Shifting ground

Hi all I am just going to write as my thoughts are coming to me. Hold tight!

On today's skype conversation Adesola commented that as dancers we use movement but sometimes (in my words) we can become static wanting and needing definitive answers.

Even yesterday I spoke to my 5-10 year old students about the journey of education, generally and within the performing arts class and dance specifically.  I spoke about it not being math where 1 and 1 will always make 2 but how movement is connected to imagination, emotion, environment etc and that with the change of any of those elements our experience in any given situation, moment or day will be different.  I spoke about the need to enjoy and be in those moments and not judge mental or 'looking for the right movement'.

So why then do we (I) continuously need to find an answer? Looking at my note pad I wrote, during the conversation 'SHIFTING GROUND NOT COMFORTABLE'.  Embarking on new things is often uncomfortable and I regularly speak to my students about this and encourage them to if not enjoy to 'embrace the process'.  I hear you saying 'Take your own advice' and I recognise this but recognising and acting are very different beasts.  A bit like in the AoL reading or hearing about learning is not the same as unpicking and investigating your own learning,  and (from your perspective) the wider implications of learning/experience or decisions made from that learning.

Before becoming a mum, I would give myself at least one challenge each year.  They were simple things like learning to drive or going on holiday on my own, I think this stemmed from my complete culture shock when working in Ethiopia years before.  It was the most uncomfortable I had felt in my entire life (at that point) but gave me the courage to try new things.

More recently relocating to Barbados has been a real shift and very uncomfortable on many levels for the first 2 -3 years (and even now in some ways) but for the 6 years previous to this, I have not been in a space that is as uncomfortable as this MA process.  As I neared the end of the AoLs (apart from the frantic dash to the finish) I began to appreciate that perhaps I could actually achieve what was required. Now moving (hopefully) into module 2, the nagging doubt has returned.  Module 1 had become familiarly unfamiliar now module 2 is just unfamiliar and so, uncomfortable. (De ja vu?)

I suppose this is the MA journey, it will continue to be both familiar in that we all have a body of (sometimes) untapped or unrealised experience that through the modules become more focused and obvious and unfamiliar in that we are finding new tools and ways of accessing and developing the  the potential for new understanding. 

Adesola said - 'Let go of trying to prove something'.  The question is 'how when so much in our world needs proof'.  This shifting of  perimeters in my world is uncomfortable and from past conversations, I don't feel that I am alone.  Am I?

I would love to hear your thoughts on shifting ground and being comfortably uncomfortable.

William Louther would say 'Balanced off balance' and this really resonates for me within this journey.  How can you be balanced off balance?  Its almost like a constant motion, a drive and energy a demand not to be comfortable, complacent, still and within that experience the dancer begins to develop mentally and physically an inner determination and energy that never stops trying to take the experience further.

The next phase of my journey is to embrace being (mentally) balanced off balance knowing that it is completely uncomfortable