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.
I’ve written about a huge insight I had about the importance of positive self talk while I was on the tennis court, but believe it or not, I think this thing I realized just the other day while playing is even more significant.
Craig and I were playing for only about ten minutes and I felt completely and utterly frustrated and defeated. To the point of almost crying. I told him I did not understand how I could play so well for days and days of practice and then suddenly look like I had barely ever picked up a racket (probably an exaggeration but not by as much as I would like).
He knew not to say a lot — or really anything. Platitudes can make me just melt down, and anything resembling even decent advice when I’m in that mindset, well, it just makes things worse. He knows I have to work it out myself.
I tried the positive self talk but it wasn’t helping as much this time. A little but it wasn’t turning my game around.
Then I remembered seeing something about watching only the ball.
You might think, Christine! Weren’t you watching the ball!?!?!?
And duh. Yes, of course I was, but “watch only the ball” is actually different.
I keep my eye on the ball. I’ve been taught that since I was little. Basic. But I realized I am also at the same time, watching the other player, watching my own self in my mind, watching the court. That’s a lot of watching. That’s too many focal points.
So I WATCHED ONLY THE BALL.
Suddenly it was like there was nothing else there to see. Everything else just kinda blurred.
From the moment the ball hit Craig’s racket, that was it.
Only. The. Ball.
INSTANTLY my game changed. It felt almost mystical. Zen like.
And it is, right?
This is the practice. Because after a couple of super focused ONLY the ball rallies, I could tell my focus would try — out of habit — to include all those other things. I would have to force myself to go back to ONLY the ball.
Each time I lost that, I started making mistakes. Each time I got back to that level of extreme focus, I was hitting wonderfully.
And of course, tennis — like dance — like anything that we dive deeply into and explore ourselves through — is a metaphor for the rest of our lives.
Watch ONLY the ball.
Where do you need that in your life?
Things are slowing down around here a bit. It’s been a bunch of months with one thing after another — lots of good things besides the awful of the world.
And right now, I feel like I have a little bit of breathing space and I’m looking forward to noticing what’s been on my mind. (When we’re busy with projects, so much goes unspoken and unwritten, at least for me.)
I’ve rediscovered my love of reading fiction and poetry and I’ve been making more time for this even in the middle of the day. I have been making a point to sit outside and take in some beautiful words. One day a younger person walking by turned back and said, “THAT is such a VIBE! Enjoy your day!” and it made me giggle.
I’m fully in “obsessed with tennis” mode and I know you are likely thinking “WHAT?!? Weren’t you already?” Sure… sure… but I’m at a whole new level. I even said to Craig the other day that I really want to get good enough to feel like I could compete and have a chance of winning in some sort of older tennis player sort of matches. (I think the USTA does stuff like that.) That just feels like a really healthy dream.
And toward that dream, I’ve gotten back into the gym to lift weights (good for you regardless of sports) and I can already tell the difference on the court only three weeks in — especially in terms of my cardio fitness.
One of our older cats, Daisy, is really slowing down, but I’m noticing how much calmer than ever I am feeling about just being there for her and not freaking the fuck out with big time stress.
Have you read anything really freaking fantastic lately? I’d love to hear about it. Especially fiction, please.
What are you doing for your physical body?
And do you have any new dreams (small or big) that you’re putting energy into?
You know my good weather months’ obsession is tennis.
Thank God Craig convinced me to start playing again just a few summers ago. I’d finally healed from two frozen shoulders (thanks, menopause), and I realized that it was ridiculous not to be playing out of some fear of getting hurt. When you can’t move your arms fully for almost two years, your perspective alters a bit ((cough)).
As I’ve said before, when I’m on the court, there is nothing else. There’s me and my racket and the ball and the court… there are lines and weather and sometimes other people but that’s it. My mind is only right there. I’m not thinking about anything but what’s right in front of me.
It is a relief, to say the least, in this world to have something like this… a refuge of sweat and heat and trying. But there is nothing truly important. Nothing scary.
That’s not to say it’s all sunshine and happiness.
Not even close. I’m intense on the court (and I’m thinking you’re thinking… where are you not?).
Let’s say it this way: I am at my MOST intense on a tennis court.
The last few times we’ve played together, Craig and I have both been consistently getting much better. There are long rallies where every hit comes with the musical (to my ears) sound of the ball hitting the sweet spot.
I’ve been hitting harder and more consistent than ever and I had finally gotten my down-the-line backhand back.
I was working more and more at the net. (Which I love… because aggressive.)
To be clear, with every miss, I am constantly analyzing what I did wrong. I am always coaching myself and I am very often coaching Craig.
I’m a teacher, right?
After all those days of improvement, I was playing horribly.
And my self talk matched that. I was analyzing and criticizing to the max.
For the first time, I think ever in my life, I almost threw my racket.
This was beyond my fun mad into real mad.
I sat for a moment to get my heart rate down and watched Craig practice some serves and I realized…
When I am teaching others, I am all about positive reinforcement. If you’ve been in class with me, you know how much I’m yelling things like “BEAUTIFUL, EVERYONE!”
And I will take a moment after a song to highlight someone doing something brand new or astonishing.
But when it comes to how I teach/deal with myself, things are always different.
I never tell myself I’m doing well — only that I could do better. (Thanks to early learning…)
So I got up from resting and immediately changed my self talk.
Over and over, I said to myself in a whisper, “You are REALLY GOOD AT THIS!” I said it like I would say it to a student or a friend or my younger self.
Then I added, “You are really good at this. You are so strong. And you have so much fucking stamina!”
Over and over and over and over…
And IMMEDIATELY, as in the FIRST shot, I started playing better… more like myself.
For our last bit of play, I never stopped talking to myself like that, and now I never will because the results were immediate and undeniable.
Now to take that off the court…
I used to tell people (when I was first embarking on this somatic dance journey and felt like I had just conquered two Mount Everests in a row by dancing my way to the least amount of depression in my life that I had ever known)… I used to tell people that their own bodies in the now were their safe space. Because right this minute, nothing is happening.
I still believe we can get to that point and that it also fluctuates depending on psychological triggers, freaking life life-ing, and things like overall health and the weather and so many other variables.
But… and this is a big but… your body as safe space just doesn’t work for a lot of people and it never will.
Safe spaces are places and people in which and with whom we can be totally ourselves and be held with care. This can mean that we are tolerated through annoying times ((ha)), witnessed during big changes, and encouraged in growth. It can also mean we are called out on our own bullshit but we know that calling out is coming at us with love and compassion.
Safe spaces and people are not all sunshine and rainbows. Spaces that are too sweet are actually not safe, because the number one component of safe space (and people) is honesty.
If our bodies cannot be these safe spaces, where does that leave us?
What are the other options?
This is another tricksy one.
As I have said for a very long time: as long as there is breath, there is dance.
And I believe that. To my core. I have watched people with very little mobility left find so much beautiful dance.
But to say that movement itself is a safe space is unrealistic in light of what many will encounter via disease and aging.
Movement as safe space can feel like an insult in those contexts.
Of course, we too narrowly define movement and that is a large part of the issue, but that narrow definition is how most people understand it. To lose our favorite way of moving can be devastating and transitioning to a new way of understanding movement can take many years if it happens at all.
So no, movement itself is not the safe space we’re looking for.
Ugh. Sadly this one can be too… fragile, too changeable, too… unrealiable.
Communities are made of humans and humans are unpredictable and we need something somewhat predictable when it comes to creating safe space.
That’s not to say that some communities are not our safe spaces. I myself have a few communities that I would put in this category, but even then, I have experienced moments when it didn’t feel that way. (Luckily they were safe enough to even contain those moments and move beyond them.)
And the grief that comes with dissolution of or betrayal within community is intense. Not safe (or at least not always).
After all of these years of observing all of these phenomenon, I have finally come to practice as safe space.
Practice as safe space contains all the other possibilities — bodies, movement, communities, other individuals.
Practice is malleable over our lifetimes but it also (when approached in the way I mean) is a constant companion, even as it and we change.
Practice is devotion to your own awareness and a commitment to living a life of noticing and learning and growing.
Your practices may change but you doing them does not. You coming to them in times of joy and grief does not. And though it may be profoundly challenging to maintain, your practices truly are your safe space — where you can fully meet yourself, challenge yourself, and learn an ever deepening love of yourself and therefore of others.
We are safe in our practices so that we can go out and meet a world that is often unsafe. We then go back to our practices for repair and rejuvenation to be effective in our lives. And that cycle goes on and on…
That quote has stuck with me from this video. Though almost every single sentence he drops is like a sparkling gem. This video is worth your time… more than once, I’m betting.
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.”
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.)
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
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
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 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)
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.
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!