Dancing with Fear

A million years ago –say, like 22, a few of my lifetimes ago-- I decided that I would do one thing a year that I was afraid of. The first thing that I learned was that I was afraid of a lot of things. I was working at Bridger Bowl Ski Area near Bozeman, MT, teaching day care kids how to ski. Carolyn and Del (now owners of the chicken ranch where I lived for the first 6 months in Helena, to whom I’m forever grateful) hired me with the main qualification that I could pick up 4-year olds flailing in their snowsuits on the ground. I had only learned to ski the year before and that was with the careful teaching of Carolyn. Skiing itself was something I was afraid of. Also driving to and from work on the snowy roads. Also taking CPR training. Also cooking for dinner guests. Also meeting new people and engaging in small talk at parties. And countless others. Once I started the challenge, it was clear that I would have to take on more than one fear a year because there were so many. I could write a lengthy essay even a whole memoir on how this decision to face my fears has shaped my life and personality and physicality (of the preservation kind, I have never bungee jumped or been sky-diving), but I won’t here. Blessed be.

HOWEVER, this is where I begin my story of how I have come to be teaching Nia Dance Technique every Tuesday morning at 7:30 a.m. (Dancing Lotus Center on the walking mall next to the Parrott). For those that know me well, there are two facts that stand out from that sentence: dance and 7:30 a.m., both share the essence of being out of my comfort or capability zone. But there they are.

I started attending Nia classes in April, 2006, when my health was taking a dip. (Note: I started 2006 with the goal that it was the year to get healthy. My body responded with being hospitalized in the second month with diverticulitis and in the fifth with a hysterectomy. The body took me at my word, I suppose.) I was adamantly urged/instructed by spiritual director Kathryn to go. At the time, my general and inflexible feeling was that “my people” of peasant stock were intended to push ploughs not move with fluidity. The polka might get speedy but not so mysterious as the inner workings of free dance. Actually I can’t take all the peasant stock down with me to this stereotype so I’ll just say that my family is tall, big-boned, upright, and immovable unless playing basketball, which obviously requires movement but values tall and upright. So to say that I was reluctant, hesitant, nervous, and/or misguided would be an understatement. It was a fear and therefore fell into the category of facing it, the annual thorn.

Okay, I actually liked it even though I felt extremely (really, really, really) self-conscious. I could follow the leader (Kathryn) but the notion of the free-form dance, gliding around the room during some routines, almost lost me. I moved with downcast eyes. If I can’t see them, they can’t see me. Over time, I started to “get” the whole notion of Nia or at least a founding principle of “The Joy of Movement,” feeling the physical joy of moving the body, being aware of moving the ribcage from side to side, getting the pelvis to do the Elvis, sensing the side of my hands in the chopping motions, and feeling the strength on the back of my forearms when blocking out. I made it clear to Kathryn that I didn’t do sounds, no “ha” or “ya” for me. There was a limit to the movable.

Time went on and I started going three times a week and my body loosened up. I got less self-conscious, felt freer to shake my shy booty, recovered my sense of rhythm that I thought I lost after putting away my clarinet in 10th grade, and found more emotional openness inside myself. Most of all I laughed and laughed. Not that laughter has ever failed me; I just got to do it a lot. Fast forward to about a year from when I started, now Kathryn was encouraging me to take the white belt training, the first level and the prerequisite for teaching. That familiar shot of fear zipped around my body landing in my throat and stomach. Oh for f---‘s sake. The damn seed was planted. Then the irresistible Britta, the Black Belt certified, White Belt trainer came to town in April and taught a 4-hour playshop. I was sunk.

And that’s how I came to be sitting with five other women –two from Billings, one from Chicago, and another two from Helena- in June, 2007, nervously waiting for Britta to begin our White Belt Intensive (we’ll call it The Intensive after this). I was the only one that was undecided about teaching. I had the clause of taking the training for “personal growth” to cling to. What followed was 40 hours of training over 7 days and an experience of renewal that I’d forgotten existed. The main thing I had held onto weeks prior to signing up and attending was that it was okay to be “caught learning.” I’m of the sub-conscious belief that I must know how to do everything. Once I abandoned the notion of perfection, I had a lot of room to embrace foolery. Which was good because it quickly became very clear that there would be fears within fears to face. Dammit to hell. On the first full day we had to do our solo free dance. I had caught wind of this exercise but wasn’t prepared for it to be the first day nor that the music would be randomly selected. I did check to see if curse words were allowed before using them. My body was tingling and hands sweating, even right now as I remember it. I knew that this was better to get over with sooner than later. I had youth do this kind of thing at the beginning of camp every year to break the fear/reluctance/good-sense ice, so I knew that this was necessary, probably recommended by 4 out of 5 doctors, but f---ing hell. I didn’t close my eyes completely but sure enough didn’t look up at the other six sets of eyes though I couldn’t have had a more sympathetic, I mean supportive, group of people to experience this with. It was over in less than 6 minutes and eventually my palms dried off and my body quit quaking. The Intensive had truly begun.

Now a word about Nia: it is a combination of dance arts (Jazz, Modern, and Duncan —thus the gliding around the room on tippy toes), martial arts (Tai Chi, Tae Kwon Do, and Aikido), and healing arts (Feldenkrais, The Alexander Technique, and Yoga). Each one is a stream feeding into the greater flow of movement so within in one song various practices are intermingled yet with intention. For example, one routine has a song that juxtaposes the soft fluidity of Tai Chi with the powerful structure of Tae Kwon Do; another mixes funk with the sensation of melting. (Disclaimer: I am risking being caught learning at this very moment and have the option of correcting in future posts whatever information I’m getting wrong.) Foundational is the practice of letting go of the mind and sensing what is in one’s body, changing pain to pleasure, opening up to a universal joy of movement.

Britta came back this past October to teach another Intensive. I attended some of the sessions for refreshers and like many times in my life, I found that I have a dyslexic sense of learning or fall under the Law of Distraction. She was teaching us about tapping into Universal Joy and all I could think about was Universal Suffering. Of course, I was thinking rather than feeling but I am still confused on this which leads me to believe that I’ve got more to learn or communicate or digest or ingest or embrace --the joy of bewilderment. That and learning how to shimmy are my growing edges.

Onward, as regular readers would know, I’ve been absent from the blog. Not as obvious would be that I’ve had good reason and been really busy. More to come on that in other postings, but for now it is enough to explain that it took me six months before I taught my first class. By then I’d faced the fears of doing 30-minute radio interviews in San Antonio and returning to a past life of activism when I attended an event in Boston. Finally back in Helena for most of November, I was able to get to the nuts and bolts of learning the first routine to teach (for those interested it’s called White Belt Dreamwalker). The night before my first class I experienced what my actor friends have told me about dress rehearsals: I lost all sense of knowing the choreography and was most upset that the next morning I would cry in front of the class. I went to bed. The next morning, 5:30 a.m. (had to get a new alarm clock because my old one couldn’t be set for that early), my first thought was, “why the f--- did I say I was going to do this!” Coffee, meditation, and lucky charms (not the cereal kind) came to my aid and I showed up and set up. Lynn my cohort, training-mate, and sister teacher arrived first with her vibrant enthusiasm and put me at ease. If nothing else, we would laugh. Clare got there, brand new to Nia and one of the instigators for having an early morning class, and again I knew it would be fine. We were there to have fun and I know fun. The class went very well. I didn’t look to the side of the room where Lynn and Kathryn danced but I could hear them hooting and hollering, ha-ing and ya-ing. I did it, I taught a dance class, and still continue to do it and that’s that. I’m grateful that my fears led me down this path even though I can’t imagine where it’s going to continue to lead me.

I’ll end with a line from a friend of mine’s blog. LG and her partner Mary have been fighting cancer that is warring with Mary’s body. I admire their courage, love, and persistence. Here are LG’s words:

“Even when I don't feel right, I try to act as if until it changes. Emotions are energy and energy always changes.”