On discipline.

And no, I'm not talking about how to discipline a blooming toddler (although that is indeed a subject on my mind as of late).

I'm talking about the discipline of the dancer.

These days, I don't feel that I have much of the dancer's discipline. Gone are the days of at least one class each day (well, I haven't seen those days since college) or of hours of rehearsals, traded in for cardio spurts and little bits of yoga here and there while A plays happily nearby and sometimes joins in to share my mat and an even more rare but absolutely delicious once in a while chance to take a dance class. 

Alas, since I've been teaching at the university, I've been fortunate to have incredible colleagues who allow me to come take their classes when I'm able. I've worked out my workday schedule so that I can squeeze in one class a week, replacing the time I should be using to finish paperwork on my at home days when A naps. So for one blissful hour and forty minutes each week, I have a little bit of perfection when I get to take a dance class simply because I want to. (Need to.) It's not enough. But it's something.

I stand in the back, trying to stay out of the way of the students. Partially because I'm the intruder in their space, and partly because I don't want to be terribly embarrassed - it's been a loooong time since I've enjoyed the dance major regiment of hours of dancing and rehearsal each day, and surely my body lives to tell that story. From my vantage point in the back, I can see quite a lot. And most days, as I'm trying to integrate the combination and breathe and relax into it all just a bit, I am usually thinking one thought over and over in my head...

Hot damn dancers are amazing.

From this back corner vantage point, I have the rare opportunity to take in all of the beautiful lines, the flow, the dynamic, the expression, the unison or lack of unison, even the falling over in valiant effort, and it's perhaps one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen. It's the artists military, in some strange way...the lined up "soldiers," following the demands and commands of a language foreign to most other human beings, doing things with their bodies that most people deem unimaginable, examining how to tell a story using the inherent tool of their body, because, really, no other way makes sense. It all but takes my breath away.

As a dance therapist I've learned to appreciate, and appreciate isn't nearly a strong enough word, the inherent beauty in each person's individual movement. In the story told through the body - trained or untrained in technical forms. But I'd be lying if I didn't admit that my heart beats just that much faster when I watch beautiful technicians executing movement with nuance and skill and emotion. It is both exhilaratingly satisfying and soul calming in a way that words could never express. It is the product of the dancer's devoted discipline.

Dancers are a crazy breed. Masochistic much of the time - never good enough, never strong enough, never lean enough, never enough. Blah. The obsessive discipline and constant self-criticism border most often on the unhealthy, one of the main reasons I felt the strong pull in my own life away from the performance world and towards dance therapy. But if you can allow yourself to see beyond the darker sides of the discipline, you are freed to see so very much more.

steadfast devotion

                                         commitment to oneself

one's body

one's art. worldview.

                     stubborn, defiant beauty

        one's ability to tell stories through their kinesthetic being that are never sufficiently told through words

                                                           the crazy beauty of the human body (relating) in motion

The devotion, wherever it stems from in your being, brings you back, again and again, no matter how your body aches or your spirit is crushed or you're simply tired of working so hard, to the insanely beautiful power of the stories told by our bodies. Hot damn dancers are amazing indeed.