dance it out

It's interesting to me that the culture I know has all but lost the art of dancing with specific steps.  In my experience one has to go way out of their way to find a class or a space to do this, and then the demographic seems to be a group of people holding on to the past and there will hardly be a new, young person there to learn and carry on the tradition.

Dancing with steps is awesome.  So is studying yoga or a martial art form.  Training your mind and body to move in ways it otherwise would not otherwise consider allows us to stretch and grow in the possibility of what we are capable of.

Dancing without steps is also awesome, especially as a compliment to a more specific form.  This is what you find at the dance clubs, rock shows and house parties I've grown up with.  A DJ sets a framework by choosing certain songs with certain beats, and then everyone at the party simply moves their bodies... oh, wonder!

Rather than forcing or training the body, what freestyle danceparty dancing allows us to do is let go of our mind and let our body figure out what it needs.  Do the shoulders need to be shaken out? Does the tailbone need to dislodge itself a little from the lower vertebrae? Do I want to bend and strengthen my legs? Get my hands on the floor to breakdance and retrain my vertical thinking?  Do it!  Even: Do I want to get close to another human or define my personal space more widely with the use my arms and movements?

Now I've heard that once one becomes highly trained and comfortable within a certain dance or form, following the rules of those moves can actually also lead to similar release and freedom.  For now, as I awkwardly study my form, I am glad I can always go to a dancefloor and shake it out with an accidental, intuitive movement-based healing session.

Shake it.