I’ve heard many say they cannot dance, as if reserved to an exclusive group of people. There is a saying that goes “If you can walk, you can dance.” The same thing could be said about anything. If you can talk, you can sing. If you can write, you can draw. I’ve come to believe that nothing is exclusively reserved to anyone or any type of person. Not being a natural singer myself for example, I have learned to take pleasure anyways in singing as this has allowed me to connect with myself in a different way.
Openness. Curiosity.
These are some secret ingredients to anything we wish to try. But most importantly, a childlike attitude is highly suggested to cultivate. As we become adults, we often lose touch of just letting ourselves do and experiment things freely without any result in mind. For some, our inner critic holds us down to extreme standards to meet “appropriate” ways of doing things. Performance poking at us on every move.
For a good part of my life, I was either playing competitive sports or aiming for high grades and achievement in school and in my professional life. The last three years have brought me back down to earth, to my natural inclinations. I’ve realized that competition is just not my cup of tea. Finding practices that soothe me, that let me move freely, without any result in mind – except joy of course – nourishes me way, way, way more.
I started dancing again in my livingroom. Not following any specific dance style but rather dancing intuitively. The kind of dance I used to naturally thrive on as a kiddo. The kind of dance that brings me to life, that touches me, that makes me move creatively with the deep therapeutic effect of music. A perfect duo: movement and music.
This kind of dancing has no prerequisite. It is open to anyone who wishes to connect deeply, to let their bodies take control instead of the usual monkey mind or perfectionist tendencies. No rules. Except maybe one: to let yourself groove and move freely while discovering your own inner rhythms!
Freeing the body inevitably leads to freeing the heart. – Gabrielle Roth, Sweat your Prayers.
Expressing your pureness, as there is never one dance the same, is delightful! Giving permission for your body to move in its own natural way is rejuvenating. There is no polarity thinking in this space: good or bad, correct or incorrect, perfect or imperfect. You express how you want to express yourself. An invitation to just be you, naturally being you in the moment. “The idea is to get moving. Once your body surrenders to movement, your soul remembers its dance.” – Gabrielle Roth
How often do you take the time to simply take off all the titles that you’ve collected, the masks you’ve worn to please and the adjustments to fit societies expectations? Dancing intuitively is a detachment from all of these layers. Such a practice leads to pure spontaneity, a state of being rarely encouraged in today’s calculated world. Imagine, there are no perfect toes to point. No endless spinning to impress a crowd. It is simply not a dance to please anyone…but yourself! Ahhhh, what a relief!
Again, there is no need to be good at this. This is not the point. Rather, the invitation is to experiment, express yourself momentarily, discover new desires secretly kept away, move and sweat, connect more profoundly and stretch yourself out of your habitual ways and bodily moves.
Movement Medicine quietens our minds and shifts our attention to the realm of possibility. – Susannah and Ya’Acov Darling Khan, Movement Medicine
Giving your mind a break, your body and Soul will thank you. For all these reasons and I certainly would have more to say, is the beauty of intuitive dance.
Apart from experimenting the practice yourself, if you would like to learn more about intuitive dancing, I recommend a few books:
- Sweat Your Prayers, Gabrielle Roth
- Movement Medicine, Susannah and Ya’Acov Darling Khan
- Je danse donc j’existe, Catherine Maillard (in French)