The idea of joybody arose from a lifetime of painbody

It’s been rainy here after many weeks of drought, and suddenly, my body is one big bag of aches. Dry weather is best (cold or warm/hot) and cold wet is the worst.

I’ve been thinking about this blog for some time, but the idea of trying to write out all the ways my body is a literal pain was just overwhelming.

I won’t be including the ways my brain causes me pain. Most of you know at least a bit about my history of depression and anxiety and there’s some of that in my about me. (And I also won’t be including anything here about a couple of chronic issues, including lifelong migraine.)

And I wanted to write about my chronic pain issues so that it makes more sense when I write about the idea of joybody.

My Original PainBody

When you live with pain from a young age, you don’t notice that you live with pain. It’s just always there. It’s the water you swim in.

Even just a couple of years ago, I saw a meme about a doctor asking a patient where their pain level was and the patient said it was about a four… you know… normal. And the doc said, well, no pain is what’s normal.

WHAT?!

I remember from a very early age waking up and pressing all of my fingers into the wall to “wake them.” They were stiff from the get go. As was a lot of my body.

There were times when getting out of a chair, it would take me a few steps to feel like my legs were “ready.” (This still happens.)

And don’t even get me started on my low back. Or my shoulders which started getting bursitis in my early teens. (I now know what it was. Then I wouldn’t have had that word and I wouldn’t have even complained. It just was what it was.)

The Weirds of My Body

I’m pretty sure I could get a fibromyalgia diagnosis. My pain points are that widespread.

But here are a collection of things that are actually wrong with my body. (And if you’ve been in class with me, you know I say, “I’ve never seen your actual skeleton so I don’t know your body enough to tell you what you can or should/not do.”

Well, I’ve seen plenty of my skeleton:

• I have congenital hip dysplasia on my left side. As a dancer, I used this for extreme flexibility tricks. Someone should have told me to stop. (This hip dysplasia will come up later in a significant way.)

• My right tibia is twisted inward.

• Which makes my right knee only point forward if my right foot is out a bit.

• The last vertebra on my right side overgrew and connect to the top of my pelvis.

• And all of my joints are hypermobile. Again, this was something that dance took advantage of and praised… oy…

Stepping on Nails

I lived with all of this pretty quietly. And it got worse over time as I got depressed and moved less and less. It got so bad that…

I was coming down the stairs in my house and I took a step and was 100% convinced I had stepped on a nail. I was convinced that when I looked down, I would see TONS OF BLOOD. But of course, that wasn’t what had happened. From this moment for the next couple of years, it would just randomly happen and I would spend too much time on the couch. I started to actually look into canes. In my mid 30s.

It would also get so bad that I would do the stairs on my butt… yep.

I’ve told this story a million times but in my late 30s, I met a PT at a party. I was talking a lot about my love of martial arts films, and she said, “Do you want to do martial arts?” And I said, “OH! I can’t… not with my hip!” And she said, “Yeah… I’ve been watching how you walk… I could fix that…”

I went to Cleveland to see her for three hours and it cost more money than I had and was worth ten times as much.

She taught me how to access my core while walking. I walked over and over again, slowly, around the small park in my neighborhood to retrain my body. It worked.

Until… it all started up again…

The Magical Doc

By this time, I was dancing many hours a day every day and teaching what would become Peony Somatic Dance. So when it started to happen again, I was devastated. I asked around and found a musculoskeletal doc.

And finally! He figured out my hip dysplasia was some of the worst he’d ever seen and that it was shortening my psoas muscles. He said he usually only saw it that bad in ultra runner types and that dancers usually had the opposite problem but thanks to my skeleton… again, ugh.

He believed that once I was armed with the diagnosis that I could figure out what to do. And I did. And I did the tings I needed to do every single day, multiple times a day, and if it even feels a teensy bit like that to this day, I go right back to those basics.

And finally tennis

I still have pain. I have days and weeks and months where I’m never pain free but I’m not in the kind of pain I used to be because of how much I move.

The more I move, the more I can move and the better my body and mind feel. There’s no stopping. (Except when there is and then the whole depression cycle starts up again.)

One thing, though, that I’d been avoiding for all these years was tennis.

I was afraid of getting hurt, because if I’m hurt and can’t dance, well, I’m screwed.

But after two frozen shoulders, I said, FUCK IT! I LOVE TENNIS! (And have since I was quite small.)

And that has been everything. It was the final key I needed for this body puzzle. I am as in love with tennis as I have ever been with dance, and it pushes me in ways that dance does not.

When I’m playing tennis, it is really clear to me that this body would have been so much happier in this world if I had not used my intellect as an escape pod from my life. My life would have been completely different if I had taken my physicality this seriously from the get go but alas… I am taking it seriously now and that matters.

My Point

I know pain. I know chronic pain. And I cannot overemphasize how much MORE important it is for those of us who suffer to find ways to move that are joyful.

We’ve been living, most likely, in a sort of fearful relationship with our body, which then affects our mind and the rest of our lives.

Gently and with patience we can come out of that fear relationship through play. Once we navigate through these early stages, we can start doing more challenging things.

But we must consciously take on this task. These choices we make right now will affect how we age.

I want to be one of those 90 somethings that is still playing tennis multiple times a week and of course creating dance. How about you?

Call for ideas

I’m going to start using my YouTube channel to create weekly movement challenges, and each month will have a different main theme. For example, September will be all about balance. And of course, I’ll be bringing my unique blend of science and woo and dance to each topic.

What would you love to see in this series? What things are creating challenges for you lately?

If you have never responded to one of these blogs, maybe now is the time. ((smile)) Let me know what you need and want.

The world has me feeling quiet

From a class I just taught at the Columbus Museum of Art. The joy in this felt right in a post about Andrea.

Words come less easily lately. I am stunned into silence by this world we’re living in. My heart aches but that is often covered over by so much red hot anger that I forget how much it is actually my softness that is suffering.

I will try to get back to writing more regularly because I have lists and lists of things I want to put words to. And I know if I write about what really matters to me that over time more words will come…

For now, I am, like so many on this planet, grieving the loss of poet Andrea Gibson. They were a gift to us.

And this … the last line especially… feels like something everyone should read:

“My love, I was so wrong. Dying is the opposite of leaving. When I left my body, I did not go away. That portal of light was not a portal to elsewhere, but a portal to here. I am more here than I ever was before. I am more with you than I ever could have imagined. So close you look past me when wondering where I am. It’s Ok. I know that to be human is to be farsighted. But feel me now, walking the chambers of your heart, pressing my palms to the soft walls of your living.”

— Andrea Gibson

Peony Somatic Dance Columbus Intensive: Butoh, Haiku, & Origami

This will be a journey into the self and community via movement, writing, and art. No dance or movement experience of any kind is needed. Come as you are. This will be my second intensive offering at my home studio here in Columbus, Ohio at Heartfelt Yoga. (And we’re in the heart of all things arts and food and there are so many options for places to stay if you’re coming from out of town.)

The Basics

Dates: Friday, August 1st through Sunday August 3rd

Times:
Friday: 6 PM to 8 PM
Saturday: 10 AM to 6 PM (with one hour for you to get some lunch)
Sunday: 10 AM to 2 PM (with just a snack break)

And don’t worry: You won’t be sweating your butt off for all of those hours. There will be a good blend of moving and not moving based explorations.

Cost: $299

GO HERE TO REGISTER

What you should bring

Your beautiful self
Comfortable clothing for moving and layering
A favorite blanket (or use one of the studio’s)
You do NOT need a yoga mat
Pen and journal
Water bottle
Snacks
Anything like a favorite crystal, plushie, mala, statue that will support your time with us

What is this all about?

Butoh is one of the fundamental pillars of Peony Somatic Dance, and during this intensive, we’ll be diving into it much more deeply than we can during a once a week class. We’ll also be playing with and blending in the principles of haiku and origami to explore a more expansive vocabulary to support the body and its expressions.

Butoh

Butoh is as vast as the universe in terms of approaches, and for every practitioner and for every choreographer of Butoh, there is a unique Butoh. (It’s almost impossible not to sound like some koan spewing zen monk when you speak of Butoh.)

For a little taste, here are some quotes:

“Butoh belongs both to life and death. It is a realization of the distance between a human being and the unknown. It also represents man’s struggle to overcome the distance between himself and the material world. Butoh dancers bodies are like a cup filled to overflowing, one which cannot take one more drop of liquid- the body enters into a perfect state of balance.” (Ushio Amagatsu)

“Movement alone does not become dance — the requirement for the dance is that one feeds such things as one’s own dreams, memories, and desire into the movement.” (Masaki Iwana)

"Butoh was conceived as an art that would continue to rebel, even to rebel against itself… it was conceived as an art that would not become an institutionalized form, but rather remain alive and vital, continuously reinvented by innovators inspired by it." (Maureen Fleming) (She is my main mentor in Butoh)

HAIKU

A lot of what is presented as haiku in the world is just short poetry. There are some aspects of haiku that many are missing and that are crucial.

Side story: for many seasons, I kept a haiku journal, writing every single day, and it was one of the key components for me of recovering from life threatening depression.

We will be using haiku to create movement, to feed ideas and dreams into our bodies, and we will be creating some original haiku.

Origami

We will play with origami in order to understand the idea of folding and refolding and unfolding in our own bodies. We’ll apply that individually in our movement but also in pairs and in the larger group.

If you have any questions about the workshop, please get in touch with me!

I don't remember the last time...

… I was interviewed for a podcast. (A side note: I would LOVE to do more of this… so if you know anyone looking for guests, please let me know.)

Brandi and I have been connected for a long time so it made this interview feel like two good friends getting together for coffee (or a Hello Kitty bottle full of water as was my case). And when I say a long time, I mean a long time… like well over the 15 year mark.

We were both part of the early blogging community (and I miss those days, for sure).

Brandi is starting this podcast specifically to talk to other women about being artists/creators in mid life. I was 100% on board the second she said that.

You can find more about her and her own art on her website.

And here’s our time together. Remember that you can speed up playback so you cut the time down quite a bit.

A little teaser:

Little bits of somatic magic to help with rage, anxiety, and fear

I’ve not been writing as much. I got a stupid virus, but that was really just a small part of it all. The world right now makes me so sad and angry that I lose words. And I know I’m not alone.

(A quick aside: if you are having issues with dissociation and/or you are really in need of community right now, we’re starting a new four week session next week (the week of June 23rd). If you’ve not been in a class in a while, maybe now is the time to do one? Registration for both Peony Somatic Dance and Quickie)

Back to the current situation… I wrote this in the Circle of Trees but thought it was worth sharing elsewhere:

I was an RA at Penn State when Bush Sr. started a significant chunk of what we're still basically mired in in the middle east (which goes back further, of course, but I just mean the current clusterfuck).

We had to call all the students together so a counselor could speak to them. Some of them had siblings, parents, boy/girlfriends who were being sent over. It was intense. There was a lot of crying.

I remember the feelings of that time. The constant pit in my stomach. The constant anger. The frustration that we could be dragged through things with no agency of our own.

And then the utter surreality of walking around that big beautiful (safe) campus and going to classes and talking about literature from another time.

And so here we are.

Again.

Waiting. With no real agency. We can protest and call our senators but there's a madman in the White House and what he does in the next 24 to 48 hours... for right now, he has power over all of us...

I just watched a video of him saying he wouldn't call Walz because why would I (he said), Walz, you know, appointed that guy to a ... why would I call, what would I say? (And some disparaging things about Walz himself, of course, but NOTHING BAD ABOUT THE GUNMAN.)

HE IS NOT HUMAN. And he only sees some of us as human. (As in only the sycophants around him.)

Today I'm freaking out. I have work to do and I feel like I'm walking and typing through molasses. And I keep thinking about people who voted for this and thinking all of this is what?!?! GOOD????

If you're freaking out today or if you're anxiously checking in with things... I am too.

Hold a cat. Drink some coffee/tea. Eat a piece of chocolate. Check on your flowers. Listen to something beautiful.

Or do one or more of the somatic methods in that image I shared.

And don’t hesitate to reach out if you need anything.

Save the date: another in-person intensive this August

Last fall, I did my first in person workshop in far too long, and it was wonderful. I got to meet in 3D some beautiful humans I’ve only known through zoom classes. We got to dive deeply into Peony Somatic Dance. And we were able to instantly build safe community where each person’s unique movement art could emerge and be witnessed. Again, it was wonderful.

And of course, it left me wanting more. This time we’ll be focusing specifically on the foundational practices of Peony Somatic Dance that come from my study of Butoh. But we’ll also be adding in other Japanese arts to compliment that, including Haiku and Origami? Why these?

Haiku has been a vital part of my mental health practices over the last couple of decades. It actually came into my life before I started to dance again! I used to write haiku every single day to help me focus on the world outside myself. (And I take this seriously. We’ll be talking about why, for example, haiku are not traditionally supposed to have any sense of I/me in them.)

Origami is another of the Japanese arts that can teach us something about movement, space, and simplicity. It feels like a perfect match for our work.

So, yeah… save the date. If you’re coming from out of town, maybe start looking for places to stay. There are a lot of wonderful spots within walking distance of the studio, which is here. And if you’ve never done so, read about Peony Somatic Dance (and feel free to send me any questions you might have.)

When early chronic dieting has broken your eating intuition

Intuitive eating is great if you can actually feel when you’re hungry and feel when you’ve had enough. But those mechanisms aren’t always that clear cut or working for a wide variety of reasons, not the least of which is that we’re all different. Our brains are all different. Our reactions to food are all different.

And our eating backgrounds are all different.

If you were a girl growing up in the 1980s, you were likely constantly being put on diets. And that very much damages your relationship to food and your body.

Even when I was a size zero I was not small enough.

Only when I started to dance again in my 40s did my relationship to food and body finally become neutral, which I think is actually the healthiest relationship you can have to those things.

But over the last few years, as depression has eaten away at my healthy mindsets, it has also brought up old patterns around food and body.

And because I can’t simply intuit about food, I end up eating things that do not feel good in my body and I end up eating too much — to the point of discomfort.

Something had to change. Body and mind are one and I know from experience that to get my body back to more comfortable and more active is to then heal my mind.

So I’ve started to track my food again because of that lack of intuition.

And whoa… it’s freaking surprising.

First, I don’t ever think of myself as an emotional eater. As a matter of fact, if I’m super stressed I don’t eat.

But… I am a bored eater. I am a depressed eater.

I am constantly thinking about what food I could be putting into my mouth.

Second, the amount of food that I thought was necessary to make me feel full was way off. I knew this, as I said, because I was uncomfortable, but the amount I needed to feel full and comfortable was a lot different than I anticipated.

(I’m using this macro counter and a food scale. TO BE CLEAR: NOT to deprive myself but to recalibrate my understanding of food.)

So this is part of my journey right now. And if you need to talk about it, you can always email me or ask to be added to my group on Facebook.

And if you need to move more, I start a new 4 week session of Stim Yoga and Peony Somatic Dance online classes next week.