...don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth...

Saturday, May 25, 2013

the body is expressive - what story are you telling?



As a dancer, I became fascinated by the concept of interconnectedness, the idea the mind, body and spirit are inextricably linked.  Anything that occurs in one has an affect in the others.  Dance is an effort to express the broad spectrum and infinite variations of human experience through movement.  The body is the medium used by the artist to tell stories, show ideas, share emotions, and inspire dreams.  In a dance composition class, a teacher once said that the human body can't NOT express.  Even an attempt to make the body abstract (unless completely covered and unrecognizable as a body) is expressing something by its contradiction.  The human face, even attempting to be neutral is expressing something, interpretable by the observer because it is a human face void of expression.  Every person on the planet has experience with their bodies, whatever that experience may be, which gives them a frame of reference, a catalogue of memories, a store of emotions.  From this perspective, whatever they observe in the human body they are witnessing, they will recall something human within them.  For example, a body that suddenly turns its back you, could remind you of your father walking away and never returning or it could remind you of standing in line for your first movie, calling forth the emotions of these moments in your history.  Now, of course a dance composition would attempt to give context to the images in order to drawn out the intended response from its audience.  But this is possible because as human beings we have a shared language in that we all have bodies.  The body can then be effectively used by the artist to express the more subtle aspects of human experience, such as thought, emotion, inspiration.
In yoga, I have discovered that the same concept of interconnectedness is present and is in fact a thematic necessity, only the work is done in reverse to the way dance uses it.  Yoga asana functions on the belief that the work done in the physical will allow or even be a catalyst for transformation in the mind and spirit.  As we open and strengthen our bodies on the yoga mat, we are asked to be mindful, to be aware of the sensations that arise.  We recognize a sensation in the physical body, acknowledge it and breathe, the breath gives us the space to seek beyond the physical experience to the thought liked to the sensation.  Are we telling ourselves we can't do this?  That we are going to get hurt?  Is there a thought of stopping, giving up?  The mind saying, I just don't want to.  Is there self-judgment?  I'm so weak, I'm too lazy for this, I'm too short.  These thoughts then, if we stay with them and allow the observing self (the audience member?) to detach, lead us deeper to the emotions behind the thoughts.  Fear?  Doubt?  Anger?  Sadness?  As we experience an asana on the physical level we are given an opportunity to work thought thoughts and emotions expressed by it.  In yoga, movement allows us to discover the depth of our own humanity, the unhealthy or at least unhelpful thought patterns and emotional sticky places.  If we do the work with our bodies and allow that work to have an effect on the mind and spirit, then true transformation occurs.  We cleanse our way through sensations, thought and emotion and establish new physical and mental patterns, resulting in positive rather than negative emotion and a more pure expression of the self is freed.  

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