Today I was in a dance class, the leader said over and over, “Release your jaw, soften your tongue.” This is music to my ears, how many times I had dancers come and ask, “What’s with your mouth?” Or my friend Art reveal his secret dancing name of name for me is fly catcher. But still, I can’t jump on my response to hearing those familiar words, if so, I’ve already hurdled the moment and missed myself. I have to take it new; my jaw, my tongue, softening, down my spine, open jaw, open hips. As dancers we have to listen again, not to what we ever knew, but to what is here now.
As I entered the room, I noticed my response to see a woman that I barely know but had a mix-up with long ago, I found myself imagining her eyes – her view on me. The word ‘bad’ appeared. I had a brief wondering, could a ‘bad’ person be an authentic dancer, could one with no integrity listen and trust and move and reveal? I danced beyond the question, where there is no-one in this dance, where there is no one owning these sensations. The question itself fell away as a falsity.
Sometimes the leaders’ words impinge upon my actions, usually only when I hear a statement that appears to exclude what I’m doing, when I hear a statement that seems to demand something other to happen. I once heard a teacher ask us to notice if we were making ourselves ‘special’ by not fitting in. I loved the sweet confrontation of this question. Now I remember, I can re-hear the statement, the invitation, and include what I’m doing within it.