Drew and I have committed ourselves to compete at Emerald City Blues this November. We have begun to lay out a training schedule. The first thing this involves is figuring out what to work on. Our two big topics are grounding and musicality. Drew and I have a strange connection when we dance - we end up pulling each other around. This seems to be due to her musicality and my lack of it. Because we place our steps and pulse at different points in the beat, our bodies do not move at the same time. You could imagine a child pulling a wagon with a rope, but instead of pulling it consistently, he gives it a hard tug and then the rope goes slack. Then he walks until the rope is tight and gives it another tug.
Working on partnered blues with Drew will be my focus for the fall. I intend to do some select cross-training including west coast swing, salsa, ballet, and hip hop, but blues will take priority. We plan to practice for 6 hours/ week along with social dancing and some cross-training together. My fall will also be dedicated to researching different types of body work. My interests include Rolfing, Cranial Sacral, Massage, Acupunctuce, Alexander Technique, and Aston Patterning. I just scheduled my first Rolfing appointment for Wednesday.
In other news, I've decided to go to the Mississippi Delta next summer. I plan to drive down and sleep in a tent for 3-4 months. I may do some part-time work as a field hand, but my whole intention is to dance in black juke joints. The inspiration for this trip comes from the following website: http://www.deltablues.net/
My reasons for going to the Delta are kind of hard to explain. I'm not sure whether I believe in past lives or not, but I get this feeling that I could have been a slave in a past life. And maybe because of that, something in the Delta is calling to me. It sort of whispers that I need to go and see something I've forgotten. I have some intense memories from my life that all seem to be related to Mississippi slave holding.
1) I starkly remember the first time I saw cotton growing in a field. It shocked me for some reason. I have this image of being driven in a car watching the little puffs of white fly by. The image stuck with me for reasons I can't explain.
2) In high school, I became fixated on a project I was helping a friend with. It was an image from the book, Beloved. There were scars on the back of a slave in the shape of a tree. I spent hours and hours overlapping film slides to create that image.
3) At a dance training, my friend Monty brought out his bull whip and was demonstrating what it could do. I remember it flying around the room like a serpent, and the tip would crack through the air like a small sonic boom. During this display, I found myself transfixed and horrified. It seemed natural to me to be frightened of that thing, but no one else seemed to be. Brenda laughed good-heartedly and commented that I must have had bad experiences with whips in a past life.
4) Listening to Cedric Burnside and Lightning Malcolm in Portland was such a strong experience for me. I still can't forget how that Delta music seemed to penetrate my soul.
All the above examples are interesting notes, and I wouldn't have combined them in this list were it not for the last experience. I was in Vipassana meditating last fall. I had gotten very frustrated and angry at my seeming lack of progress, and although the teachers told me again and again not to force examining my body and feelings, I decided to try something. I had been plagued by the tension in my back, and I wanted it to go away more than anything. Mind you, the general advice in Vipassana is to accept your body, life, and mind "ya te bu duh" or "as it is." I, however, was frustrated. I sat for a few hours, watching my breath, and building up my concentration. After this much time, I could focus like a razor.
Throughout my time in Vipassana, I watched the feelings come and go in my body, but my back had a continuous haze covering it in the form of dull and painful tension. I could not feel the subtle changes in my back the way I could in the rest of my body, but I decided this was the moment I would feel it. I focused everything on my back, starting at the bottom near the sacrum. Soon I entered a trance-like state, and I began to see everything that was happening as though it were a movie. I began to lift up the haze as though it were gauze off a burn victim. It took all the focus I had to accomplish this, and I had to remove it very slowly. But it came up, and soon I was able to "see" my back. I saw all the tension in my back - every little piece of it. It looked like scars from a whip.
I can't explain the shock I went into. I was not ready to see that. I found out why the teachers said to accept things as they are. It was terrible.
