| In a workshop situation sometimes you’ll be moving on your own, sometimes with a partner, sometimes as a group. There may well be times when you feel self-conscious, but usually newcomers are astonished by how quickly that passes. We’ll use all kinds of music, or sometimes move in silence.
When you move through the rhythms, things happen. Your body is going through this pattern of change, and the rest of your psyche naturally falls into the same groove. Then everything about you is resonating to the same beat: your body, heart and mind integrate and things happen.
You find yourself feeling really alive, loose, natural, free. Strong feelings come up and release themselves. Your mind becomes emptier, like all there is is the beat and the heat and the sweat of the dance, everything else disappears and there is only the dance, you have become the dance – you are in ‘the zone’.
That’s a peak experience. Sometimes it''s much more ordinary. This is a dynamic meditation, and like any spiritual practice, martial art, tool for personal development, or relationship, ultimately it simply brings you face to face with yourself. The rhythms can be really good fun, and sometimes it’s deeply challenging and you find yourself up against your own blocks, resistance, cynicism. But the rhythms are powerful medicine, and things melt, change and heal. The only way out is in, and the way in is through the body. |
