Calling “Timber”!

Given the great sunny weather we’ve been having this St. Paddy’s day weekend, I expect that all of you have been out and about jigging to your heart’s content (or at least to the content of the leprechaun who lives inside each of our hearts ((mine’s name is Steven))). This has got me to thinking about dancing, which I want to dedicate this article to because even though I don’t really have any sort of professional training or experience with discussing dancing on a technical level–when has that ever stopped me?

In a stand-up show, Jim Carrey said something to the effect of anything that makes a human being want to do this…

is okay with him.

So many people seem to bow out of the dance floor with the excuse, “I don’t know how to dance.” Well, neither do I and it doesn’t really look like Jim Carrey does either, but damn does he (and I, for that matter) look good doing it! And even if you (or I, for that matter, cause it does happen) end up looking like a dork, at least you’ll look like a dork having a grand time!

I think of dancing in much the same way that I think of T’ai Chi in that you’re aligning your body with your mind, emotions, and spirit and in that way expressing something perhaps even greater than all four. Once at a restaurant that was focused on being fancy to the point of being invasive (nobody needs to be laying napkins on my lap, it’s just not right), my family was celebrating my father’s birthday. At some point during the meal, he decided to ask us all a question that would reveal one of the three lessons he had decided upon becoming a father that he would pass on to his children. “What is the symbol of universal harmony?” We, of course, said all kinds of things: love, the infinity symbol, Ghostbusters 2, etc…but none of these would do. No, the symbol of universal harmony, he said, is dancing. Because everything is dancing all the time, from the smallest protons and electrons buzzing around to the planets and stars whirling around each other in a galactic tango.

So why would anyone be afraid of connecting themselves to that?

There’s an intriguing distinction I read attributed to Paul Tuitean that “the difference between a soldier and a warrior was that soldiers march, warriors dance.” What do the warriors of today look like? That drive and passion still exists in many people, but in today’s world there isn’t as much opportunity to go over and pillage the neighboring town. We find all sorts of ways to funnel that sort of frantic kinetic energy that propels the burning hearts of warriors: sports, mixed martial arts, and obviously dancing. But the war waged on the dance floor now is generally more dedicated to peoples’ drive for sex, which is okay because isn’t sex just another type of dancing? Dancing is a way of connecting, with self and others (since others seem to exist simultaneously in, out, and with the self). When you’re a soldier, you’re in the army, but when you’re a warrior–you are the army. So I hope you have a great weekend, I hope you move, I hope you dance.