By Tony Wan
This post is part of 30 Days of Gaga. A Non-Dancer’s Diary of Dance. Read Day 1.
Day 8
Nothing about our teacher today screams “dancer.” Medium build. Well-kept beard. But when he moves, I’m mesmerized.
I can’t articulate what I see, but I wish I could move like him.
“Hold your arms above your head. Now let them drop…. This is the speed of gravity.”
Sounds obvious. I must be missing something.
He tells us what he sees, what he likes, and what he wants to see more of. Maybe some of us aren’t getting it. Is it me? It’s probably me.
“Don’t hold back. Don’t use effort either. Just let your arms drop. ”
We repeat this motion, until it becomes a moving meditation.
I can feel myself blocking movement, injecting effort where none is required, making things difficult for myself. I guess blocking is my default. I’m great at saying, “no”.
“Don’t fall in love with your research. ”
Busted.
“Feel that the speed of gravity applies to every joint. Your entire body. On a molecular level.”
I find that sensation of falling everywhere in my body… my knees, pelvis, and elbows. Even the small places, like the joints between the bones of my fingers.
It’s fractal.
It’s atomic.
It’s quantum.
Einstein would love Gaga.
In the final minutes of class, the teacher turns up the music, and encourages us to research the concepts he’s just shared.
The teacher falls into movement! That’s the effing ineffable quality I see.
I’m guessing the teacher has danced all his life. I’ve been here eight days. Stil… on a quantum level… the particles of my body are no different than his.
And in small moments… a microsecond here… a millisecond there… that ineffable quality of falling into movement, I feel it too.
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Follow Tony Wan’s journey through a full month of classes with biweekly posts here and on his blog.
