Some things you take for granted. You have to, really,
because the choice is living in fear. If you worried constantly
about your health, or the state of the world, then you'd be
mildly neurotic at the last, and truly crazy at the worst. The real
question is, when times are crazy, What's the sane thing to do?

Most people take their bodies for granted, unless they
have some immediate need to fulfill. That's the wonderful part
about being a dancer - or athlete, or anything that requires you
to act, body and soul together. For dancers and athletes have
developed body consciousness to its highest state. When you
are awake and attuned to your body your range of expression is
increased ten-fold.

Walking is not "just" walking. This thing we call
walking is a complex series of events which involves direction
of movement (forward, back and sides on the horizontal plane),
quality of movement (soft/hard), speed (fast,medium, slow),
and balance (centeredness and transfer of weight). "So what's
so hard?", you ask. Even babies learn it. Actually babies are
amazing creatures. They come into a completely alien
existence full of hope and wonder and have to learn everything,
even how to crawl. And then we say that they're "playing".

Walking is the best way to warm up for a workout. But
again, not "just" walking. You must feel every aspect of the
"walking" experience and play with its variations. But isn't that
dance?, you say. Yes, of course, it is. You could study dance
your whole life and honestly say, "I learned how to walk".
Which is also to say that you studied how to walk through your
life.

And so I walk in circles around my "playroom", a
wonderful space 16' x 22 ft with a wall of mirrors and soft gray
carpet. I, and my twin self, walk. The bottoms of my feet push
against the floor, feeling the connection with the earth and the
debt we owe her for her constant support. My bare feet stake a
claim on the space. The shoulders soon catch the energies, and
the arms rise up to take charge of the space over my head.

As the energy builds, I go faster, until the power builds
in my legs and bursts forth in leg lifts and leaps. Finally, it is
too much for mere foward and backward motion, and I break
into circling and turning.

A moving spin is an incredible complex set of events:
the body turns, the foot goes out, the chest and shoulders follow,
the arms follow the chest, or lead it, to maintain the balance.
The head snaps around to the new direction. All of this happens
beautiful if perfect balance is maintained throughout. It
happens without thinking words because all of this happens,
must happen, too fast for stringing out words. You visualize
shapes, space, feelings, sounds. You reach out and feel where
you want to make the shape, and then you're there and it's time
for the next one.

Your self disappears in the flow of energies that pass
through and around you. You exist only as potential, a sense of
what fits and what doesn't, and full of expectancy for the next
moment. You hope that you can remain true to yourself
throughout. Taking the wrong steps, doing the wrong dance,
dancing to the wrong music, are all painful experiences. And
it's so hard to know sometimes the right choices to make
because there's always some there ready to tell you where they
think you should go, how you should get there, what everyone
expects of you, what you're not allowed to do. It's hard to tell
the difference sometimes between honest doubts that you
should listen to, and foolish ones that you need the courage to
ignore. There's a wonderful quote from Baz Lur, the director of
"STRICTLY BALLROOM" about a tyrannical dancer
federation: "Everybody's got a federation in their life .. There's
always someone trying to tell you how to dance, but they can
never tell you WHY."

This is what it is to be a dancer. It is to be alive, in the
moment, moment by moment It is beyond words, as are all
great experiences. It is a sign, a sense of joy, and or wonder, a
cry and sometimes a scream. It is passion and spirituality. It is
being fully alive. As Neitzsche said, "I would believe only in a
God who can dance."