JUNE 2008
New York group
Registration
Sacred Dances Teacher
Amiyo Devienne:
Teaching Method
For the beginners at first , the main difficulty remains in "taming "body, breaking its automatism and apathy , establishing correct postures, sequences and displacements individually and within the group. The attention is constantly called to different parts of the body, simultaneously or successively. One notices how we are not yet master over the right balance between tensions and relaxation.
We learn to discriminate between resistances, which are the natural demands of a posture or movement, and extra tensions often emotionally induced, that we too often bring.
And the movement is either too rigid, or flabby, in case of a lukewarm attitude. Attention and absence of tensions, these are the conditions for harmony to be. If the attention is total and purified from unnecessary "luggages" such as physical tensions, worries, emotional charges, mental restlessness.
Then it suddenly leads to a blissful sensation of the whole of oneself, as well as awareness of the room, the group members, the air, the music’Ķ. In other words heightened awareness that announces a shift in consciousness. The movement happens without the interference or control of the mind.
We are "being danced" by the spirit of the movement. Grace descends’Ķ. We have moved from active participation through efforts of body and attention to an active surrender, lighter, effortless, and the sky meets the earth’Ķ. What Taoists call "Wei wu wei", action through inaction, effortless effort.
Seeing the difficulties one encounter in a body that feels clumsy at first, emotions arise. Gurdjieff was provocative, "a danger" says Michel de Salzmann, danger to our comfort, our illusions, our self-image and passivity. The discomfort is not so much physical as it is emotional and mental. Memories of being "bad" at school, or the tension to stay "good", self condemnation, comparisons, desires for a result, identification with success. These are all in danger during the dances. But if we can maintain our center of gravity in the watcher, (and this is one of the main support an instructor can give!), then a very beneficial lesson is learned:
the possibility to distance ourselves from emotions and thoughts which so often prevent the free flow of energy and life.
IN our daily life discouragement, anger, frustration, fear, greed , or beliefs such as, "I will not be able" or "I am not good enough," are affecting the clarity of our decisions, the harmony in our relating, inhibiting the fullfillment of our potential, holding us in a psychological prison.
But how can we take them so seriously when they keep on coming and going front stage at such a speed during the dance structures? Hence the search for oneness’Ķ While practicing the movements, we face these fragments of our personality, and some distance is created. You face it, and you let go, you face it, and you let go. The quality of attention required by these strange movements does not let you hold on. And the coming back again and again simply to the sensations in the body- breathing, weight, alignment, and the energetic flow. Such is the dance of attention. Instead of the interference coming from the lower part of our intellectual center, this constant turning of thoughts, the escape in dreams, in past or future, the practice encourages the participation of the intelligent part of the mind. They involve understanding of individual and global patterns, but also words, counting... This allows the brain to enter into specific vibrations that are in total support with the movement given. The verbalization is an intrisic part of the movement, and must be respected as such, the whole being the result of a long-studied science of impressions.
In the same way, the movements are often calling for a specific feeling or emotion, either triggered by the music, or visualisation, or words. The emotional center can then enter in a particular state, such as memories of parents funerals, or longing for the higher etc... This mobilization of the 3 centers open the doors to a new quality of energy.
This also helps maintaining in alert the 3 types of attention: the instinctive global attention of the body, similar to the one of a little child, or the animal in the night, choiceless, inclusive of all - the powerful emotional attention present when we love or value what we are doing - the intellectual attention that sees, understands and connects.
So the 3 centers, physical, emotional and intellectual, are meeting. In our daily life, this is not so often the case! Observe yourself preparing a lemon pie in the kitchen. The body in the kitchen is pressing the lemons, the heart is somewhere along the road from school to home, as the children are late, the mind is busy calculating which type of printer to afford ’Ķ The practise of the movementsis an exceptional opportunity of unification. And when this unification is felt, a very peculiar emotional quality is born: The bliss of feeling oneself at the right place , at the right time, in alertness and relaxation, aliveness and peace, lightness and fluidity, stillness and movement. Moreover, our awareness expands , as we enter deeper inside ourselves, and spreads its wings to other human beings, to the animal and vegetal world. Hence inner freedom, sensitivity and care.
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