What are the Possibilities?
1 SEEING POSSIBILITY, CHOOSING WAYS TO EXPRESS OURSELVES
I just had one of those happy coffee incidents. It happened yesterday, on Sunday, my one day off, my one day to do whatever I want to do. Lost for what to do, part of me thought I should be continuing to write. Another part of me wanted to relax while watching a movie. That’s all I thought there was to my life, work and rest, work and rest with no other options.
If I was going to write then I thought I should go to Mojo Coffee even though I wasn’t in the mood for coffee. Actually, I thought I should just go there. Usually when I go there I write, that’s my association with it. It wasn’t a place I went to just to chill out and relax. I trusted my intuition, the feeling that I should go and I went to Mojo Coffee.
And then I parked my bike and went in.
On my way into the coffee shop the guy sitting facing the door talking to a girl looked familiar. After putting down my gear I turned around and recognized the girl he was with. Then I recognized them both. Camilo and Jasmine where chatting in between coming from swimming to him going to soccer and her going to study Chinese.
I apologized for not recognizing them and then told them I was there to write but that I was more than happy to have an excuse not to write. And then I knew why I had felt a pull to come to Mojo coffee. To relax and have a good chat.
One of the first things that Jasmine asked me as we sat down together was if I had finished my book yet. She told me to hurry up because she wanted to tell her friends, “I know someone who wrote a book!”
Ha, basic principles, the bane of my life but also my love. The book was on its second draft and being read by others but again I still wasn’t sure if it was ready. Meanwhile I was starting on this blog and I was wondering what was more important, the book, the blog or Basic Principles themselves. What the heck were Basic Principles anyway? I had an idea but I still didn’t know.
Both Jasmine and Camille were new to the idea of Basic Principles so I took a few minutes to think of what it was I wanted to tell them. A big part of it was being able to see choices, and being conscious of the choices we make, but then another part was the “doing” of those choices.
I told Jasmine that she had to tell her friends about my website, then I could get some publicity and then when the book was published (finally) it would make that much more of a splash. (I know the author Neil Keleher!)
Then I told them both; “Part of Basic Principles is about seeing choices, or possibilities. Being able to see what is possible we can choose what we want to do. Then we watch how other people express themselves around us. Then we see what the next set of possibilities are and then express ourselves again.”
Looking at there responses (or lack of it) I saw that I needed to put this into a context. One of my favorite contexts is that of dancing.
“Say you are dancing with someone in a crowded dance hall. If you are the lead, you have to be aware of what is around you both. You have to look around for space to dance in so that you can go there.”
Jasmine told me that she wouldn’t want to dance with me because I wouldn’t be paying attention to her.
“If we were dancing together I would be paying attention to you and I would be aware of the space around us. The reason I would be looking around is to find the place that you and I can go together, and even as I am paying attention to the dance floor seeing where we can go, I am also paying attention to you, seeing where you can go, (or where you want to go) or perhaps putting you in a position where it is easy for you to do the next move.”
Jasmine said it sounded like a lot of work.
“But there’s more, not only do I have to pay attention to the dance floor and you I also have to pay attention to myself. What am I doing? Do I have room for myself to move as well as you? So I am paying attention to you it’s just that I am also paying attention to myself and what is around us so that you will be happy. Unless of course I was upset with you then I’d just look for excuses to make you bump into other people.”
Part of Basic Principles is about seeing the possible choices. Looking around a crowded dance floor what we see is the dance floor and the people on it. We also see the spaces on the dance floor, the places where we can go and do something fun and exciting. These are the places where we have room to move. Seeing the possible spaces to move into, we pick the one that is best, maybe the one that is closest, maybe the one in which there is a clear path between where we are and it, and maybe the one that is still going to be clear by the time we get there. We see the choices and we choose based on what we want to do. What do we want to do? Well that depends on ourselves and the person we are dancing with.
A big part of what we do in dance is feel each other, sense each other, pay attention to each other. It’s like we are talking but we use our bodies and our connection to do that.
Holding each other we hold each other with enough softness that we can feel each other and also with enough firmness that we can feel and transmit the movement of our body to each other. We also use that same firmness to position ourselves relative to each other so that we are still connected but in such a way that we can move without stepping on each other’s toes. Feeling our partner as we execute a move we can sense if they are still balanced of if what we are doing to them is pushing them of balance, and so we can correct if we need to.
And as much as we sense our partner we sense ourselves. Are we balanced, is every part of ourselves alive and engaged in what we are doing? If not, how do we get there?
I didn’t mention this so much to Camilo and Jasmine, but I will say it here. We make a choice when we choose to dance. We see it as one of an infinity of possibilities, and perhaps because we love the idea of moving our body and we love the idea of connecting physically with another human being, we choose to dance. And perhaps we choose a particular kind of dance. For myself the style I chose was Latin as opposed to modern because Latin can be so much more sexier. And there’s more room for expression. And I want to move my whole body the way Latin style Dancers do. That’s the possibility I chose.
And now I am learning to dance.
In the process I am learning to feel my body in a new way. Possibilities beyond what I’ve learned so far in Yoga and Tai Ji. And now I’m using what I’ve learned to help make those other two parts of my life better. I’m learning to see more possibilities for my body. And I’m also learning possibilities when I am connected to another body.
To a certain extent when we dance with somebody else we limit each other, like other dancers on the dance floor limit where we can go, but to another extent we free each other to do more things, we can be bigger together than we are individually. But to do that both of us have to be aware. Both of us have to connect. Both of us have to be aware of each other.
As the lead I sense the dance floor looking for dancers and the spaces between those dancers. I sense my partner sensing her limits, what she can’t do and also the possibility within those limits. I also sense myself and where I am relative to her. Is there a way I can expand the possibilities for both of us. Can I change the limits by changing where I am relative to her so that we both have more room to move? I listen to the music too.
Based on what we’ve just done and what we can do I pick the next move, an Allemana turn, a Styling Doe, New York, Spin Turn, and then we do it. And even as I lead us my partner, the floor and the music leads us both and each of us as individuals leads our own body, sensing it, looking for room to move, sensing possibilities and making choices and then sensing the next set of possibilities.
2 SENSING RELATIONSHIPS, CHOOSING TO MAKE THEM GOOD ONES
The day before I was also at Mojo Coffee and I had the chance to explain what I was doing to two other people. One of them was on holiday here in Taiwan visiting a friend. She felt lucky that she got six weeks of to do what she was doing. She wished for more, a job with more freedom. And perhaps a job that she loved with people that she likes. Knowing what she wants, she’ll be able to find it. As for myself, what is it that I want?
I told them that the one of the things I like to do most is express myself using my body. Learning to Dance is only the latest physical activity that I’ve started to learn. I’ve been teaching yoga for a while now and I’ve also been learning Tai Ji since I’ve been here.
My thought, what if I could teach people how to relate through their bodies. Then what if could help them use their body, their relationship with it, as a metaphor for all of the relationships in their life?
What if we become sensitive enough to use our body to feel our relationship with the earth? What if we become sensitive enough to sense the relationships within our body? Could we then apply that same sensitivity to relationships outside of our body? And even as we sense our body, and the relationships within it and outside of it, what if we were also aware of what we are trying to do at any moment in time so that we could use that awareness to lead all of our body in what we are trying to do?
Say we are in a yoga class and we are the students and the teacher tells us to do Warrior 1 and we do it. Or we are by ourselves and we tell ourselves to do Warrior 1, the choice has been made, now all we have to do is do it. Knowing our body we tell it that we are going to do Warrior 1. Then we put ourselves into a rough approximation of the pose, right foot forwards, knee bent, left leg back, turned out slightly, knee straight, spine vertical, arms reaching up, palms together over our head.
Feeling our body a section at a time, perhaps a breath at a time, we can start with our feet. Are they comfortable, do they have room to move or is a foot or ankle at the limit of its range of motion. Can I reposition them so that they are more comfortable? At the same time are my knees and hips feeling all right? Is there a position for my feet where my feet, knees and hips are all happy? Now what about my spine, in particular my lower back, how does it feel? Can I adjust my pelvis so that my lower back is more comfortable? Now, is my ribcage open? How about my shoulders? And even though I am looking up does my neck still feel long and comfortable?
To what end all of this? To the end of feeling all of our body doing a pose called Warrior 1. If our whole body is engaged it is that much easier to do, not only that it feels good. If all of our body is engaged and positioned comfortably it means that no part is suffering. And maybe our goal is to open the front of the back hip, or maybe it is to strengthen the legs, or maybe the goal is just to do warrior 1 as an opportunity to feel all of our body and not do anything else.
It’s a chance to express ourselves in that pose but it is also a chance for us to express every part of ourselves in that pose. Not just our body, but all the parts of our body. If every part of us has room to move, then every relationship within our body is a good one. And our relationship with the earth is a good one too.
Learning how to make every relationship within our body good ones we can then apply this same skill to the relationships outside of our body. We can then make all the other relationships we are a part of good ones, positive ones, relationships where every part benefits, including ourselves and the people (or things) that we are connected to.
Dancing the relationships we are in include those between our body and our self, between ourselves and the person we are dancing with, between ourselves and the music and between ourselves and all of the other people on the dance floor. What if we could dance in such a way that all the relationships were good ones, everyone has room to move, room to be happy, room to express themselves?
3 Conclusions?
The question we can ask ourselves in any given situation is, “What are the possibilities?” If a decision has already been made then the question can be, “What are the ways I can make this happen?” A further question might be, “What are the ways I can make this happen so that everyone involves benefits?”
Knowing where we want to go and where we are now we can look at a map and see all of the ways to get there. Then we can choose the way we want to take to get there. If we don’t know where we want to go then we can look at a map and see the places we can go and we can choose from among them. Then knowing where we want to go we can choose how we get there. Each time and at each level if we look for the possibilities then we can choose from among them.
