“Freedom through movement...”

By Michael Hallock

Consider yourself the sculptor, the stone, and the angel inside. Consider dance as your art, freeing yourself from the rigidity of the body and the mind-, unveiling the essence of being awareness and bliss, through movement.

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”
– Michaelangelo

Inspired by Rhythm
It can happen anywhere – a dance hall or a church hall; a wilderness or backyard; a warehouse or your living room. Around the world, a similar ritual may be called by many names – 5 Rhythms®, Kundalini Dance®, Chakra Dance™, Spirit Dance, and others. In its many forms the ecstatic dance movement is poised to become the next yoga. Your guide is part DJ/ part Shaman, whose rhythms take you on a journey. The music evokes themes and expression, leading you into inspired states of consciousness. Staccato bassy beats ground you in the earthy body. Flowing melodies remind you are also water and fluid. Driving rhythmic beats inspire your fire and wildness. Lyrical sounds spark playfulness and ingenuity. Ethereal sounds connect you to expansiveness, stillness, and receptivity - listening and knowing you are not merely elemental.

An Ancient Connection
Imagine dancing – just as our ancestors did, and tribal people still do. Imagine movements, which are not structured or imposed, but free and organic -unpredictable. A dance, moving through exercise to catharsis, a subtle exorcism of negativity. Where not only calories are burned, but also outworn self-concepts. Where not only sweat is shed, but inhibitions and self-consciousness fall away.

Liberating the Bodymind
Letting go in dance means letting go of physical tension, emotional and mental blocks, allowing a natural lightness of body and freedom of being. Muscles are stretched and massaged. Tissues are awakened by the dance and release their grip on harboured feelings stored in cellular memory. The catharsis thaws the physical tension and touches on emotional reactions long held and frozen in the body. Movement may tap into a wound. It may take us by surprise, unexpected – a deep-seated, subtle knocking, waiting for us to listen, feel, and know. Emotion is allowed to flow. Suppressed pain is felt and expressed through movement; like a once trapped bubble surges up and bursts into the open air.

A Moving Meditation
The catharsis of the dance gives way to the pleasure of movement and joy of feeling. Total involvement in movement liberates the mind from thought into present moment awareness. Rhythm and breath circle into ecstatic states of consciousness. Inspiration and insight emerge. Personal revelation rises to epiphany.

A Journey
You may travel through insecurity, self-consciousness, and your pain on your way towards spontaneous, authentic being. Ecstatic dance encompasses and embraces the extremes. We may recoil into fragility and rise in strength and hope. We may acknowledge past hurt or resolve to love again. A rage or wound may split open into gratitude for the gift of feeling deeply, and for life’s opportunity – every moment, another chance. This moment, another chance to live the life you were given with truth, joy, and love.

Connection
The dance may revive a deep longing to live an impassioned life – a commitment to purpose and a connection to self. In connecting deeply to ourselves through dance, we re-enter the world more alive, extending the connection with ourselves to our interactions, bringing the sacred into the everyday.

Michael Hallock is a writer and a teacher of yoga and healing arts. He teaches internationally and currently leads programmes at the Golden Door Health Retreat - Elysia, in NSW Australia. Contact Michael at inspiringrelaxation@gmail.com