December 21
Being tired
I’ve been wondering recently whether doing Shiva Nata is part of what has left me so tired this Winter. When I went back to it after a break I started to get tired again and this really frightened me because I enjoy it so much that I don’t want to find that I’m ‘incompatible’ or anything strange like that!
What I realised today was that maybe the reason the DVD has years of material is because it takes time to really let it sink in. I can master the patterns and the mathematics and the movement, but to go from learnt movement to really incorporating it and letting it become a mindful practice may take more time.
Not sure what this means right now, but was thinking about this in bed this morning, as I thought about dancing (contemporary) mindfully rather than going into the trance-like performance state I usually disappear into.
Hey James,
I’m curious about the difference in your experience between a “trance-like performance state” and “dancing mindfully”?
I have my own thoughts on the matter, but I’m curious what yours are.
Duff’s last blog post..Transformation by Donation
Hey Duff,
The trance-like state is the one where after the performance I haven’t got a clue what just happened. I’m pretty certain it went ok but I’ve no memory recall. Dancing mindfully would mean that my awareness was tracking through the movement as I did it.
I’m not actually sure whether the latter is better, since when I was learning dance the focus was always on knowing what is coming next, so the mindfulness was on the next step rather than the current one, but I’ve a feeling that once the movement is fully in the body this is no longer necessary and instead I can focus entirely on the moment (hence ‘dancing mindfully’) and know that my body-mind will travel the path successfully. That way I can be fully present to what I am wanting to express or experience in the dance itself.
Your turn!
Ah, so in the trance-like state you have amnesia for what you did. If you dance mindfully, do you also have amnesia after the dance is over, or no?
I think there are a variety of trances, and one of them is mindfulness. Most trances involve tuning-out, but mindfulness is a kind of tuning-in trance. Or similarly, most people think of trance as going to sleep, but mindfulness is waking up.
I’ve seen great hypnotic trance work where someone falls totally asleep, but their problem gets resolved. The thing about this kind of work though is that the client feels like someone else did something to them. When the trance is more mindful, the client feels much more empowered, and often usually reports more of a “spiritual” experience.
Both seem useful, but I tend to advocate for mindfulness rather than spacing out, as you get the benefits of trance with the addition of clarity, or “fierce alertness.”
Duff’s last blog post..Transformation by Donation
[...] Duff: Ah, so in the trance-like state you have amnesia for what yo… [...]
@Duff – I’ve been thinking about this one, trying to decide how to answer your questions. I think that actually, what I’m describing as a trance state, isn’t, but that I have had trance states as well. So let me try and get clear in what I’m saying:
Mindful state: when I perform I am totally focused on the moment. I am aware of what is happening as much as possible, whether that be internal, external or both. Afterwards I cannot remember much, if any, of what happened, perhaps because all of my mind was focused so intently that there was no room for memory formation.
Trance state: I’ve had this when doing improvised dance. I lose all awareness of my body and the space around me (which is actually pretty dangerous to do for any length of time). The movement becomes sensation, the twists, turns and leaps are feelings rather than shapes. I have managed to do this without incident a number of times however, and then come back to a more mindful place when necessary (i.e. no longer alone in the space) – perhaps a sense of my space remains on some level to allow me the freedom to go there?
The former is hyper-focused and usually has intention. The latter is freedom, raw emotion, unconstrained.
Thanks for prompting this investigation, it’s fascinating and I’d never realised the different states involved when I was dancing before.
Very interesting, James. I appreciate the finer distinctions you made!
That makes sense that you have amnesia for experiences performed from the mindful state. This fits Mihaly C’s criteria of Flow: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)
I too have experienced this–both in dance and other contexts.
I also totally get what you are saying about the trance state. I’ve also danced that way, and smacked into people doing so!
I’ve been playing with an aspect of awareness recently when doing movement practice (Bradford Keeney’s “autokinetics” or “shaking medicine”) that may be the same thing as you are describing here.
It’s as if my attention has an aspect of it that varies on a continuum from “fierce alertness” (correlates perhaps to the mindful state you describe) on the one hand, to a kind of dullness or even drunkenness on the other. The dullness usually has more raw emotion, and the fierce alertness more hyper-focused and intentional, although both can exist in the midst of spontaneous movement. I find the fierce alertness more useful to cultivate as a practice, with occasional dips into the dullness if I’m holding on too tightly.
Anyway, those are my thoughts for now.
~Duff
Duff’s last blog post..Transformation by Donation