Knoxville

Totally forgot to blog and yoga yesterday! Wow. It really didn't occur to me until this morning.

And here I am in Knoxville, livin life and lovin it! Yesterday I was at the Turkey Creek Earth Fare demonstrating some Udo's Choice 3-6-9 Oils and probiotics. Today I did the same at the Bearden Earth Fare. Success! Chatting with people, feeding them yummy oils and good bugs. Sold a bunch today. Man, I love that stuff. I even saw some folks I know! How awesome! Came back to Marcia's and fixed a bowl of sweet potatoes with Udo's oil (mmm... lignans!).

Tonight Marcia & I are off to Barley's to dance to Christabel & the Jons. Boo ya! I am gonna DANCE.

Yes. Have some.

yes. have some

dance. yoga. movement. yes. more. thanks. i'll have some. tasty.

Just finished an awesome night of dancing. Taught a friend some following skills via waltz. Ate way too much Mexican food. Fixed the mother of all playlists and danced my tukus back on. Bellowed some songs. Did some kundalini yoga. breathing is so good. Was gifted with a yoga breakthrough and further revelation. He's beginning to pour it out already. Who knew there were hors d'oeuvres before a fast?

brilliant. I am in for the ride of a lifetime. Bring it ON.

Dance, when you're perfectly FREE!

Dance, when you're broken open.
Dance, if you've torn the bandage off.
Dance in the middle of the fighting.
Dance in your blood.
Dance, when you're perfectly free.
            -Jalal al-din Rumi, 13th century Sufi poet

For me, there's something about dancing. I've taken a break from the dance world, and even from dancing, for about a year and a half. I've needed it. I've appreciated it. God's will is always Good. I've done a lot of healing, a lot of growing. I think it's safe to say He's been purifying me. He's brought me out of addictions and into a wide, free place.

And now we're dancing again! It's been a few months now, and the passion is back, but it's different. Instead of addictive, it's freeing. When I'm dancing, I feel like I'm fully alive. It's absolutely thrilling! To be immersed in music, joined with the music, dancing-creating spontaneously, moving with the music, never knowing what's next... to me, few things on this earth are better than that. I was waltzing at a contra dance last night, thoroughly enjoying it. (There really is something special about waltzing.) Resa was there last night, watching, and she commented today that I looked beautiful while I was dancing, even just wearing plain clothes. I felt beautiful. I felt completely alive.

I do not know what is next, but I feel like dancing is a big part of it.
And I am excited!

Then young women will dance and be glad,
        young men and old as well.
I will turn their mourning into gladness;
       I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow.
                                          Jeremiah 31: 13

dance when you're broken open

Just got back from a contra dance, and I want to say that dancing changes things in the best way. Praise God! It's wonderful.

I was introduced to "trance waltz" tonight, briefly, and it's intriguing. You apparently keep up a circular waltz figure for something like 15 minutes. I commented that it was Sufi waltzing.

I would like to do some whirling. I want to know if there's anything to that. I want to know what's there in all the spinning. Joy?

JOY!

Invitations for one & all!

Gotta be quick, so here goes:

1. Visit me at market! I'll be working the Tree & Leaf stand at Mt. Pleaseant Farmers' Market on Saturday from 9-1, so come see me & get some awesome vegetables: tomatoes, onions, garlic, chard, kale, more tomatoes.

2. For those of you ILHC goers who may be more adventurous, feel free to visit me on the farm. It's a beautiful place, and we have lots of veggies.

3. There's a barn dance on September 6! It's at Moutoux Orchard, which is right beside Tree & Leaf. I believe there will be a band and some contra dancing, and I'd really love to swing out, too. I'll bring my computer for DJing purposes during band breaks.

4. We could also use some help at market. This is a bigger undertaking because it requires steady availability on Saturdays or Sundays and the ability to lift some decent weight.

Feel free to call or e-mail me about any or all of these. Back to work!

Jazz steps are useful

I recently started working at Trio Cafe on Market Square. I make salads.

I know, I know, it sounds simple, but it's the most high-profile job there because when you walk in the front door - BOOM! - you immediately see the salad station and the salad master (I decided that was truly the best title for the position). Everyone else is buzzing around the dining room or back in the kitchen, but I am almost always up front right by the door. I doubt that I actually grasp my place in the restaurant on a day-to-day basis, but I digress...

After learning the ropes of salad-making in my brief training, I learned the standard procedures for cleaning up the salad line. This involves the usual tasks of changing out containers, wiping down the station, and sweeping the floor. It also includes the chore of mopping... kind of. You see, I wasn't instructed to use a mop and bucket. No, no, no. This is much simpler and far less of a mess. You take a regular towel that you'd use for wiping things up and a spray bottle of cleaner. Then you squirt the floor, throw the towel onto it, and move the towel all around until the cleaner is mopped up and the floor is clean. Kind of cute, really. And a little awkward, especially to get underneath shelves and in cubbyholes. But that's what I did.

Until I realized that I could simplify the process by dancing. Yes! I don't know what this move is called, but I know that it's fun. Morgan suggests that it could be called a swim sweep or a glide. Another possible name is "dolphin." At any rate, I remember watching Bobby White do this move many moons ago in Atlanta, and the first time I saw it, I knew I had to learn it. It has the effect of an illusion. You put 100% of your weight on one foot and, shifting your weight between the heel and ball of that foot, you inch your way in the direction of your other heretofore motionless foot. With said motionless foot, you make a circular motion, like you're sweeping the floor. It looks very cool, very smooth, because of course you're barely taking your mobile foot off the ground and keeping it at a very low profile so the attention is drawn to the sweeping foot. I love it, and it's PERFECT for cleaning the floor at my salad station. It's also pretty challenging and it looks far less awkward than randomly poking my foot all over the floor. Boo ya!

Why Skye is amazing

Skye Humphries: Men want to be him and dance like him; women want to dance with him and then some.

Me? I'm a bit leery, a little bashful. When I see people being bombarded for dances (and wow does he usually get bombarded), lots of times I back off so that I'm not part of the problem. But when I was in DC for ILHC, there was definitely some space around him. I caught the end of a class that he taught with Marie from Sweden. They were teaching a move where the follower is led to zoom in on a side pass, and then the lead lets her momentum change his own. Pretty spiffy.

The thing is, people think Skye is so amazing because he's probably the best lindy hopper in the world, or because he's so musical, or because his expression is so clear & focused, or because he's such a badass. Those are all pretty cool. But to me, the reason Skye is so amazing is that he's so humble. I don't know him personally, and my interactions with him have been brief, but from my perspective as an instructor and a fellow dancer, he's so very kind. When I approached him after the class at ILHC to ask him for feedback on the move they'd been teaching, he seemed a little aloof. But he quickly connected with me by dancing the move with me and giving me just enough feedback on it so that after a few tries, I got better and better at it until he said it was feeling great. Marvelous! And all in a very matter of fact way that put no false hierarchical barriers between us. No bullshit. It was lovely.

I glimpsed more of his seemingly genuine humility and joy when the Boilermakers played that night. He was dancing right up near the band. Emboldened by my interaction with him after his and Marie's lesson and without a line of hungry followers waiting to dance with him, I asked him to dance, and we did! And then he asked for another - how very Herrang of him! At no point in the dance did I feel like he was dancing down to me; at no point did I feel judged. Plenty of less-than-the-best dancers have prompted those feelings in me, and I'm sure I have prompted them in other dancers as well. I felt like we were both thoroughly enjoying the music and having a blast dancing with each other. YES! Isn't that what we're all here for? Not to act like pricks, but to enjoy ourselves.

Of all lindy hoppers, Skye has the most justification and the most potential to really be a prick. Who would call him on it? He's the best. But he doesn't take that road, at least in the public eye, and that's why Skye is amazing.

freedom danced

It was Sunday night of Buenos Aires Blues. I went into the weekend with not so great an attitude, bummed because I wasn't in San Francisco or D.C. But it had been a great weekend, far better than I anticipated. There had been loads of people and a dog filling up my house: cooking bustling, napping, showering, listening to music, talking: truly this is one of my greatest joys, to be surrounded by people. It fills me up like nothing else does.

But despite the fantastic-ness of the dance weekend, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do Sunday night, whether to stay or leave. I didn't feel pulled by the dancing. I was there with someone I was dating and for whom I had suddenly lost feelings; that threw me for a loop. I just felt... odd, off. I enjoy the challenge of dancing tango, of combining that with blues dancing, of figuring out on the spot what to do, refining this and that, taking mental and physical notes constantly... but I also needed a little comfort. I'd been looking for a certain kind of blues dance all weekend and not found it- still haven't. It's the kind of blues dance I would have surely found at bluesSHOUT, a dance that's just at home- slow, comfortable, where you hold each other for nearly the whole song and it's not creepy, a dance where I don't have to guess and everything's taken care of. Lately my cup of leading overfloweth; my following cup, not so much. That takes its toll after a while.

I was in the midst of my "do I stay or do I go" crisis. This is usually where I allow the music to influence me, and I was indeed doomed: Heather was DJing. Heather and I... we have a very similar taste in music. Hers is much broader than mine, but still- she knows. Sometimes I think she watches me to see my reaction because she knows.

And once again, she just knew. It's a song we both adore, a version of "Ain't No Sunshine When He's Gone" by Ladysmith Black Mambazo and a woman who I don't know singing lead vocals. I do a lot of solo dancing, mostly because the music moves me, and I move, and I don't know how all those people are just sitting. Sometimes I am asked to dance in the middle of my solo dancing, and I really want to dance with someone; sometimes I don't, but I usually accept anyway. This dance, that night it was clear - I was creating and expressing, and my solo dancing was to be watched and taken in. I was dancing solo. It was firmly in the contract for that moment.

I'm not sure how to describe it except to say that there was a wave coming, and I caught it and solidly rode it all the way in, no questions asked. Normally my dancing comes from a deep appreciation, a feeling with. I tend to be very expressive. The most common compliment I receive is, "I love to watch you dance!" Sometimes my dancing comes straight from my heart. This particular dance came from my body, my heart, my guts, my womb. It was visceral. It was deeper yet than any dance I have had. I was able to taste and experience and flow with the freedom that it's possible for me to live inside of all the time. It was the only experience in my memory where I was completely unabashed and unashamed in my expression.

And I felt it! I am not broken- I can feel. And it just poured out of me, and I enjoyed it. At different times during that dance, I felt that my emotions were being wrung out of me; I welcomed it. The singer sings in a way that you just feel the ache, and there's Ladysmith Black Mambazo continuously singing this plaintive Zulu refrain, and it just hurt, and I let it. This may surprise a lot of you who know me, especially if you watch me dance, but the truth is that it's incredibly difficult for me to acknowledge or register, let alone feel my feelings, anywhere at any time. But to give them full, honest expression? For me, this is entirely unheard of. Until now. And to know that it can feel that amazing to be swept up in that freedom makes me want it so much more.

The thing is, this is what I've always been afraid of. I would sit in church barely 6 years old and feel God tug at my heart and resist that persistent tug with all my might because my biggest fear was that people would look at me. Surely if I did something, people would look. And to me, as a child, that was the biggest evil. I've gotten over that to some degree, but there are more kinks to work out.

Later I described my experience of the visceral quality of the dance to Heather, complete with gestures and funny noises to make sure she really got what I was saying and where it came from. She had earlier remarked on the end of the dance from her vantage point of the DJ table and said it was funny because my body arced, my hair flew, and then I disappeared- I ended in a deep lunge that took me out of her sight. But I was curious if there was something different, and she's seen me dance a million times, so I thought I'd ask. She said that I danced as if I were completely free, and it was amazing.

Yes. Yes, I did.

YES.

Redirection: Dancing

I've been wondering lately: what do I want to teach? What do I want to focus on in my dancing? And it's bugged me a little because I couldn't come up with anything conclusive or awe-inspiring or real. I love connection. I love blues. I love lindy. I love Charleston. So much! But I finally remembered my main motivation for dancing, for teaching dance, for moving at all: response & expression. I hear music; it moves me. In many ways. I've been primarily more focused on moving/dancing as I interpret the music and less concerned with how exactly to do it and what it is- it just seems to be how I'm wired. This is my goal for teaching people to dance: that they be able to move as the music asks and compels them to move.

I blogged earlier about the Carolina Chocolate Drops. During the concert, a little Asian girl took up residence in the dance space between my seat and the band, and she danced to nearly everything. They played a slower Ma Rainey tune that could have been called blues, and it was awesome to watch her movement change in response to the music- although she was probably not yet 6 years old, she brought out some hip movement. Needless to say, I was very very happy- she had such versatility and joy. She moved as she saw fit. She was neither proud nor shy. She danced. What else is there?

It all comes down to expression, to my own voice- accepting it and going with it. I have resisted this for most of my life. I realize that it may not seem like I've run from expression, but to the very core of my being, I've always resented the idea that people need to "express themselves." Now I'm beginning to realize how very important- essential, even- it is.

But really, I've wanted to do something new for a while. Something probably a little weird. Something fusion. In fact, at the Get Together in May, I was surprised to dance very much the way I envision: it's a combination of African, Charleston, blues, and hip hop. I've only had one hip hop class, but that night at the Sacramento warehouse, I was dancing all of it together, and it was mine. It was fusion. Mike, Andrew, and Mihai sat on the floor in a pile watching me for several songs. This was nothing I could have planned, but it was such a gift to experience that creativity of all my training & exploration coming together and out into the world.

Mark Nelson spoke at Crossings recently about singing a new song. We celebrated Pentecost on May 11 this year. YES to singing a new song and dancing a new dance! Come Holy Spirit, blow through my life and intoxicate me! YES.

Redirection: Singing

a gorgeous spring night out of doors, trees blooming everywhere
live old-time music fills the air, played by down-to-earth people who are also awesome musicians
children laugh, dance, giggle, play
a dog runs here and there, visiting
an old white man clogs near the band
a middle-aged black woman runs toward him and joins in, dances alongside him
Yes.


I had the pleasure this evening of hearing the Carolina Chocolate Drops live on the lawn of Maryville College... and it was free! A friend of mine had mentioned them to me. He told me that if I got the chance to see them, I should take it. And it was fantastic. (Thanks, Jack!) They're an incredibly versatile trio. They swap instruments quite a lot, and they play everything from jigs to Gaelic tunes to a cover of the Blu Cantrell song "Hit 'Em Up Style." And it's all awesome. So buy their music: it will make you happy, and spring is the perfect time to listen to old-time music and bluegrass. And if you're in Nashville, go to the Grand Ole Opry on June 14 to hear them- they'll be playing there.

I heard them play earlier on the Blue Plate Special at WDVX. What pulled me in and intrigued me was the voice of Rhiannon Giddens. You see, I'm trained in opera singing - that's what my college degree is in. So I'm a little bit picky about singers because it hurts me to listen to some of them. That was not the case here. I heard her sing and immediately thought, "This is a trained voice." And I was right! I asked her about it after they played tonight, and sure enough, she was trained in opera at Oberlin Conservatory. She also danced a little bit of Charleston, and she says that she wants to learn lindy hop. Wow.

What struck me - what really made me stop and reconsider my own singing - is that she's really kicking ass at this old-time music, and she's an opera singer. For a while now, I've been wondering what to do about my own singing. I don't want to waste my talent and the time & money I spent on the degree, but I've just been stalled in this area. On the one hand, I'm an opera singer. I feel like I should sing opera. I feel guilty for not singing opera. I do love to sing in operas, but it's such a cumbersome process. On the other hand, what I really get into singing is blues, soul, and gospel. That's when I really move people. That's what I really enjoy. And I've been moving slowly towards it, but I think hearing Rhiannon tonight really galvanized my movement towards those things I love to sing. Just last night I was at 4620 listening to an open blues jam and thinking that an informal jam like that might be a great opportunity to get my feet wet again where performing is concerned.

So for the rest of the evening I will be on my porch, drinking a beer, meandering through some tunes.

Growth in dance, or "A fire has been lit under my posterior"

It was Lindy Focus time, and what a time it was! My Lindy Focus (dance camp) experience encompassed SO much: challenge, hard times, exhilaration, breakdown, amazing dances, convicting classes, growth, and eye-opening learning.

I volunteered again this year, but this time I was in the core group of organizers as the food goddess. Sure, I've cooked for KLX since 2005, which entails 2 meals for 150-200 people, but that didn't fully prepare me for my role at Lindy Focus. If you weren't an instructor, you just tasted a glimpse of the food I was in charge of, namely late-night treats like cookies, breads, cupcakes, and bean dip. I was also charged with making sure the instructors had breakfast and lunch each day, and that Michael and Jaya had food for dinner. By the middle of the event, there was a nice rhythm to my work, and I really enjoyed it; however, I underestimated how taxing the consistent effort would be. It's much different from two big meals, and if I do something like that again, I'll be more prepared. All in all, I tend to enjoy getting myself deep into the event like that, and the teachers let me know it was appreciated (although I am eager to hear more detailed feedback, constructive criticisms, likes and dislikes). But whenever I get that involved in an event, it's hard for me to let it go, even to get to sleep. I definitely should have packed sleeping pills, especially since I slept just a few feet away from the center of operations.

I got to take all of the Level 6 classes, and I was much impressed with them: they didn't let me down. They were consistently ass-kicking or inspiring and always challenging, each in different ways: this is what I prize. Andrew challenged our concept of connection and arm leading; Laura brought us back to the fundamental joy of the whole thing; Gina & Mike challenged our body mechanics and non-verbal communication; Bill pushed our creativity; Mike and Evita worked us like we were professional dancers (ok, they were probably nicer than that). I was definitely convicted in several classes as to how little I wait for a lead lately. Rarely at a lack for some sort of movement, I seem to have forgotten to follow. Luckily I was reminded, not only by exercises in class, but also on Saturday night when my dancing was very present and very awesome. I kept waiting, and my waiting was almost always rewarded. From this experience, I know that I can consistently be a better dancer, that for the most part, it's my choice about how responsive and present I can be, and I want to be that more. The overall classload resembled my best & favorite dance of the weekend, which was with Todd Dewey from Denver. Our dance had so many elements to it - Charleston, lindy hop, ballrooming, footwork, playfulness - and he constantly challenged my ability as a follower and a dancer in about as many ways possible. We both just brought it, and it was completely badass. Jeff Camozzi later told me that he had been talking to someone but found himself unable to continue the conversation while he was watching Todd and me dance. It was one of those rare moments where my dancing was pushed to its limits, challenged as I only dream of being challenged, and I met it with gusto. All that, and there was look of pleasant surprise on his face. That dance is one I'll remember.

Lindy Focus also confirmed what I've been thinking about my own path as a dancer: if I really want to plow ahead in this dance and realize all the potential that I have, I need a partner (or partners - not necessarily exclusive) to work with intensely. There are so many places I could take my dancing - Charleston; balboa; lindy: fast, medium, slow; blues; collegiate shag - I like that sort of traveling. So I am officially in the search for a partner. In the meantime, I'll continue to refine and explore solo movement and choreography, in addition to exploring my own strengths and learning how to capitalize on them. I emerge from the ashes of 2007 with resolve to work towards bettering my dance, both solo and partnered. I am a brave, new Megan.

Dancing, following, teaching, becoming

During a ballrooming class I taught with Chris, I got a question from one of the follows: "How do I keep this posture without getting tense?"

Good question. Excellent question. Because tension has gotten in the way of my following a whole lot. I've been searching, dancing, experimenting an answer to this question for a long time - at least since the first Southern Belle Swing Bash when I asked Nina and Naomi where I could just learn to follow better: "Is there a certain teacher, a workshop, some place I can go, something you can put your finger on?" Short answer: No. Naomi gave some good advice, but it was Nina's answer I really remember: "It's a personal journey." Amen, sister. I hated the answer at the time, but that was what she gave me, so I took it and have been working it out ever since.

So whenever I teach, I always want to have things to say to the follow. Not just yackety schmackety stuff to say so I'll at least be talking, but real things follows can pay attention to in their own bodies or a reminder to be patient and kind to leads who are learning. But how to relax? Because for me and for a lot of follows (leads, too), this is the real issue. And I wonder how much it has to do with freedom...

I think I've realized that there's only so much I can teach someone. I may be able to guide someone. I may be able to show/tell people how to hold their bodies so that they are highly likely to experience the sensation I want them to experience so that they can learn what I'm teaching. I may be able to give them metaphors so they can relate to this concept on a more visceral or personal level. I can't teach anyone to relax. The best I can do is create an environment where they are engaged, laughing, and open to trying out new movement... and voila! They are relaxed. This is the bigger part of teaching. I feel like I just realized that I could stumble out of Plato's cave.

Working up to the ballrooming lesson was really a gift. It helped my own ballrooming follow technique so much, and I made a huge step where teaching is concerned. For the first time ever, I taught a class strictly from my own style & technique... and I wasn't terrified. The ideas I presented were mine. The posture I taught came from my experience. I was surprisingly confident about my own ability; this is entirely new for me. Normally I doubt and fret and worry, but I was free from that.

I began by breaking down my ballrooming posture - the place I find my body most likely and able to respond, where I am most pliable and mobile. And I found that it was the same posture for running that I'd learned years before in my one semester of modern dance. It's also the same as the posture I adopt if I'm running down a really steep hill and decide to give myself over to gravity and just do a full-out run - I end up extending my torso at both ends and therefore stabilizing my core so that there's little or no noticeable pulse. I was thrilled to find these things! It was much like a treasure hunt. But in teaching this, I found that the posture alone doesn't give pliability or mobility. A lot of the follows were adopting that posture and then freezing it, not moving with it. I'm not sure how to tell them to relax into the posture; I'm not sure if I can. The most I could say at the time is that you should maintain energy and stretch within your own body even before the lead gives you any direction: your willingness and readiness for movement is one of the best tools you can give a lead. I also told them, once I found they were stopping/freezing/tensing their bodies in order to preserve the "ballrooming posture" I'd given them, is that the posture is a guideline, a good place to start, a reference point, and leads will likely lead them outside of the bounds of this posture. A good example is an up hesitation, where you're on your toes stretching up as far as you can go. It's definitely ballrooming, but the posture is not this stance I showed them. The goal as a follow is to go there with him, not maintain a posture that some teacher gave you.

So I was a little dismayed. I'd discovered this basic posture to teach, had them work with it and practice it both alone and partnered, and then they froze it instead of moving with it or exploring it or expanding it. Instead of taking the kernel idea that following is the ultimate goal and that I've found that this posture enables me to follow most and best, they put posture first because it was something they could hold onto. It follows. I should have expected it because that's by and large how people work, but I must say it blind sighted me - I didn't expect it at all. I've been looking at the Torah a little, so it reminds me of Moses leading the people to the Promised Land. At a certain point, the people got fed up with a god who's invisible and whom they don't understand, so they made a gold calf and worshipped it. Simple. They could touch the gold cow. It was nothing other than a gold cow, but they could definitely touch it. And Moses kept leading them, kept hoping they'd get it, and in large part, I think that's what we do with teaching. I think I would benefit from zooming out my focus to get a look at the bigger picture of teaching in one scene and my/our collective impact on that scene. It's just difficult to see circumstances in a new way when you exist within them.

So after this portion of the journey, my question is this: What is following? What IS it? Perhaps more specifically, what are the characteristics of the mental state of following and how do they influence the body? How do we focus on willingness, readiness so that they become a central part of us?