What's new?

Some things are not for us, some other things are. 

I've always preferred the slightly imperfect, the not-so-new, the time eroded. And that's like me; slightly time eroded, not so new, and most definitely imperfect. And that's fine. 
So I will be kinder with my practice, all my practices. Kind but not indulgent, and practice that_______ (side kick, front block, heel lead, relevé...) again, and again. But not mechanically and wanting to have them over and done with, there won't be a target number to be reached. Instead, I will purposefully and joyfully learn the technique, so I can fly with it later.

I miss having a big adventure, sometimes I miss (the other acceptation of the word) smaller learning opportunities and I mistake them for frustrations or disappointments.

For me it's not the having started young, but the choosing being older. And I chose purpose and joy. Again and again.

Monk laundry

My favourite colour

After all this time, still sitting pretty

Learning on the road,  I was never happier to wake up early

Don't work it, baby

New Year resolutions, anyone? I only have one (which is double); to be in my body, as mindfully and joyfully as possible and to pay more attention to my second brain.

What do I mean?

When information enters the body, a system vital to the successful operation of the body, called the enteric nervous system, kicks in.

The gut, the enteric nervous system, the second brain, plays a key role in getting us to pay attention and is designed to function even without input from the spinal cord and brain. The second brain also produces an immense amount of chemical compounds, including every type of neurotransmitter found in the cranial brain. 

In other words, both brain and gut can be used to help in making choices and decisions. Learn to listen to this second brain and you can live life as someone not only with a thinking mind, but also with a thinking body, and who doesn't like a good thinking body?

So, I've resolved to stop working it so much and to start listening. Let's see what happens...

Take your own measure

My measure wants to get bigger, it wants more movement, more challenge; it wants to get out of its comfort zone.
Fine.
First, we start with a second class a week, putting myself out there in front of people I don't know, sharing my authentic movement with them.
On Tuesday I have a new class, let's get a new measure then.

Late walk in the bluebell woods

Today, I finally went to the bluebell woods. I didn't need to see them to know they were there. Their scent like sprinkled sugar on warm bread, the taste of crushed green and pollen, damp earth underfoot and the buzzing of tiny insects...

Smell, touch,hearing, taste... and a feast for the sight. I do love bluebells.

Walking down the bluebell path

Tree, and bluebells, and dappled light

Close up

Blue and green should always be seen

Bark + bare feet

Time to go home

There is beauty...

... in the slightly menacing heart of a flower, brimful of pollen and darkness.

... in the way stamens and pistil fuse together, exposed and laden with stickiness.

... in delicate colours, pink and grey blue made strong by the cluster. Edible, juicy, like a crown.

Developing tree pollen allergy days before going to Kew Gardens can't be called good timing. I still had an incredibly beautiful day, surrounded by flowering trees, and colours green, purple, yellow, blue, pink, white. Birdsong.
There was a flowering plum tree under which laying down for a rest was a gift.
Much beauty and much joy, and my body behaved remarkably well.

The good teachers

Almost 20 years ago I had a literature teacher that was in love with words. So obvious was her love for sentences, metaphors, alliterations, ellipses... that she managed to passed it on to us, to so many teenagers, so many school years.

This weekend many of those students got together and delivered a surprise poetic recital in her honour with music, theatre, and, of course, poetry.

I couldn't be there (physically) but I thought up a way of sending myself over to my small village in Spain, with my other fellow students of a few years ago. 

So I went out to the nearest field, donned my best Isadora Duncan dress and picked up one of my favourite poetry books (that I discovered thanks to Mercedes, my teacher), and got my picture taken, which was shown at the end of a collage/ presentation at the end of the recital.

The good teachers give you medicine, tools, magic wands. They are human and fallible, but their inspiration is divine.

When I need some cheering up, I put on my best pirate accent and I recite to myself some stanzas from the Canción del pirata.

“Sail on, my swift one! nothing fear;

    Nor calm, nor storm, nor foeman's force,

Shall make thee yield in thy career

    Or turn thee from thy course.

Despite the English cruisers fleet

    We have full twenty prizes made;

And see their flags beneath my feet

    A hundred nations laid.

My treasure is my gallant bark,

    My only God is liberty;

My law is might, the wind my mark,

    My country is the sea.

Excerpt from the Canción of the Pirate, by José de Espronceda

Wise bodies, wise words

Today I wanted to reconnect to that first principle of Nia, the very basis of all movement: the Joy of Movement. Yeah, like that, with big capital letters, why not.
I only chose movements that helped me plug in to that transmitter between my own personal joy and the Joy. Sounds like an obscure koan?
It's actually quite simple; there are some times when I'm truly listening and sensing, when my own personal enjoyment becomes something deeper and I can just catch a glimpse of my own joy being part of a bigger Joy.
Softly, quietly, it doesn't happen as a huge explosion of colours or sounds, or a big aha! moment. It's like running my hands along the gnarly trunk of an olive tree and sensing the sap underneath. I can't see it, but there it is, running under all that knotted bark, imbuing the tree with life.
And such is the Joy I connect to sometimes, not necessarily visible but always there for me, waiting, inexhaustible.

And then, the gift of some very wise words from a friend. Connect with the Joy not only when dancing, "imagine doing something that you really love all the time", she said. Yes, I can imagine that, I'll dance to that.