Body dharma is a fierce practice. It is not for the timid or the lazy.
Attending to the body is not just cosmetic ministrations and ablutions. It is not just practices, classes or disciplines. It is not only poses or techniques. Because you can do all of that and still have never entered the body.
Movement is the body’s language and voice. Breath is the body’s anchor. Heart is the body’s center. When you invite the body to move – without judgement, without hurry, without direction – you have begun to practice body dharma.
Randee Fox sent me this link. Daniel Mollner is 47 years old and is making a film a week about being a dancer, something that he has only recently claimed. It is a brilliant, generous idea.
I have just started making solos again. My friend Ryder hosts an open mike at Cafe Helsinki in Hudson, NY. She said, “Why don’t you do something?” And I thought, “Yeah. Why not?”
I have not performed a solo for over ten years. Here is what happened: Over a period of twenty years, I lost my ability to move, even to walk. My hips were GONE. Everyone said, “But you are too young to have the surgery.” Really I wasn’t, but I liked that they thought so. By the end, I could not even walk across the street. I felt a terrible sense of shame. “I am a dancer. I cannot move.”
The other thing that happened was 9/11. Many of my artist friends were creatively derailed. Mute. Numb. It went on for many months, even years. I went into a creative deep-freeze that lasted about seven years. I felt ashamed. “I am an artist. I cannot make art .”
It was finally the horses that brought me back, and a persistent, wonderful image of making a dance with horses and an aerial dancer, the beautiful Paola Styron.
The one thing I know about body dharma is that it is not one thing. It is not a straight line. It is a meandering river with backwaters and tributaries and terrible, ferocious class 5 rapids that will leave you washed up and rinsed out way downriver. It is also the only place to be: in the water, between the banks, flowing.
Sharing my experience and passion in a way that helps and supports others is what I love. I am always thinking about new ways to do that.
Body dharma is about bringing our practice into physical form. It is rooting all of our experiences in the body and seeking a fully embodied creativity.
What it means to me is continually engaging the body in a spontaneous, authentic and improvisational way. Practicing body dharma means that we are listening to and feeling the body all the time, and weaving that awareness into our moment-by-moment experience. It is about listening at the cellular level. It also means that we allow the body to be a teacher, a guide, and understand that it is a reflection of the presence or absence of harmony and balance in our lives.
I will be exploring this theme more this week. In the meantime, I have just finished my new eBook, Breaking into Blossom. It contains ten chapters on bringing more vitality and improvisation into your life. You can order it here.
Ingrid Schatz in Pony Dances Photo: Jeffrey Anderson