Movin' Easy Dancewear

Dedication to my partners and teachers who have loved this dance with me.

Kindness in the foot placing itself.

Kindness in the breath receiving itself.

Kindness way behind the eyes and yes deeply seeing behind trillions of intimate cells.

Kindness dancing inside precious joints undulating outwards towards the most open embrace.

Kindness drawing only nourishment from the seas we call our atmosphere.

Kindness insisting that harm is not our friend.

Kindness reaching bringing embracing our partners in this our dance.

Kindness timing our rhythmic spaces to taste tender and tragic trial and error.

Kindness within multiple moments of rest ready for momentum to exude life.

Kindness allowing dance to bubble and travel through our rapids along our placid stretches passage upon passage.

Kindness greeting our enemies offering to offend our visceral fears, our hidden wishes, our clutch on darkness.

Kindness to greet our overwhelming dance of delight overflowing from every corner of our known and unknown vulnerabilities.

Tim Hurst 092311

The Fluent Body with Sarah Brumgart offers group Yoga classes for all skill levels and ages, Wednesdays noon-1pm and Thursdays 6-7pm.

Classes held @ Austin Center for Holistic Healing & Yoga, 5515 Balcones Drive, 2nd floor, near 2222 & Mopac, across from Chez Zee Restaurant, above Independence Title, entrances to staircase by Pakmail or Nails.

Register at  sarah@sarahbumgart.com

512-241-1915

www.sarahbrumgart.com

The Dance Zone’s popular,  sexy/nightclub style cardio classes are back and better than ever with a new instructor, Amber Prowell, and new vibe Wednesdays 7:45-8:45pm. This class will focus on combining sexy choreography and freestyle dance techniques to help tone and build stamina. Done in a nightclub environment with dark lighting and bangin’ beats from Lady Gaga to Beyonce, this class will be “lots of booty, cute and sassy, high energy and upbeat”!

Prowell has been a member of the GoGo Gadgettes, a high energy dance troupe made up of contemporary dancers, hula hoopers, flag and fire spinners since 2007. The Gadgettes perform regularly at Austin’s top nightclubs, music festivals, with many of the world’s top headliners and at major events like the P-Diddy Superbowl After Party.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/event.php?eid=181191835260610

www.inthedancezone.com

Insomnia Sing Dance.  It was midnight.  I had too much ice cream topped with too much brownie and too much chocolate syrup and my system was trying to digest and settle down.  Laying still and determined not to get up, I remembered so many all night events I had attended with dancing and singing.  After the sun would begin warming the sky, I would be thinking that I should be exhausted but instead I would feel reinvigorated.

On this particular night, it was obvious I was not going to sleep any time soon so I tried an experiment while lying down.  I began humming and dancing with my arms.  Humm, felt good, kept that going for a while.  A deep inhale relaxed my body and gave me a little incentive to stay with it although my preference would have been to get up and work.

No, the relaxation did not put me to sleep but somehow I knew my body and mind was getting some rest that would do well for the next day.  And not that I recommend this form of long meditation to anyone, it is a great time to understand the connection of dance, singing, and relaxation.

The elements of dance that worked well were random smooth arm movements, coordinated arm movements with palms facing, crossing both hands from one side of the body to the other,  rippling any muscles from toes up through legs, hips, and up the spine, and gentle rolling of feet side to side.  Using the principles of Chi Gong, a healing movement is palms facing moving to one side of the body while the head and hips move to the other side.

Well I did finally go to sleep around 4:30 probably more from the sugar wearing off than from my relaxing songs and movements.

For more on meditation and weight loss see this great site. http://www.qmeditation.com/

@PBS watch Change Your Brain, Change Your Body by psychiatrist Daniel Amen.  In Austin, March 28 at 1:00 pm.  Finally bringing together how every person is unique connecting brain,  health, weight control, supplements, exerise, meditation, and rest.

Here is the promo “How to extend ones life, look younger, lose weight, and decrease the risk of Alzheimers disease, depression, heart disease, and diabetes.”

Healing movements and dances have been passed down through aboriginal community gatherings, shamanic rituals, and temple dances.  Our culture has focused on the application of these dances to the individual.

Today the forms of healing movement are uncountable, from visualization and games to dance forms with long traditions. Most seek to increase the awareness of body/mind/spirit and many seek to connect to a greater intelligence coming through the body.  Here are only a few of

Authentic Movement

Ballet Barre

Chi Gong

Contact Improvisation

Continuum Therapy

Deborah Hay cellular exploration

Deep listening/Tai Chi  http://www.deeplistening.org/heloise/Home/html

Feldenkreis

Gerdheiff

Klein Technique

Modern Dance warmups

Oriental Dance

Praise Dance

Skinner Technique

Tai Chi

Trance Dance

Sufi Dancing

Yoga

Dance is more than boot camp burning calories.  First commitments are what rules us.  Either we commit to strong inner muscles or we commit to building flabby outer shells.  Either we commit to fun movement that delights us or we commit to drudgery that eventually leads to preferring to sit around rather than move.  Either we commit to showing our personality full out no matter our body type or we drive ourselves mad hoping our personality will survive our self judgment.

When it comes down to it, whether we are bulky or thin, the choice is whether we are going to like ourselves and let our bodies show it.  Dance gives the opportunity to clear out the thoughts of  not being enough and to have fun doing it.

I am looking for the dancers who are hosting a blog about eating disorders. My wish is that dancers take their solutions to all teens who are having problems with eating disorders.

My guess is that the problem is growing in the general population as our eating and weight gain gets out of control.

Dancers have an advantage with the high demands for a healthy body as well as a crafted muscular one.  Dancers of all sizes and body types are the perfect counselors for teens caught in the web of an extreme body image and an addiction to processed and unhealthy foods.

Do dancers avoid surgery replacements more than the general population?  Who has the answer?

Professional dancers put more demands on every part of their body than any sport.  How do they fair with life long injuries and surgery replacements?

Here are my observations.  The risks are great because dancers challenge more muscles, always trying different combinations and intensity.  However, they are trained for that difficulty.  Dancers trained in ballet and modern dance have a range of tools to prevent injury and to attend to problems immediately.  Their tools are self administered first, helped by hands on professionals, and assisted by other technical and physical means.

I would guess that dancers have as many injuries as other sports and that they approach them differently.  The key to using dancer’s tools is in depth training in exploring every muscle in the body and how they work together to make both intricate and large bold movements.

In this context of exploring the body, the dancer takes each twinge of a muscle seriously and uses training to apply specific stretches, positions, rest, and attention to other muscles that support the weak area.

Social dancers are becoming more aware of these body exploratory tools but in general they do not warm up before a class or stretch afterwards which are basic to a dancer’s attention kit.