Translator: Ines Azabou
Reviewer: Peter van de Ven Everything substantial
I have ever learned, I learned through being in my body. I am a dancer; a student of yoga.
This is my process. When I dance, I recover the ability
for my mind to inhabit my whole body; all my senses become active, spontaneously responding
to the changing textures of my internal environment. Through my senses,
my mind can feel, listen; and abide in the intelligence
of the body tissues. This living fully
inside the senses and body is remembered rather than learned. In the womb and for
a short period after birth, the body, mind and senses
develop and function simultaneously. So this uncontrived, preverbal integration of the body and mind through the senses is a natural capacity for all humans. The awakening of this intelligence
through the senses so that my mind can reach out and feel with more acuity
the world around me. And listen more deeply
to the sensuous language of nature herself is what I refer to as embodiment. There are very many different approaches,
Eastern and Western approaches, to the process of embodiment, and while they may be radically different,
both in means and aspirations, the places where they cross-pollinate
provide a vast field of explorations where both ancient
and modern seeds of possibility have a chance to symbiotically coexist, ripening intelligence,
ultimately to sprout again into the fertile ground
of further explorations. I am deeply grateful
to all the yogis, artists, therapists, that are tirelessly exploring,
and forming, and guiding their peers in this somatic and bodymind practices. My dance training was
a classical conservatory training, where you study long hours a day via repetitions of external
shapes and movements; via copying an idealized external form and correcting it by looking at a mirror. Interstingly, yoga training, nowadays,
tends to follow a similar approach: an external pursuit
to achieving a particular skill. I noticed my physicality
was deeply affected by the buildings the forms were taught in. These man-made structures deeply affected not only my sense
of space, lines, rhythms, volumes, but also my mind, my emotions ... though in accordance
with the laws of nature and perhaps even inspired
by the grandeur of their beauty. I started to notice
that these idealized forms, which I had now embodied
as my means of expression, were out of touch with the sensuous world and thereby of my own self. I felt fragmented. This is how I trained
and I got injured a lot. I also got really bored - probably the reason
why I stand on my head - (Laughter) and at times, deeply sad. I felt like rather than
sensuously inhabiting my body. And exploring the natural world
within and without, I was enforcing my bodymind
into yet another idea. While I could appreciate the beauty
of a newly distorted body or correctly aligned body, my sensing self was
not involved in the discovery; it felt contrived. The true simple
but profound methods in yoga. I sensed how much of my
human capacities laid dormant in my dancing and in experiencing life. I started exploring different
modalities to re-approach both, all of which emphasized learning
experientially through my body, I started to remember
to connect to a deeper field of sensitive intelligence
greater than my own self reflected image. I wanted to feel the rhythms
of the earth, the tides, the seasons ... I went to nature to discover
her bodymind, her intelligence. Reaching out through nature,
through my recovered senses, I became aware that my bodymind could move freely between
the inner and outer landscapes, there was a continuum in the silence
beyond the confines of human thought. I started to discover
a more direct contact with the sensitive intelligence
of the living earth. I became aware that nature
was inside me too - her rhythms, her qualities, her tides. In this sensuous embodied approach, I caught myself dancing free of pain with a newly discovered sense
of what it means to be human. We are all born dancers of life with a natural capacity to feel
the intelligence of the living earth, but we need to consciously step out
of abstracted mind made structures - architectural, intellectual, cultural - to listen and respond
to these kinds of wisdom. Through attentive touch,
awakened curiosity and a sense of play, we can create profound contact
between ourselves and the life around us. My learning experience, and the one
I am attempting to share with students, has to do with recovering
the ability to live fully in the senses. To be present, embodied, responsive. Starting with the breath, we listen to her qualities,
her sounds, her depths ... In doing so, we become aware
of places in the body where she may not move so freely. When we listen attentively
through the breath, through sound and sensation, we start to notice when the sound stops; when the breath stops. This usually signals a blockage,
a tension in the bodymind, an unconscious hold or habit, and the body has such
a great capacity to adapt that we will often compensate
loss of mobility in one area by overworking another. With time we are likely to assume
these unconscious compensations as our normal way of being. And this, in turn, creates other blocks,
other tensions, other compensations, and it goes on and on until we find
ourselves in a constricted bodymind that is quite far from its natural state and deprived from its potential. Through sensing, hearing, feeling ... we invite the opening and the release
of these contracted restricted patterns; whether emotional, physical or mental. When the body mind is not able
to enter an area of hold, we can use structure
guided anatomical imagery, and this can help our senses remember
her more effective bodily alignment. Our senses' intelligence can then
reach you and join position and mobility. We can also do hands on partner work to help the bodymind access, feel,
a physical or emotional blind spot that needs unwinding in order to transform
and become sensitive again. We revisit early developmental patterns, both human and evolutionary, to assist the recovery
of our bodymind memory. All body tissues are intelligent. They receive, perceive,
respond, transform; they each have a way
of exploring on their own. When the body tissues are in full
sensual contact with the living earth, they can yield into her,
feel her intelligence, her bodymind. If we listen closely,
each organ, muscle, fluid, cell, who all carry their own
memories and experiences as a story that wants to be told. I am inspired to learn more
about who and where we are; to be deeply rooted in my bodymind, in nature,
the community and place I live in. Once rooted, we have a chance
to hear all the living voices of the organic and non-organic world. In waking up to their stories,
we wake up to our own. (Applause)
