We are civilized, and we take our seats––a lot. Many of us are compensating for all this sitting by working out. We task our bodies to exercise, all in the quest for balance and fitness. It’s a noble quest, yet…what is our relationship with our embodied selves? I had the great fortune to study SynergyDance, also known as “Dance as a Healing Art” with founder Charmaine Lee, after a stint overseas where I had taken leave of my senses––no, my roots in dance, to be a social worker.
Charmaine’s Class
"Do you want to be mechanical, or move with spirit?"
she shouted across the DC studio all the way
from South Africa where outspoken against
the machinery of Apartheid too soon too loud
once exiled she chooses this motherland of dance.
In her classes, the interplay of yoga and cultural dance with the five elements of earth, air, fire, water, and ether (potential) allowed for new pathways to distribute vital energy. This was not about being a better dancer or more fit, but being open, fluid, and challenged to move in ways contrary to habit. People were having a fabulous time, and I had never seen so much joy in one room from people of all strata of society––writers, mothers, drummers, chefs, flight attendants, therapists, business owners––dancing. And this was not the sixties. It was the nineties, in the capital of the U.S., the seat of government.
Back to “seat”, have your shoulders been hunched for a while? Has your breath been shallow? Please take a moment to lean back and stretch your arms (which also expands your chest), circle your wrists, shake your hands, tilt your head to one side and the other, tune in to sensation. We become numb in our relationship to the body for the sake of functioning, to be efficient as well as productive. But we aren’t machines. Watching Aboriginal dance in Australia (during my travels in 2014) is a vivid reminder.
You don’t have to be in the studio or gym to pay attention to what is happening in your body and to resource your self. Your well-being is, well, being. The tendency is to compartmentalize: to take care of ourselves at certain times in certain settings, and at other times to be neglectful. We are at risk of losing our sensual, essential human nature––which is what connects us as a species.
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