en transito: en rama ando una practica

yesterday i found in the readington terminal market, philadelphia, pa
site i visit on a daily basis - uno de mis santuarios...

this quote revealed itself to me:

being present is the best present you can give.


how true!

i think this will be the only requirement and method for "grading" for my yoga classes @ acedemic insitutions!

from my experience of teaching this course over two years now, in this kind of set up, showing up on time + consistently is the hardest!

seems the easiest, but in all truth ....

and i ask myself what i ask from the students = no exceptions!

NO WHINING! NO EXCUSES! NO HIDING.

TOUGH LOVE!!!!


in any case

i open this blog entry with this thought becasue
if there is anything i've learnt from more than a year of branch dancing - i started branch dancing w/ merian soto way before the one year commitment. as i collaborated for some proscenium performances. therefore the investigation has had more than a year long impact on me. at this point it has made its way on to my living, thinking, organizing, feeling, etc..etc..etc...

i am very grateful for this experience. if there is something huge i take from it,
it is: SUBTELTY.

the refined capacity to fine tune, harmonize, surrender, let go attachments: ego being a massive one!!!!!

in my experience branch dancing is a most humbling and disarming experience!

my first encounters w/ branch dancing proved much resistance from me!
in a way i sensed right away branch dances are totally "anti-hero" dances.
with this i imply that the "normal" focus or intent -whatever that means- of "dancing" "as we know"[it gets more complicated by the second] gets absolutely shifted on to ANOTHER REALM OF CONSCIOUSNESS and with it another set of priorities and intentions.

if there is something i know now "for sure" is, that a result from being a participant and collaborator in La Maquina del Tiempo, Merian Soto work 2004, i became a full time improviser with "no go-ing back" to formal dancing. now as a result of branch dancing i have become a "non-dancer" dancer full time = there is no going back to other priorities and ways of immersing and thinking, creating and doing work.

in my understanding and undertaking of this work, what had been stirred and woken up in La Maquina just got magnified and immersed into a way bigger panoroama to tune in to. with this massive shift something gives, gradually inevitably.

harmonizing is word that can help describe the nature of what happens. in my experience you as you know and think of yourself gets peeled removed or transmuted
on to possibility

you become one with

you become "other" stuff

you become the air

you become the branch or the former tree where the branch came from

you become water

you become an animal

you become something else

it is a big huge relief = extremely healing!!!


at this point, after more than two years of practicing, i can zoom in
which is part of what happens right away -the technique, as soon as i come in contact with the branch. this is fabulous! i can drop everything and just connect: nothing else to do! no more multitasking! balancing comes as an immediate outcome of the focus. it is one pointed mind. nothing else. just present with.

i do not question or doubt what unfolds as soon as i hold the branch.

i get into challenging postures and situations, yet my mind stops working as i experience it on a regular basis. i trust. i know. without "knowing" as we know...

excuse my redundancy but it is [what happens...]

to be continued...