Today's effort felt sort of like a performance that is continually interrupted by cell phones...much like the writing of this post is feeling, actually. It's just a continuous chorus of "Up?...up?...up?...up? Book? Book? Book? Book? Boob? Boob? Boob? Boob?" until I feel like I'm going mad. I persevered, however. My dance session today featured a selection of slower classical music, a cello version of "Nothing Else Matters" by Metallica, and one song by Matt Nathanson. It also featured a reading of the children's book "Owl Babies" complete with dance steps as a compromise between Xander's request that I sit on the floor and read and my own desire to keep dancing. That part brought to mind a choreography assignment from high school in which we had to memorize a piece of text and recite it along with movements. Once I got over being annoyed it was actually kind of fun.
During my dance today I felt a very old issue come up. I once took a couple of private classes with a teacher who did a lot of improvisation with me. But instead of maintaining the philosophy that improv is improv and that there is not right or wrong when it comes to personal expression, this teacher told me I was doing it wrong. OK, I exaggerate, she was just challenging me to think about how I use my body, but it FELT like "that's wrong" and it took me out of the movement and made me *think.* And if there's one thing that kills my ability to let go and dance it's thinking. Very annoying. Sometimes it crops up and then the entire session is a struggle. Blah. I so didn't need that today, especially on top of the chorus of "book"s. Grr.
Oh well, tomorrow is another day. I guess one really good thing about this practice is that if I have a not-so-goodish session one day at least I know that I'll have a chance for a better session tomorrow!
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