Dropping in.

Wednesday, April 26th 16 minutes

And so begins my daily practice of writing.  I am going to try and be disciplined about this practice. What has happened so far, what am I noticing? I am feeling my feet on the floor, my sitz bones on the chair and I am noticing my impulse to want to lean forward, and I am trying to be aware of this forward propelling through space and taking a moment to lean back, to find the back of my sitz bones to feel more of my pelvis on the chair, to let the back of my pelvis come to the chair in order to let the front of my body release more, that when I lean forward, the front of me, especially my hip flexors has to be over engaged. Over engaged, under engaged, what is the right amount of engagement - how does one teach students to be engaged? What does that look like? 

I know that in repertory and research the students are doing deep performative research, I can see that in their performance, I can see how each experience is different, that they are showing up in the work each time and in slightly new and different ways, I can see them finding ways of experimenting with performance. And I wonder if that is something I fostered or just the students I have in the room. I know that I have proposed constant experiments with the work, try this, try that, what if you thought about this, and perhaps it is that modeling, that paying attention to how they are performing the movements that has encouraged that level of commitment and engagement.  I am beginning to realize how invested I am in how movement is performed, how to speak through the body and that the repetitions of the movement is so important in figuring out what they are, in understanding their flavor, in understanding what movement can do to the body- how embodying these different physical textures and tones can actually shift my experience of the world, how it can shift my being in the world, how the work can literally take me places, into new territory, into new ways of functions, living, embodying, showing up.  I dance because it allows me to experience the world differently, to find out.  

Nowhere to go received a terrible review but somehow it didn’t bother me because I was confident in what the work was doing for me. That the work allowed me to transform, that the work took me to a different time and place and reality and I couldnt, didn’t want to, leave it.  And that I need that world, I need a space and time where I can mourn. I need a space and time where I can feel the weight and significance of this event in my life and my body, because the rest of my life doesn’t afford me that opportunity, I don’t have a place where I feel comfortable or able to express those parts of myself, I don’t have a time that is appropriate to mourn because life just keeps on going, it doesn’t stop, it doesn’t pause to allow you to recover, it just goes on.  And I have a habit of moving forward, of taking each step without looking back, of ignoring, of not processing, of throwing myself into the new, and dance provides me the space to slow down, to feel, to really feel deeply, to listen, where in our lives is their time for deep inner listening? and how is this inner listening charged in performance? 

I am working on my ability to drop in.  To any and all activities.  What does it feel like to be fully involved in every aspect of your life? What does it mean to be focused, tuned in, showing up in every task of your life? I learned how to drop in with dancing- while improvising and I am slowly zooming out now.  How can I apply this process, this state of being, this invovlement, this commitment, this state of flow to other aspects of my life? While bowling? Or while typing, I used to think that I need my physicality to get to that place, that in order for my whole self to be involved my whole self needed to be active but I am learning how to apply this process of showing up to other tasks and it is not sustainablele for a full day, this pin point focus is not possible to maintain but being in the place is satsfying, being in the place feels like play, it feels easy, comforting, calming, satisfying, it is a sense that I am here in the now rather than being distracted.

What does being distracted do?  When is being distracted healthy? Productive? Is it about being on task or is about how you are showing up in the task?

I took a long pause and it is becoming more difficult to sustain my writing- my body is starting to ache a bit, or perhaps  I am beginning to feel more connected to these parts, that I am bringing them into the whole and therefore I am beginning to hear them.  there is a difference right? Pain shows up because you are showing up, you are listening so things that have always been there are beginning to be heard. 

I am constantly wondering what do I have to offer- and I see that now but I don’t know how to write about it- I don’t know how to articulate it so that I can publish it.  and why publish? What is with this impulse to compose.  And that is the difference, I have had a lifetime habit of free writing, but now I am beginning to have an impulse to compose my writing, but I feel as though I don’t have the idea, I don’t know what to hold onto to compose.  ​​