tension revisited

In an earlier blog, I spoke of renaming tension - trying to redefine the idea into something that could be shed. I think I called it armor. Franklin has, what may be a much better definition:

"Tension is a misinterpretation of movement. Where there should have been movement there was none and the result is tension. It comes about when our physical system has been geared to movement but none is made."

Visiting

Monica was visiting me for the last week or so. This is why I haven't been blogging. We went camping at Crater Lake (maybe I'll upload some rock jumping videos) and lots of other things. Lots of good cooking was a necessity.

Today I'm back on my game, reading Eric Franklin and cooking summer squash. I went to the farmer's market yesterday, and there are so many new things coming out... I bought one of every squash I could find and just cooked them all up to eat with my spicy lamb shoulder (spice courtesy of Santa Monica's farmer's markets. We don't have hot peppers yet.) I just finished Franklin's book, Pelvic Power, and it's gotten me thinking about my pelvis completely differently. I realized that I have been clenching the muscles of my pelvic floor (imagine the muscles at the base of the sex and in between the Sit bones.) This is causing many problems, including tipping my pelvis too far forward. This is odd, because most people tip it too far back. I don't know if I just misapplied the notion of keeping your pelvis under you, or whether I always had this issue. Because my pelvis was tucked under, my lower back was stretched and strained. I now recall terrible back pain in my eighth grade year, and wonder what exactly was causing it...

Maybe this is all too much anatomical detail for a blog... Well, I returned Pelvic Power today, only to check out two more Franklin books - LIberate your neck and Shoulders and Dance Conditioning. Here is a passage from the former:

"It's a bit like a fairy tale. One day I was walking along a street and all of a sudden I felt a widening at the back of my pelvis. It just happened by itself, I didn't do anything. The small of my back widened, the tailbone (coccyx) lengthened, and a wonderful feeling of looseness spread throughout my lower back.

I could feel how the bones at the front of my pelvis were gently pushed together, which in turn took the weight off my back. My legs swung in perfect alignment back and forth as I walked. I could feel clearly how the heads of my thighbones lay deep in their sockets. And most surprisingly of all, both my ankle joints relaxed at the same time, and my feet became completely loose. Taking each step was a wonderful feeling, and I could have continued walking like that forever.

I continued to walk in a circle, even though I had arrived at my destination. I thought: "I don't care if other people are watching me, I want this feeling to get anchored deeply in my nervous system, so that it will become a permanent movement pattern."

That's how I spontaneously discovered truly relaxed walking, a free and upright posture, relaxed shoulders, and deep breathing. the experience showed that this new movement pattern was anchored deep in my being. Up until that moment all my exercises were only outer correction, and the tension already there was reproduced by my behavior again and again."


This is reminiscent of o-Sensei claiming that all of Aikido could be learned in 6 months... if only we were open to it. I danced tango last night, considering the advice from my last tango lesson - that I need to simply dance and enjoy dancing - to get out of my head. It was a fairly good night of dancing. I had some very nice interactions and dances, but still I can't fully get out of my head. I know that my end goal is not over-analysis or to get stuck in my head, but at the moment, it's difficult to get out. I think my teacher had good advice for me, and I need to try to learn to separate training from social dancing, but I really believe that one day I will have my Franklin-esque awakening. The day will come when these ideas and unformed notions about dance come true in my body. It is still an act of faith. Until then, I can do my best to dance, but there is such a burning desire to understand that it's difficult to simply dance. This is connected to the reason why I'm not ready to compete. I'm burning to manifest those things inside me.

today

Today a teacher told me that our learning styles weren't matching, and that they were frustrated by class with me. They said they thought my head was too full of stuff, and saying anything to me would just put more stuff in, when it needed to be emptied. When I asked how my dancing felt, they said, "stiff, and it's not fun." They told me to go social dance and try to relax, but I still don't understand. I don't know why I can't dance with anyone. It's never felt right to partner dance. When I told Steven Mitchell this, that I just "didn't feel the lindy hop." He gave me crazy eyes, and asked me what I meant. Then he said that the only people who ever said that to him were Skye Humphries and Peter Strom. That made me think I was on the right track for even asking such a question, but I just don't know. I don't even feel like I do a ball step right.. That's not even half a triple step. How the hell am I going to do this?

I feel so shattered right now. I can't straighten myself up. I just took a long bath and tried to relax.

Actually, looking away from the screen, I feel better. It's like I remembered that there's still life happening. I think I'll go drink some water and get some chocolate milk.

Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?

I spent the morning talking to my friend Sandy about a workshop in Ashland. She is new to blues; she's mostly a tango dancer, but after attending the workshop I taught at in SF, she really wants to get a little scene going here. From what she tells me, there certainly seems to be potential. There already exist some nice little dance communities and a good bit of local blues. I told her I'd be willing to do a workshop for less than I have offered anyone as yet (soon I think I'll find the rate at which someone will hire me...). Hopefully that will happen in the next months. It is hard to convince people to hire me, when I'm often trying to teach in a small or unformed community. I wonder how much my name (or lack thereof) hinders me from being hired.

It's hard to know how to get these things off the ground. I started by asking for an amount that I thought would work, but that hasn't worked yet. I also wanted to teach with Drew, and that adds to the cost. Together we still have asked less than Brenda would ask for a weekend, but nothing seems to solidify. I figure if I work for almost nothing, the money will eventually come in. So we'll see.

I'm leaving Ashland this morning and will certainly be back this season to catch Hamlet. The plays I saw: Twelfth Night and Henry IV, part one were both impeccable. I think that I'm overdue for a study of Shakespeare.

Sitting by the stream

I was sitting by that same stream in Ashland, watching people and water flow by, and it occurred to me that groundedness, this elusive thing I am seeking, is not a position or a state. I can't simply tilt my pelvis this way, turn my knees that way and achieve it. Groundedness can only be described as a metaphysical phenomenon. This is because life is naturally in movement. There is never a perfect scenario, where I'm standing on perfect ground, my plantar fasciitis isn't acting up, there is no breeze, the heel of my shoe is perfectly worn. Groundedness must be achieved in the realm of the real world - that is a world with ever-changing circumstances. Thus to describe groundedness as a "state" or anything static is, I believe, the wrong way to think about it. Groundedness must be a reaction to the world around us.

This realization eased my mind a little, because although I am immersing myself in a complex study of my body, I no longer need to worry that the left half of my pelvis is crooked. Groundedness must be attained in the midst of this.

O-sensei: "Practice of the Art of Peace is an act of faith, a belief in the ultimate power of non-violence. It is faith in the power of purification and faith in the power of life itself. It is not a type of rigid discipline or empty asceticism. It is a path that follows natural principles, principles that must be applied to daily living. The Art of Peace should be practiced from the time you rise to greet the morning to the time you retire at night."

"It is not a rigid discipline or empty asceticism." What is this practice then?

I was watching a little wave forming in the river today. I think that I can safely say that this wave exists, but how does it exist? The water changes so rapidly that I can't even see it change. I catch little glimpses of moments - like frames of a movie - and I can almost understand how the wave is an actual thing, but then I lose it. Somehow it seems to me that our lives function like this: we are an ever-flowing stream of energy. When we try to define ourselves as a static thing, we are lost. Strange though, that we think in images, because an image is a static thing. Whenever I create an image in my mind (something I want to create in the world), it is static. I may change the image, but this doesn't change the fact that the image itself is a singularity - not like the wave. What does this mean?

I know from looking at lots of good art last summer that the best paintings seem to be alive. A painting is an image in the strictest sense, but somehow the good ones always seem like they are just about to reach off the page. I was sucked into Caillebotte's Les Raboteurs de Parquet for this reason (where the workers almost look like secular Zen monks), but the master of this aesthetic seems to be Van Gogh. In his paintings, especially the ones from the last year of his life, even the solid things pulsate. I've never had a stronger reaction to a painting than I did in front of L'eglise d'Auvers at the Musee d'Orsay. The painting took my breath away. It literally looked alive, as though Van Gogh were standing there still painting it. How?

Hanging in Ashland

I've been in Ashland for the past two nights. Last night I saw Twelfth Night (in fact, the best production I've seen), and tonight I'll join Hal and Falstaff in Henry IV, part one. Ashland's Shakespeare Fest and Theatres seem to be as magical as the rest of the town. I was unfortunately a bit hungover yesterday, but still spent time relaxing on the river bank along with everyone else.

I'm reading Eric Franklin's Pelvic Power - a detailed, anatomical breakdown of the pelvis and pelvic floor muscles. It's made me realize that all the issues in my body are very probably due to underdeveloped pelvic floor muscles. I also seem to have a torqued pelvis. If you imagine the two large pelvic bones connected by the pubic bone in the front and sacrum in the back, there is a slight bit of movement possible between these halves. This movement helps a baby's head squeeze through a woman's pelvis, but it also helps keep our legs aligned and power distributed evenly throughout the body. My left ilium (that big bone) seems to be rotated forward slightly more than the right. This means that my left foot wants to turn out more than the right, and my spine turns to the right easier than to the left. Franklin gives a bunch of exercises, but I don't know how I'm going to figure this out. A part of me knows that understanding what is wrong and developing useful imagery is the first and most important step, but another part of me is overwhelmed by the subtlety of the issue. I wonder if I'll ever be able to get this all worked out.

There was a good NY times article about freelance dancers today - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/arts/dance/18dancer.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

It also makes me question whether I can handle this. But then again, I live in a different world. I don't even have a cell phone.

Koichi Tohei

Koichi Tohei was Morihei Ueshiba's top student. After Ueshiba's death, the followers separated. Tohei left control of Aikikai to Ueshiba's son, Kisshomaru, and broke off to teach Aikido his own way. His school of Aikido stressed the underlying knowledge of Ki over the physical practices, and I am told that in his later life, he dedicated more and more time to spreading knowledge of Ki. Here is a passage from a book entitled, Ki in Daily Life.

Since the heart of a man praticing ki should be filled with the spirit of love and protection for all things, his spirit should naturally be one of love and benevolence. In addition, because his spirit is always unified and is constantly pouring forth ki, his eyes will have a latent energy, not a sharp hard gleam, but a light that, together with ki, emanates from the very depth of his spirit. This is not the glitter of the thief's eye always seeking the unwary, it is a light that says, "At a laugh, children draw near, but at a frown, wild animals flee." We all need such benevolent powerful eyes.

Among men studying the martial arts, as we might think, some have cruel, savage, and haughty eyes. These eyes, for crushing other people, are not the true eyes of a follower of the martial arts. When eyes like these encounter the true eyes they lose their power to crush. In Japanesse, we write the word budo (the martial way) with a character "bu" made up of two parts which taken together mean to cease using arms. For this reason the true follower of the martial way must have eyes benevolent enough to do away with the opponent's spirit to fight. However sharp the gleam in your eye with which you try to oppress your opponent is, it will have no effect on him. He will not take it in, it will only return to frighten you yourself. People with hard eyes must understand them as a sign of spiritual immaturity and must strive to discipline themselves in the right way. From time to time, in our effort to progress spiritually, we should look in the mirror, not to see how we look or just to shave, but to judge our spiritual condition. We should seek out the bad places and reflect that, "Here is a place where my spirit is still immature."

(...)

Hear what a man says, look into his eyes, and he can hide nothing from you. If you calm your heart, examine yourself, and look at other people you will be able to understand them. On the other hand, understanding too much is not good. Too much discernment is destructive. That is to say, if you understand a person too well, he is likely to feel cramped in your company and avoid you. If you understand too well, it is also easy to injure othhers. A father with an eye that is too penetrating oppresses his children, who grow to want to run away. No one likes the glance that pierces the depths of the soul. Just as we keep covered a blade that cuts well, so if we have a strength we should keep it veiled. Though we have brilliance in our eyes we need not dazzle others with it. If we have that brilliance, we should cover it as if it were not there. A wise hawk hides his talons, and a good mouser does not show her claws. It is important to conceal one's own power, because boasting of it destroys it.

steps

Everywhere I look, great dancers take small steps. Small steps mean that one's feet land directly under the hips, ensuring that the subsequently created rhythms are transferred throughout the body. It also means quicker changes of direction, pivots, weight transfers, because the dancer does not need to first get over their foot in order to move (or worse, simply fall into the next position without ever getting fully over their foot).

Futhermore, small steps ensure that one's movement comes from the ground (and is not an isolation). All these factors seem to indicate that I, as a partner dancer, should decrease my step size. When one watches people in the modern blues scene dance, you will notice two distinctions from a bar crowd - 1) the spacing of the feet is wider and 2) most people dance using all isolations. I am fairly certain this is a causal relationship.

I have been aware of the size of my steps in the past few days. I am trying to make my feet fall under my hip sockets. My tendency is for my feet to lie just wider than the outermost width of my hips. The hip socket is actually further towards the center of the pelvis than the extremity, meaning that my feet are actually falling quite far away from under my hips. Furthermore, the length of my steps is unnecessarily long. This means that the quality of my step is more of a propulsion (or falling) forward. This makes it difficult to stop on a dime or change directions easily. It also means that when walking, I have a sense of never quite being present in my body. My awareness diminishes, and along with it, my posture seems to crane forward. I jut my chest out, trying to arrive... this is the problem that causes my lower back issues.

In an earlier blog, I was wondering whether a mental state could be paired with good posture. I think it may have something to do with the size of one's steps. When I take smaller steps, I am conscious of my position more than my destination. The desire to "go" is diminished. I can feel my body more. It seems that the size of my step is the next thing to change in my quest. But of course this raises the question - why am I taking such big steps in the first place? It puts my mind in a frantic state; I lose my control and precision; and it encourages bad posture.

Taking small steps is difficult.

ambition

My ambition is high. Higher than I am yet willing to admit on this blog. This is part of my reason for not wanting to compete. I do not need to work myself up over things that in my long-term view are so minor. Even with high ambitions, I'm sometimes feeling lazy. In fact, I haven't worked or brought in any income since I moved from New Mexico. That was four years ago. I've been finished with school for over a year now. My friends have jobs and responsibilities, yet here I am - visiting the rose gardens, reading, thinking.

And what for? Sometimes I ask myself that question. The truth is that I still don't know, but my spirit soars far above where I am now. I left the east coast to break my limiting thoughts. I needed to be somewhere new, where location doesn't slowly eat into my dreams. Even now, I can feel the pull of bills, responsibilities, attitudes, stereotypes, and preconceptions that we so often let define our view of what's possible. The great masters retreated into the wilderness, and I think it is because only there can we escape all the things that seek to define us. There we can remember that all things are possible - that hardly anything we worry about is of real importance. What is of real importance is the question.

I missed Aikido today, but I rebought the Art of Peace. It's a collection of O-sensei's sayings, along with a short biography. Maybe tomorrow is the day, but suddenly I feel that the woods and water are calling me. A retreat wouldn't be bad.

Even when I can watch my dance growing, there is a nagging fly on the wall that says I'm not accomplishing anything right now. (I'm not even dancing right now.) However, I choose not to leave this question only to logical reasoning, because that would elicit a negative answer. I choose to turn to a cultivated sense of Faith. This is a phenomenon talked about by Napoleon Hill and Tony Robbins, and it makes sense to me. As a kid, I always had the impression that I should effortlessly and naturally have faith - this was probably because all my doubts concerning religion were answered with the "faith retort." I never thought of faith as something that could happen by CHOICE. As a kid, I might have thought the faith retort to be less meaningful if you told me faith occurred by choice. It is only as an adult that I find it more powerful.

So, readers of my blog: I have ambition and faith. And doubt. I sometimes don't know what I'm doing, but I do know that I can't see myself doing anything else. I feel as though judgment is forthcoming, but I certainly feel ready to be judged as my defense is the only one I can honestly give.

suspicion

I'm still confounded by the fact that my body integration occurred seemingly with (And because of) the music. This bolsters my conviction that I need to visit the Mississippi Delta, but more has me wondering about how to achieve a grounded state in my everyday life. Do I need to experience the world a certain way to fully connect to it? But this raises so many questions about perception. How should one perceive? Focus on individual aspects of things, view everything in a removed way? Stop worrying about it? Look closer? Harder? With more compassion? Stop looking?

What is groundedness anyways? Is it more than a physical position and way of movement? Is it a state of mind? O-sensei's teachings might have me believe so, but I never really thought about it in these terms before. I always assumed that anyone could do his techniques if they were skilled enough, but maybe his frame of mind created his technique.

I'm going to go to AIkido tomorrow. It will be the first time in two years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i27obVRzIPc

Pies and Jam!~

sweating

I've been walking around the Int'l Test Rose Garden for two days now. Just walking.

If you were to imagine a doll suspended in space, and the doll was made of sticks and strings. If the strings ran like muscles, and you adjusted each string so that the doll had proper anatomical posture, you would have a nice image of the body. If you then tightened the strings in the upper glutes and lower back, you would find that the legs rotate outwards. The feet may even rotate out more than the knees, causing the knees to buckle inwards when walking. This is effectively my posture. I decided the other night that I am not ok with my posture remaining the way it is, so I'm using Franklin imagery to try to release it. I've also been walking around focusing on relaxing these areas. When I focus on this, everything in my body starts to tug gently on the tight areas.

All I need to do is focus and relax, and eventually my movement will pull this tension out.

my food

After returning from my trip to CA, I needed to detox after nearly a month of eating out. I ate at restaurants, and I tried to eat good things and eat from farmer's markets when possible. I did have some great meals... even sampled Jidori chicken (a small breed from Japan, traditionally bred free-range), but nothing seems to compare to my own cooking. Yesterday, I walked into the market, testing everything I came across. I walked out with whatever my body seemed to want - peaches, berries, favas, onion, almonds. I cooked myself the first dinner I've been able to sit down and prepare in what feels like weeks. I noted that the entire thing was green, along with a side salad.

Today I made pork tacos with some local pork I'm trying... I've become convinced that I am addicted to my own cooking. It's the only way I can control what goes into my body. This way I'm consuming exactly what I want. In Salad Bar Beef, Salatin often talks about how he feeds his cows (And chickens) cafeteria style. This means that he offers them different things to eat separately, letting the animals decide what to eat. The conventional wisdom would be to mix everything in scientifically prepared ratios. Salatin's underlying philosophy is that the cow has everything necessary to determine what it needs, and laboratories can only make educated guesses (ones that often fail the cow and us). Similarly, when I cook for myself, I am able to fully listen to my own cravings. None of us would think it silly that a person has everything within himself to be a healthy individual, but so often we do not pay attention to our own cravings, or worse, we ingest so much ill-suited food that our cravings are no longer directed towards our health. It is my conviction that a healthy individual will only crave foods that will be healthy. When I'm eating well, I might crave french fries, but I never want to stuff myself with them. It's only when I'm eating unhealthy that those desires manifest themselves.

My cooking is thus not simply a matter of sustenance preparation. It is a way of listening to the needs of the body. It is a matter of listening to the soul. Has anyone been to a farmer's market recently? Maybe the image of last night's dinner will inspire you. Hey, I'll even give the recipe:

~1.5 lb fresh fava beans - shell, blanch for about 2 min and peel (they were just tender)

about 6 shiitakes - sliced thick

1/2 medium onion (small dice)

1/2 anaheim chile (brunoise)

1 green onion (sliced thin)

Sweat (low heat - no saute) the onions for a minute or two in olive oil, add the mushrooms, then the chiles. Cook for another minute, then beans. Toss with a little salt and the green onion. Don't overcook. It's only a few minutes. Serves 1 as main course.

economics

My progress - the blog about Cedric Burnside and the transformation I underwent cannot be understated. In the past three days, the entire path of my dance came clear. Everything I have been thinking about - energy, body integration, etc. - it all came clear. I haven't put it all into practice yet, but many things I have. I danced with Brenda a few times in the past days, and I watched a familiar though rare look cross her face - it's the look she gives when her student starts to get it.

My sense of connection to my partner has completely changed. The connection is not something created, but something that arises between two grounded individuals. It's almost inexplicably simple, and I see now why it's so difficult to teach. It arises precisely because the dancers are grounded and using their bodies. In any other case, one or the other is forced to artificially create connection - this means using the strength in your arms or shoulders to follow and lead. Rather the connection should arise as naturally and instantly as if you were pulling in the sheet of a sail. Connection is a non-entity. By not creating it, it is created perfectly. The tension must leave the body for this to happen, and then suddenly, I am free to dance my own rhythms. Dancing is no longer (at worst) controlling my partner or (next worst) trying to simultaneously move and control my partner. Dancing with a partner becomes so simple.

Within the individual body, dance and movement must be seen as manipulation of energy within a closed circuit. Every movement directly relates to the ground. And every movement comes from the center. (But what is the relation of center to ground?) For this reason, the center must be emphasized. To fix my legs, my posture - everything - I must fix my center. It has become apparent that tension in my lower back is causing the issues of my body. I plan to begin practicing Franklin imagery designed to release that tension. But what is tension? How can imagery release it? The lines between body and mind are further blurred with this realization of my own energy. The land of dreams becomes that of reality and reality that of dreams.

Beyond partnership, I realized something else very important. In the past, I blogged about the phenomenon of race and jazz dance. I wondered whether race was indeed a determining factor to dancing these dances superlatively. I now know that it is not. It may be that certain people have it more in the blood, or cultural heritage. There may be plenty of things that causes some people to be more rhythmic than others, but I know now that it's simply a question of timing and technique - that is, that it is something I can learn. I felt all this in my body.

This is my first blog post that feels unnecessary to write. I write my blogs as much for myself as for anyone else. I am often working to clarify or contemplate what's happening in my life, but this entry is purely for my readers. Maybe I should write about it to try to find the language to describe it, it all seems to defy explanation, because I feel it in my bones. How do you describe the flavor of chicken?

Let me put it this way - we are all centers of energy, simultaneously individual and communal. Everything around us affects our way of being in clear and unclear ways. I will continue with a suspicion... To live well is to be grounded, simple, and efficient - physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. There are many ways to move energy - the above categories seem to capture the ways. Love and hate are two ways to move energy, but what it is that makes "love conquer hate" is not some esoteric law. We need not rely on faith to understand why this is so. It arises from necessity, because love achieves a greater effect with less effort. The laws of the world are the same as that of efficient production - it's just economics.

To dance well is... (I can't answer this.) Somehow, the dance is vitally connected to the music. This seems manifest, but I mean this in the most fundamental way. That the exact same movement, done in the exact same way danced perfectly could not happen to two different songs (and probably not even the same song repeated)... the dance is something ethereal. Maybe this is what Merce Cunningham meant when he said dance has nothing to survive it. Acting seems similar in this way. All art is the manipulation of energy, and dance is the same. One day I want to understand all this, and I want to write a treatise.

with a heavy heart

There's much to talk about, and I can hardly think of how to de-jumble it all.

The blues festival ended on Monday, and there was much fun to be had. I danced most all of the late nights, so I was dead tired during the days, trying to keep up. On Monday, there were two competitions - one in lindy and one in blues. I competed in both. Every time a competition happens, I think to myself that I shouldn't do it. Most of the time, I don't listen to myself. It's easy to get caught in the hype that a competition creates. Most of my friends all want to join. It's hard to explain my resistance, but I'll try, as this resistance was only confirmed this past Monday.

I should start explaining my view of competition. Competition is for show - it's a kind of demonstration, a public event. It is a way to inspire dancers and spread the joy of dance. It is also a competition, however. That is to say that it is about the skill and pride of the dancers as much as anything else. This is exactly why it ends up being such a good show.

For a long time, I have not wanted to compete. This is mostly because I don't feel like I have anything to show. Many people won't know how to take that, because I am a good dancer. I work on my dancing every day, all the time. But I am missing the heart of the dance, and without that, before I can express the music through my body, I feel like a fool to compete. A question lingers in my mind, "what do I have to show?" People tell me that I have plenty to show, and that is true in a sense, but the fact of the matter is that people recognize authenticity. Authenticity shines like a beacon. Everything else holds your attention for the moment, but as something brighter comes along, the mind wanders. For now, my dance is a bit like the next shiny thing. There's nothing yet to see in it. I remember a story from Vipassana. Some students of Goenka, the teacher, asked why won't he make public the accomplishments of the higher ranked students. He responded, saying, "When one of you becomes arahant, I will make it known through the world. Until then, what do you really have to show?"

I decided to dance in the lindy competition, and was actually feeling very good about our preliminary song. It was a medium tempo, New Orleans style song. We made it to the finals, and I had felt so good, we were making some plans for our entrance into the spotlight dance. All of a sudden the song started, and my heart dropped. It was blazing fast. I don't dance fast. The moment it came on, I knew I didn't want to dance. I wanted to walk off the floor, but that would have been nearly impossible to explain to my partner and the judges. It would have made a commotion, and that's not what was needed. But before the first 8 had ended, I knew that this was not for me. I can't dance that fast, and I sure as hell didn't want to put on airs like I could in front of hundreds of people. I went out and did my best, but it was upsetting to have to.

The blues competition came second. Drew and I competed and didn't make finals.

I learned something very important. I have a competitive nature, and winning is important to me. I got fairly bent out of shape when I didn't/ couldn't win. It is this that made me lose both times. As soon I start yearning for the title of best, I lose my focus, my grounding, my joy - everything I know that I need in my dance. I am stripped of every reason I dance and the reasons the competition serves the public good. I know that I would like to compete eventually, but only once my foundation is strong. I don't want to feel the way I felt on Monday. I lost my connection to the ground.

I will quote a book I'm reading by Joel Salatin on commercially raising cattle: "Our problems stem from incorrect thinking, incorrect paradigms..." Until I can shift my paradigm, I am finished with competitions.

Sense of the music

Last night, there were two highlights at the Waterfront Blues Festival in Portland, OR. One was dancing with Julie from San Francisco in the grass just after sundown to Taj Mahal. The other occurred at a tiny, packed stage starring Cedric Burnside and Lightnin' Malcolm. This is raw, Delta blues. It's an inspiration to watch Burnside's dark, moistened skin, pulsing with the movement of his muscles - all of this accentuated by his drenched white sleeveless shirt. Malcolm is defined by his Cheshire Cat-like grin. These two surge - it's the only word I can think of to describe it. I crept up to the front of the crowd and danced. After a while I realized that I was dancing to some idea of the music in my head. I was playing the beats in my head, dancing to my own sense of the music. So I slowed down, found my grounding, and tried to dance to what they were playing.

When I really tried to dance to their music, I found that I was starting to apply some of the concepts of grounding and body integration that I have been so intensely exploring in the past year. I found it perplexing that these physical mechanics so naturally arose from "dancing" to the music. Some way of thinking about dance caused my mind to shift. In this process, I also directly experienced the problems of keeping tension in your body. Holding tension in your body is, as I have described before, like creating a dam for the energy flowing through you. This causes un-rhythmic movement, being ahead of the beat, and a general feeling of... what's the word? Stress. Decay. Death. Maybe my train of thought takes me too far in that.