Practice Journal/Michelle Hart 

January 2003

Well, I see that my age old difficulty with holding my own space for meditation applies to dance meditation. I was hoping it wouldn't. I really only did it once at home alone this month. I seem to prefer being in a class or at a free dance or outside, in public.

I was thinking that the focused awareness I put on my sensations and movement is the point of personal practice and since that is what we do in my "Dance Alive" classes and what I do whenever I go to a 5 rhythms class etc. I figured I was furthering my Dance Meditation personal practice. However, I get that holding your own space, and being alone have a lot to offer and I am having great difficulty doing that.

The retreat helped immensely and I started getting how to intensify the complexity of my movement by focusing on several different parts of my body simultaneously and moving them each in different ways. Somehow that seems so much easier now- it may be slightly forced and mental but it's really satisfying. I also see that my love of Chinese Elm trees is because of their "complexity"- the way the branches are shaped is the way I feel I am moving my arms, lets say. I totally see the parallel now, I feel the complexity of the branches in my arms!

I also am learning more and more about my holding patterns, primarily in the neck and my hips. I noticed that I often get stuck in a position and am straining in my hips in order to proceed with my movement agenda. I learned that by relaxing the hip the body picks a new direction to move and the pattern starts to dissolve- very slowly. This was an incredible breakthrough and intensified my focus in my movement and decreased my self-judgement, and distraction. I got this guidance from Melinda because I finally asked the question about what to do when I get stuck and am efforting to the point of hurting myself and feeling like I have no options. This is very cool because it applies to when I feel stuck in life- there are always options if you chill and hang back and sense in, instead of shutting off and ploughing forward.

I did my personal practice at a peace rally in downtown LA. It was great because it came out of needing to do something for my back which was getting sore from standing still. I started to do not micro not macro but mediumo, liquid, slow movement in my back and hips. It's a fine dance to be able to satisfy my bodily needs and not be too obvious with the people around me- a weird sense of exhibitionism because it is such a deeply satisfying experience, almost blissful and those that can see it- more power to them in sharing this experience with me. It's my closet Virgoan style exhibitionistic tendencies or something like that. So, I start that way and it evolves depending on which part of the body speaks loudest for attention. It's been a while, and I can't really remember what I did but I did do it for at least 40 minutes- it increased my focus on what was being said and listening to the performances and it relieved the tightness from standing and I got some sort of buzz by being seen.

I felt like I was spreading the message of embodiment and that it was what I was experiencing and sharing- making it part of my daily life.