Embodying Story

At summer camp, as a young girl, I took modern dance.  I remember dancing freely with the teacher's voice suggesting I "be a tree."  Reflecting back, it sounds so much less inhibited than I usually recognize myself to be.  It sounds so much more hippie than I generally acknowledge myself to be.  But I came home begging my mother to send me to modern dance lessons.

We lived in the Philly suburbs.  To my knowledge, in the early 90s she probably would have had to commit to drive me to Philly for lessons.  I'm sure it could have been a burden to a working mother.  She found a ballet studio run by two Polish former dancers.  One played the piano & the other kept time by banging her cane.  These ballerinas had danced for survival.  I wanted to dance for something else.

I remember that same spark of recognition when I wandered into Barry's house as a teenager.  His mother took sculpting classes at night.  Their home was filled with nude sculptures of real women with generous thighs, soft shoulders, & round bellies.  As a young woman, growing into my own skin, it suddenly seemed possible that I could find a home there.  I looked closely at what Barry's mother had fashioned: I could see her thumb nail carve out a shoulder blade, her print on a calf, where she had sprayed water to soften, & where she'd allowed clay to harden & form.

I loved working with clay.  I loved the tactile sensation.  I loved sculpting & feeling that lineage to something epic, some sensation of man from earth, imagination to reality.  I took a workshop with Jill Manning where she compared backbending towards throwing a pot on a wheel, slowly centering.

During this time my main expression was writing.  I wrote tons of poetry & short stories.  The poetry was mainly influenced by Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, & Adrienne Rich.  A different voice appealed to me in stories.  I liked something rugged & rich in Flannery O'Connor's tales & generally dug deep in the Southern American cannon for authors.  

All of these authors directed me to their sources.  Sylvia Plath especially sent me towards Biblical stories, Greek, & Roman myths.  I loved the drama.  I loved the crafting of Self.

All of these memories have resurfaced for me recently.  I'm teaching kids yoga, which I don't do often.  I began remembering what felt compelling to me around age nine.  It was movement & story.  That is yoga-- connecting to something deep, rich, & possibly buried within ourselves.  Freeing up & moving through.  Sculpting our own forming bodies into something authentic.  

In recent years I've read many of the stories that shaped yoga practice.  My plan is to allow these young students to embody Virabhadra & then learn about the epic tale between he, Sita, & Daksha.  Teach the students how to inhabit Natarajasana & then explore the significance of Nataraj dancing & stamping out ignorance.  Balance in Ardha Candrasana & giggle at the origin tale of Ganesh hurling his husk at the moon.

Sweetly, though I have yet to meet this group of students they've already offered me this exploration in preparing their class.  There is such a richness in the relationship of learning.  I have the blessing & privilege of watching students stride a little more knowledgeably within themselves & in so doing, excavate.