The Conscious Dancer

Could the state of the world, our lives, our relationships actually be ideal conditions to help us wake up to a rich, vibrant, loving, creative, and meaningful life? Is it not worth trying to discover healthy and uplifting strategies of moving in all this chaos? Methods that help us to connect with life. Paths where we can discover our strength and creativity. Ways that help us at the very least to not be crippled by apparent state of things.

This article presents what I know through direct experience as a great way: Conscious Dance.

The opposite is unconscious dance – moving in an intoxicated or inebriated state where one is not present in ones minds nor embodied in ones movement.

The facilitator will occasionally remind us of the guidelines and offer some pointers. There are no steps, practices or choreographed moves. No experience needed. Everybody is free to move how they feel to move. Sometimes you dance the dance. Sometimes the dance dances you. We invite a playful, non-judgmental curiosity to our movement.

We give our beings kind attention. Loving awareness. Some people dance in a spot in the corner. Others move around the whole room. Some dance on their own. Others dance together. Some people make slow small movements. Others dance fast big and expressive ones. For some it’s a good sweat. Wiggling hips and playful spines. Bodies speaking in the universal language of movement.

A full spectrum of emotion expressed and moved on the dance floor. We watch our breath. Repeatedly come back to feeling our body. We allow our thinking to drop into the body as a movement. Maybe today it’s a dance of grief. Maybe a dance of celebration. Moving with our stories and dreams. We pray. We find creative expression. Solve problems. Get unstuck. Discover things about ourselves.

It is all welcome in the conscious dance space. At the end of the class we take a few moments to be with the experience we have had, then we end the class.

Good luck out there!

What leads me to write this article is that I feel that this is what many people are looking for although they don’t know it. The practice helps people examine and move with the patterns, behaviours, moods and feelings that usually lead to us wanting to “numb” out with a drink. It provides us with a viable sustainable healthy alternative.

One of the beauty’s of conscious dance is that it is a safe space. People who can no longer go to parties, raves or nightclubs due to the triggers can still come have a great dance. Connect with a community. Once you have practiced it a bit, you will find yourself dancing everywhere and feel more alive for it.

People realise very quickly that the enjoyment they had from a night out was not from the drinking, it was from the dancing! Drinks perhaps initially enabled one to feel free enough to dance. Yet at the end of the day it was the dance doing it.

Conscious dance is a beautiful practice. You are not meant to just know how to do it, especially if you have never done it before. And anybody can do it. Not feeling totally comfortable dancing, or being self conscious about dancing is pretty standard. Definitely no reason not to try it! How do you learn to move if not by moving? You need to practice it. With practice you will overcome all these obstacles. In fact, these obstacles are actually your first teachers!

Come dance! You will be most welcome.

Join the growing community of conscious dancers out in the world. Classes are springing up all over. Look for Dance Awake, Dancing Freedom, Expressive Movement, 5 Rhythms, Movement Medicine, or Ecstatic dance to name a few. Each style and facilitator will have their own flavour so you may need to try a few classes to find the one for you. If you are not ready to brave the dance floor then join the Academy for online dances that you can do in the comfort of your living room.