening out misjudgments is not beautiful or even necessary.  Stopping the music and admitting a mistake lets us off the hook and lets everyone involved breathe a sigh of relief.

We all make mistakes, and do-overs can be the best way to do the right thing.