Reflections on the practicalities of opening joy and moving through inhibition in our dancing

1. When the teacher’s attention is such that dancers feel included, but not overly focussed upon or made to feel self-conscious, there is a culture of invitation, in which teaching and learning can more easily occur.  The teacher needs not to be operating out of a sense of ‘pass or fail’ with regard to themselves or others, but simply ‘being present with’, This means the teacher generally knows the dances well enough to dance AND have attention free for the circle.

2. The teacher has faith in the intentions and abilities of the dancers, such as to serve their willingness to learn and discover their dance, rather than compound any sense of inadequacy, difficulty or resistance. The teacher also has faith in themselves, in their sharing of dance and ability to communicate it.

3. The teacher can bring a critical perspective to the group or TO any members of the group without being critical OF them, within the focus This also invites and creates an unjudgemental atmosphere in which discernment and focus are valued, rather than merely focusing on steps as a 'problem to be solved'.

4. The teacher is essentially sharing and facilitating the joining in dance, through a selection of dances. The joy in the dance is not just getting the step right, but is being in the full flow and feeling of the dance such as to embody an example of the joy in dance as well as a proficiency of the step pattern. Teaching through the body reaches directly to the body of the dancer and operates whenever the dancer’s attention is not too bound up in themselves.

5. The joining is firstly the inner receptivity to the music and its clear embodiment, and the automatic or natural expression of that joining or connection is a joining in wholeness. This is open to meeting and being met in dances that have a social aspect as well as being relationally and spatially aware of the shape and space and synchronicity of the circle as a whole. It is not an attempt to be present so much as actually joining and abiding as part of, or one with, the presence or movement of life.

6. A culture of intimacy is that of uninhibited presence, which is not an affectation of closeness or any personal act or communication, but is the relaxed and open demeanour of sharing an experience by fully embracing it.

7. The teacher can remind, invite and practice with the dancers regarding weaning their attention from the teachers feet - or anyone else's feet.  Though this is down the list it is one of the habits that should not be encouraged or allowed to persist without reminders  and practice of finding the pattern in our own bodies and enjoying the freedom to take in the whole experience.

8. The permission to make mistakes while learning is not to say 'anything goes', for we are not without caring, but to put the focus into the joining and support the willingness for learning by not reinforcing fear, so as to be without anxiety. There are many creative ways to offer help to those who are either new or struggling, that invite a more connected approach than a head only approach.  Inviting the dancers to feel the music, the rhythm and the qualities of the dance as well as the sense of joining with others, works to counter the mentality that tends to withdraw into a private space and solve its problems 'all on its own' as if it WAS all on its own! As if to first BECOME worthy or valid in its own terms, rather than joining with what is already true.

9. The culture of the expression and communication of joy in dance is felt in the quality of our dancing presence, and in dances that have an outward or social aspect, in our spontaneous or uncontrived meeting in glance and smile. The quality of our touch also becomes energetically communicative and our clearer brighter perception of the moment is reflected in our presence.

10. Though there are step patterns to communicate and points of style, this is communicated to serve the expression of  the dancer from the inside-out rather than to join in or teach a formula to be intellectually understood and applied manually.  The safety to allow an inside-out expressing of felt spontaneity is also associated with a feeling of connection, kindness and gratitude.

11. The repeated temporary success of private unshared satisfactions of 'getting' a dance or overcoming a challenge, can pass muster as a a social enjoyment where dancers feel a sense of inclusion in an entertainment as a substitution for joining in joy. It isn't that this is wrong, but it is expressing an unreadiness or unwillingness to truly join with, enter in and be moved in the dance. It is so much less.

12. The willingness for, and inspiration in, an opening to love of life in music and dance, can not be forced. The teacher can learn to listen and feel for both the inspiration and the willingness to receive, in shared purpose of the group. Trusting ourself, is the key, because when we trust ourself, we communicate without coercion and find a free willingness in others to be or stay with us. An inspirational presence is one that draws from others what they may not know they have, or are. It is not the act of one will upon another, but is a joining in willingness to work and play.

13. Singing along with the music is not always desirable or appropriate, but, within the discernment of the moment it often is - and is also an expression of being moved and of uncovering a joined or shared joy. Singing and dancing, when true, are self revealing. Thus we may find we are inhibited in allowing their true expression. To be open to a release of inhibition is to be allowing the movement of our being to more fully express.

14. The way of self integration, expression and realisation is primarily one of willingness to identify or notice blocks or fears within oneself and to bring curiosity and willingness in finding a freer expression instead of a limiting factor. The focus is never on the blocks as they present themselves, but on the joy or movement of life in which the blocks will become discernible. Our mentality will show itself in our dancing; anxiety will contract the circle and hold back on our aspiration. Our attention will be withdrawn into a defensive mode and our eyes inward or locked upon the teacher's demonstration, with all else tending to be forgotten or excluded from awareness.

15. Living out from a presumption of a joined integrity of being is not a way to get a handle on others or the world in order to make it more 'loving', but is an expression of loving that is receptive and discerning enough to find creative opportunity in what otherwise seems a block or limitation. In this sense the teacher is also the learner, in terms of discerning and moving through limitation.

16. The willingness to learn, to be receptive in trust and clear in expression, is a fundamental honesty of being; of not trying to be more or other than one is - nor pretending to be less. Though all the facets illuminated 1-15 are examples of what is present in a joining in dancing as an expression of an integrity or unity of being, they are not a 'to do' list but illuminate or reflect a perspective that opens as we shift from thinking and controlling, into feeling and trusting; into a degree of mastery of the form. The essential realisation of 'trying to dance' is of getting in one's own way - and the essential practice is therefore of releasing or relaxing within a greater trust and awareness.

17. The experience of personal chaos, at some level is an 'initiatory' portal that cannot be sidestepped, but only passed through. The chaos of trying to understand in advance and then apply that understanding is  one of struggling always to maintain control and to feel invalidated when one cannot. Yet the willingness to abide with the music, the group and oneself included, is a pathway through to a shift in realisation - where 'the music tells us where we are, or the rhythm is felt that before was not, or the patterns and timings are found in the body in a way that no longer requires manual imposition.

18. A ‘control mentality’ has an aspect of demand, necessity or compulsion in it, and it is never wise to fight it - for that feeds it's sense of threat and of needing to control. To join with the worth of another will use whatever is helpful as a stepping stone in uncovering that worth, but will not be held hostage by it, because one remains in the purpose of sharing worth - and in our case, the joy of the dance.

19. As teachers, our personal responsibility is in keeping open to inspiration and on track in conscious purpose. If we 'lose the signal of our calling', we will see this reflected in the circumstances of our practice. Such feedback is never a validation of blame or failure of self, but is the call to release the thinking or attitudes that undermine or substitute for our true desire, and making a space or pause in which the movement that inspires us be felt anew. It may be that we pass through difficult personal experience in the course of a desire to share what we love, but within all of this is an essential simplicity that is exactly this; we love to dance and to share in dance, and this movement in our lives is part of our being in the world and sharing life. If we do not bring our presence into the world, it will be lacking for us - AND for those in our lives.

20. The music that moves is a living metaphor for our Spirit - in that the energies of life that are embodied express a spectrum of our humanity - of what it is to be truly human, as tangible felt qualities to our whole body-mind. In a society that has become imbalanced in the thinking or rational aspect, our music and dance offers a wholing, where we can 'let ourselves out from being led by our head' in the sense of struggle and stress management - into a present and felt wholeness of being. This is not an escape in to a private temporary alternative state but a reconnection and renewal in our true being.

21. The attempt to get a control, or handle of understanding - along with the sense of successful achievement in so doing, can make us more sophisticated in our presentations of ourself (to both ourselves and to others), but this is always at the cost of losing the immediacy and the inspiration or healing power of joining in dance.
If we allow our social persona to substitute for a willingness to join in dance, we become judgemental, opinionated, and defensive, such as to make and take our identification from the externals or forms of dances or music, rather than sharing in their living qualities. This also can lead to substituting mutually agreed meanings for living qualities - which tends to use dances that are considered powerful in their presence, as ways to leverage or bolster the dance experience, instead of as opportunity of a deeper receptivity.

22. In one way or another, the ‘ego’ is always tending to arise as a facet of consciousness and habit. This is not ‘bad’, but is a mistaken and self-defeating identification. Trying to grasp and keep and protect the living quality of our dancing, is something we will discover we are - in one way or another attempting, whenever we find ourselves in struggle or conflict. This is referred to above as an attempt to control our experience all by ourself. Wherever this is encountered in ourselves or with others, is an opportunity to be curious as to what is truly present, because there is another perspective available than that of opposition and conflict. A perspective in which we can freely and fully rejoin the Dance.

23. Learning dry theory without practice is a sort of blindness. To have a living sense of what we are learning before and preferably during the process of learning, reaches to a wholeness - where defining step patterns verbally specifically demands the head. The cultural bias toward the head is of a scientific impersonal non participance, in which we our FELT being is denied or subjugated to the demands of an external ‘reality’, associated with judgement. Reclaiming our wholeness is reclaiming the languages of expression of all levels of our being.

24. In the freedom to use all aspects of our being we may find freer, more joyful and more effective ways of sharing the dance, as our own learning unfolds. When we limit our learning, we limit our teaching. Surely, Life Itself is the Teacher, and when we move out from our self-preoccupations, we notice more of what is here to be appreciated and shared.