Flip the Not to the Am

Lately I have been thinking more about how the way I live my life and what I teach and practice in improvisation relate to each other.  Sometime they mirror, sometimes they contradict, sometimes I am capable of something in one area and not the other.

Today I am pondering the topic of "breaking habits".  I immediately want to rename this as "expanding one's repertoire".  They sound very different and I believe they bring up a different energy, different associations, feelings, etc   I have much more success in this area in my artistic life than my other life.

Earlier in my dance life, sometimes the first thing I would do in this situation is to try to stop doing something.  "I'm not going to keep going down to the floor."    "I'm going to stop turning on my right side only".   But I quickly became aware that I was so busy focusing on what not to do that I was not very aware of what I was doing.   There is a certain loss of presence, flow and continuity when we concern ourselves with not doing something.  The essence is not clear or perhaps not even present because we are in the negative.   In my improv class I refer to this as "negative dancing" and it's quite obvious from the inside and out that something is missing and lost.

I could go on about what I teach next and the various things we can do instead of this "negative dancing", but this entry was not motivated by dance but by some recent experiences in my life when I found myself acting in a way in which I was attempting to "not do" something.   This was unsustainable and rather deadening to my spirit.  The energy of it was lost, the sense of play and creativity, of evolution and life.  So today as the improvisation of my day begins, I bear this in mind.  Follow the flow, the essence.  Expand the repertoire.  Engage in the experience.  Flip the Not to the Am.