On the Quality of Movement and Technique

When I was first learning to dance, I remember how I raced to keep up. It was a challenge to make the right movements with my hips – to thrust, twist, and drop them – in time with the music. My practicing often included going over choreography as quickly as I could possibly get through it.

Eventually, I was able to keep up with the music.

Then, I was able to out pace it!

In my dancing, I valued being able to make a variety of movements quickly. One after the other – bam, bam, bambambam! Pow!

Soon, I excelled! But my teachers would point out that I was sloppy in my movements and that I needed to slow down. So my practices began to take shape of repeating the movements as precisely as I could. Slowly at first, and then speeding up to keep time with the music.

I was praised for the precision and speed with which I could move, and again, I excelled. I became known for my high-energy, exciting dancing.

Time passed and I found myself away from dance for awhile. It seemed like forever, though I’m sure it was only a couple of months that passed. When I returned to dancing, the high-energy, exciting dancing seemed tried and boring. I had conquered it and it didn’t appeal to me anymore. But I was hypnotized by these amazing, snake-like goddesses who spent entire songs uncurling and unfurling. There was such a slow, agonizing movement in their dancing.

It was like watching slow motion. Only way better.

I became obsessed with moving, uncurling, and expanding as slowly as possible. This was even harder than dancing fast! I had to fight my instincts to complete my movements quickly and practices grew slower and slower. I was milking the music for all that it was worth, creating exquisite, simple, perfect movements.

I practiced this style of dance for years before I was satisfied with it.

Time passed and I found myself away from dance for awhile. This time, instead of months, it was years. I moved, found a new community, and began dancing again.

I could still dance quickly, with high-energy! I could dance slowly and expansively. But neither was fulfilling.

The teacher I found was older and had been dancing for many decades. There was much wisdom here. She taught me the beauty of mixing tempos, which delights me endlessly. To be dancing with high-energy, making quick and precise movements and then suddenly STOPPING! And melting into some beautiful, slow, serpentine movements, deliciously savouring every nuance of sensation. And then, suddenly, bambambam! Raise the energy again!

I learned that it was through this combination of movements that I could really take my audience for a ride – to truly marvel, express, and touch upon the nuances of movement.

I am sure there is more to learn, but it is in this place that I am now. Mixing my fast and my slow, my sudden and deliberate.

But this is also what I find to be true when we learn most things. When we first learn, we’re just trying to accomplish something. Get the job done. Make it to the finish. Later, we go back and we start working on perfection. Cleaning up the sloppiness. Then we really start to take joy and satisfaction from the simplest of attempts and eventually, we learn that getting the job done is important! But so, too, is the process. So when you feel you have gone as far as you can, go back to the beginning and relearn it again in a different way, in a different style, or with a different philosophy and really squeeze the most you can out of every little nuance.