move you
I use these spots as a beginning understanding of locating self and helping the wee dancer to create a sense of safety and home in our room. She has a place here. This is the beginning of many steps in being comfortable in one’s own body, no matter where she is. I create elaborate explorations of moving wide into the room, stretching the edges of levels, speed and textures with always the return to the self-spot. This gives our dancing practice breath, and the confidence that we can always go far and still find our way home.
This brings attention to one’s own hands and feet and the way they are connected to our desire, our hearts. These amazing extensors help seek, stretch and and lean out into the world, and this comes back in to nourish and feed so that we can reach back out again. This is the natural order of you. Your breath leads you here expanding, reaching and then contracting, collecting and replenishing. In and out, out and in. It’s innate.
The baby and the young child know this inherently. They are all insatiable hands and feet, wants and desires- food, touching, curiosity spilling and experiencing, with big naps and retreats into laps, and into bed. You know this too. However as we grow older our reach and contract can become less physical, duller, more intellectual. I daresay each time we reach for our phone we have outsourced the physical path of being here. This is important.
In the sea of everything that is out there that will make you better, smarter, faster, thinner, muscular, younger, more talented, more connected, more in love…without the sense of you, it’s not as clear. What do you want to do? If you don’t know the feel of you, how will you know what you want? I have seen exquisite dancers, leaders, coaches, yogi’s, teachers, mothers, fathers, friends and colleagues with stunning works and voices. However what is missing in them is the clarity of reach and retreat kinesthetically sure in their bodies.
A few years ago I had treatment with an Ilan Lev Practitioner, Tyler Phillips. After a huge shake and swirl, moving my hands and feet through me, he rested my hand upon my heart and said, “this is you.” The moment so simple and true, yet profoundly me. This had a huge effect, not just in me but in what I want to do in the world. It felt like a coach cleaning the dirt off my knees saying, here you are, on your feet and get back out there. Sometimes we need a good shake to just remind you of you.
Anyway, there are lots of ways to work here at Moovment House. Wander in, let’s move you
warmly,
Mary Lynn
