"I am not interested in how people move, but in what moves them." Pina Bausch http://vimeo.com/100021239

                Nina Hemmingsson

Ibland frågar jag deltagare varför de fortsätter dansa år efter år, och vad de får ut av dans-praktiken. Några säger att de dansar för att de tycker att Lifedancing är en fantastisk motionsform, och de märker att de får bättre kondition och mer energi när de dansar regelbundet. Andra dansar för de längtar efter att få bättre kontakt med sina kroppar, och de uppskattar särskilt centrerings och grundnings-övningarna vi alltid tränar i början av varje danspass. En del dansare lider av smärtproblematik, eller har olika kroppsliga besvär, och de tycker att de känner sig rörligare och mjukare efter en session. De gillar kravlösheten och slappnar av när de inser det är helt OK att röra sig efter sina egen förutsättningar. Att det går bra att t.ex. att sätta eller lägga sig när man behöver det. Andra kommer för dansa med känslor, minnen, drömmar eller konflikter. De upplever att det är effektivt att kombinera den fria dansen med terapi eller coaching, och att processen får en extra skjuts när de samtidigt dansar kontinuerligt. Några dansare säger att de får ökat flöde i olika kreativa processer när de dansar. Målare, skulptörer, författare och musiker vittnar om större tillgång till nya, inre rum och bilder, som visar sig under dans-passets gång, eller precis efteråt. Väldigt många dansar Lifedancing för att släppa taget om stress och oro. De kommer ned i varv i avslappningsövningen på slutet och känner sig lugnare efter ett dans-pass, och de säger att effekten håller i sig flera dagar. En del meditatörer kombinerar fri dans med sittande meditation, och tycker att de uppnår djupare närvaro, både i dansen och i meditationen. Mina egna intentioner och behov förändras hela tiden. Just idag dansar jag med bröstkorgen, [...]

Follow The Flow - Lifedancing Work-Shop, Munich March 27-29 Follow The Flow is an invitation to dance, move and breathe with the unknown, to embrace the vulnerability that comes with trusting without knowing. Follow The Flow guides us to hear the unspoken words of pure intuition, and inspires us to follow the innocent calling in our hearts. Follow The Flow takes us to places we didn´t know existed, and brings us right into presence - the only place where dreams comes true. Connect with Miri Kalliwoda for information and registration m.kalliwoda@vodafone.de  

Styrkan i sårbarheten - Fin film med Brene Brown (TED talks) http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html

May we dance to discover ourselves directly, deeply, dangerously, deliciously, delicately and dynamically! 5 Rythms Wake Up and Dance  

Powerful message from author Elizabeth Gilbert. Nearly 800 years ago, the Persian mystic poet Rumi wrote, "You must ask for what you really want." He saw asking as a sacred duty, and I think he was right—not because your wishes will be granted automatically (they won't), but because the mere act of saying aloud "This is who I am and what I've come for" seems to awaken a powerful force within. By articulating your wish, you're making an announcement that you're serious about bringing forth the next great thing in your life.

Dance instructor Sylvie Minot eyes her pupils gathered in a windowless room inside San Francisco County Jail. "This is not your typical dance class," she says, as the five women fidget in identical orange outfits. Minot presses a button on the mini iPod strapped to her wrist, and a heavy bongo beat fills the tiny room. The inmates move their feet at first, roll their shoulders, and then give in to their bodies and move their hips, arms and heads in a coveted moment of freedom. Jones (left) and Sarria release tension during the dance class. "It sets me up for the week. I feel like I am better able to let things go   that are bothering me," Sarria says of the class. Photo: Craig Hudson, The Chronicle   For the past four years, Minot, 50, and her Syzygy Dance Project have been bringing meditative dance to incarcerated women, to ex-soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder at veterans' hospitals, to addicts inside recovery centers, and to young people at camps for at-risk youth, helping them use physical energy and movement to overcome anger, stress and self-doubt. With the help of her wife, Wendy Heffner, Minot works with 20 volunteers and leads six different Syzygy movement classes a week. For the past 10 years, she has taught a 7 p.m. Wednesday Syzygy class for the public in the Martin Luther King Middle School gym in Sausalito. She receives no funding for the jail program, using door fees from her Marin regulars to pay for it. Releasing anger "When I dance with the inmates, it just opens my heart," said Minot, who came to dance two decades ago as a way to overcome her own struggles with alcohol [...]

By David Whyte Start close in, don't take the second step or the third, start with the first thing close in, the step you don't want to take. Start with the ground you know, the pale ground beneath your feet, your own way of starting the conversation. Start with your own question, give up on other people's questions, don't let them smother something simple. To find another's voice, follow your own voice, wait until that voice becomes a private ear listening to another. Start right now take a small step you can call your own don't follow someone else's heroics, be humble and focused, start close in, don't mistake that other for your own. Start close in, don't take the second step or the third, start with the first thing close in, the step you don't want to take.    

  Yesterday, I came from Berlin and the Lifedancing work-shop Owner Of A Broken Heart. After three days on the dance-floor with a totally devoted group of brave souls, I feel a little bit more intimite with the nature my own broken heart. This brokenness... so often abanoned, even though it desperatly needs to be accnowledged and embraced. This brokenness... so painful... so ugly and shameful. This brokenness... so innocent and vulnarable. This brokenness.... this crack into the depth of our hearts, where nothing can be damaged, where everything is intact, sacred and holy.   Reminds me of a little piece I wrote some months ago.   "The sky was gray and the rain was pouring down. My body was heavy and the contractions around my heart intense. The resistance felt like a wet blanket, but as I kept walking and breathing, my dance-teachers words were ringing in my ears: "everything you put in motion, will eventually change into something else". After I while I came to a crossroad where I always turn to the right. But all of a sudden I heard a small voice in my heart saying: "turn to the left". I stopped, feeling confused. Why would I turn left? I always pick the right road, because it leads to a lovely view with a an amazing horizon. And this horizon always expand my perspective, something I clearly would benefit from right now, in my disconnected state. But the voice in my heart was persistent. "Turn to the left!" it kept saying. "OK then",  I answered, a bit annoyed. As I walked on, a white rabbit came jumping out of the woods. It´s movements was totally effortless and breathtakingly elegant. In a flash of an eye, I remembered the white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland and The Matrix. Follow the white rabbit. And so I did. All of a sudden it stopped, looked me right in the eye for what felt like [...]