A Meeting with Dancers

A meeting with dancers
Did I mention that my first professional career was the Dance? Did I mention to you that it took many years for me to accept my destiny, and that was actually a good thing? Because in that path of not acknowledging that the dance and music are my passions, I sought to study other interesting things, like comparative religion, and languages.

But the dance and music have always been present in my life, since my first memories as a child in Manila. I think before I even had a consciousness that Dad and Mom were my parents, I saw them as two beautiful people singing and dancing in front of my crib, and I of course followed them by jiggling away my cute baby fat and screaming high C notes with Ella Fitzgerald on the stereo. And then since I never suffered from stage fright, my parents always made me sing and dance in their parties for friends. This voice I have is nothing really out of the ordinary. It’s just that I associate singing with happiness and pleasure, so whatever comes out of my body is pure fun. And the dance is like breathing. Can’t live without it.

I cannot conceive dance without sound, and vice versa, I cannot conceive music without movement. The two go together. Even more so, I think that every movement and every musical note is associated not only with a feeling, but also because we are cognizant individuals, each movement and sound is associated with an idea, a word.

Long time ago in the peak of my career as a dancer, I choreographed a solo piece. It had to do with birth, or giving birth, to sound and life through the elements of earth and color. I dirtied my body live, right there in front of the audience, and also got my body naturally painted also there live, as I moved and slid and twisted and turned on a long white canvas cloth filled with humid soil and different colors of wet body paint. I used music that was played backwards and it sounded so weird, it stood up the hairs of those listening. And when the music stopped, I kept moving while reciting a poem I wrote about mothers, and love, and sex, and births, and death. The pauses in which there were absolutely no sounds, were necessary silences to magnify my thunderous passion for life. I was blessed to have that experience. I also laughed at the end of it, to see the faces of the people watching my almost naked body covered in paint and dirt. The once pristine wooden floor of the studio was filled with paint and dirt as well; it was so liberating to do that.

Once I worked with a brilliant choreographer who was my first “boss” so to speak, in my professional dancing career. He first worked on the movements, for it was movement that inspired him to express himself. Then, he’d go searching for an adequate musical piece that could go with the movements. It was crazy because what was once rehearsed in an 8 count, for example, all of a sudden had to be rehearsed into a 12 count. Or worse, we’d rehearse free flowing movements with no counts, just breathing rhythms. And then all of a sudden we’d have to adjust the timing of movements to music that had its own different rhythms. From my point of view, he was insane. But insanity is a subjective thing. Insanity is practically necessary to an artist, because what we usually term “insane” is really just another way of saying that we are daring to break the conventional, we are daring to be bold, we are daring to try different things that need to be expressed or else we will wither away and die. A dancer needs to be free.

Another choreographer, also brilliant and at the same time so vulnerable, was a beautiful and exotic woman who I met right before going to college. Well, this lady blew me away. She’d take Caribbean drum and percussion music, and make beautiful dance to express what we are. We come from a land of sun and waves, of coconuts and sex, of rainforests and giant birds. I took some of her afro-latin modern dance classes to actually accompany my older sister, and little did they know that this was going to change my life forever. I realized that I could do all this stuff and feel good, feel a connection with the divine, feel more than anything else I had ever felt, including the Zen moments of that second breath when I used to run marathons (yes, I was also a runner). But dancing was the real deal. It makes me happy and it makes me feel sexy.

So I danced with a guilt, because I was brought up thinking that dance was not a career but rather a hobby and something you do in parties. Nonetheless, I took dance classes almost like they were illegal. I’d bike up to the state college a few blocks away from my private college (where I studied comparative religion), and in that bigger state college my second life had its hidden education in dance. I knew I was in trouble because I knew that deep inside, even if religion tweaked my curiosity, what really made me vibrate were the dance and the music.

So this was my dilemma. I was so afraid of telling my Dad that after 3 years of him paying for my college education, I wanted to quit studying religion and just be a dancer. Of course, I didn’t tell anything to my Dad. I finished my Bachelor of Arts in religion with a college scholarship to get me through the last year, graduated (but kept dancing in my “hidden second life”) and went back home. And the first thing I did back in Caracas was audition for a dance company, to hell with everything else.

That was the start of a decade of psychological suffering. I actually danced in two companies. One was the “serious art” modern dance company, and the second was the “pop culture” fun jazz dance company in the evenings. During my time in the dance studios and dance performances, I was free, I was empowered, I was happy, I was life. When I went back home to my parents, I was confused, guilty, angry, frustrated and very upset trying to get them to understand that no, I wasn’t made to be a philosopher/doctor/nun. I was made to be a performer because you, Mom and Dad, made me realize that I inherited from you both the good voice and healthy body to express myself in the performing arts. But they didn’t seem to get it, and they’d worry like hell about “my future.” (But what is a future without a happy present????)

So anyway, you might ask, “Why didn’t you move out and get your own place?” But you, my generous and patient reader, are aware that a dancer works to dance, she doesn’t work to become a millionaire. At least that is my point of view and my general experience. So I kept dancing away (thank God for my stubbornness) and avoided any deep conversations with my parents, and we established a weak but workable relationship while living together under the same roof. I will always be grateful to my parents for that, for allowing me to live with them for more than a decade, without paying for rent out of my meager dancer’s salary.

Then, I began to sing professionally. I think by that time (4 years had passed since I had returned from college) my parents had given up on convincing me to drop the arts for a living. What was even more surprising was that they watched and heard me dance and sing in a major TV show, and it marked the “before and after” of our relationship. Suddenly, Dad and Mom became my fans. They not only taped the shows I sang in, they distributed it to friends and family. They would take their friends to the places where my band would play. This time of my life was just absolutely beautiful. It was also the time I met the man who would become my husband. I grew both professionally and as a person. I came into terms with me. My happiness had a chain effect. I made hundreds of people happy. I made people dance and cry, shout and laugh…through my single voice and my now very skinny dancer’s body. I knew how to play with people’s feelings through a song or a movement. I felt powerful and at the same time humbled, by the gifts of song and dance that I could only give back to nature and humanity. So I performed each show like there was no tomorrow. I consecrated each moment of my life to this, to express life and love, pleasure and pain, through my voice and my body.

So that is perhaps why I will never stop singing or dancing. Absolutely all my experiences in different scenarios and audiences, big and small, pretty and ugly, rich and poor, open and closed, many and few, but in general all these experiences in music and dance as an expression of myself to share with others, are associated with plenitude. ("Plenitude: The condition of being full, ample, or complete.")

Even if now my job is related to languages and service at an Embassy, every day I move and sing. I no longer require an audience. My stage is life, and my pleasures are simple. I can breathe, I can sing, I can stretch. I express myself through moving words. Therefore, I am.

Oh, and the title: A Meeting with Dancers…that’s because last night I met up with some young dancer friends whom I worked with recently for 3 years in Broadway/Las Vegas style shows for local casinos (I was the lead singer/star), and that encounter with them spurred me to write this memory, in gratitude for the experiences I’ve had as an artist. I think I might be insane enough still, to pick up a microphone and dust away my shoes, to perform again this year. That would be a cool birthday present to myself because in several months I will blow out 50 candles on my cake!!!! Wow, so you see... I always must conclude my chronicles like this:

thank you.

When the earthquake struck

Last night, probably around the time when the 8.9 earthquake struck Japan at 2 a.m., I woke up sweating from a dream. I dreamt of the sensei who had led the Karate team to Tokyo, back in 2004. The last news I heard about him was that he was very sick and hospitalized. I don’t know why precisely last night I thought about him and his wife, and I made a mental note to thank them for having been part of that wonderful experience I had when I practiced Karate do, and competed in in the Nippon Budokan at Tokyo.
So I would like to believe that during that moment when I was thinking about Japan, around 2 or 3 a.m. Caracas time, my sub-consciousness was connected with that Collective Consciousness at that same hour when the earthquake struck in Japan, yet I had no “conscious” knowledge that it did. I think my spirit was visited and awakened by death as well as the dynamic cycles that nature gives to us in many degrees of strength, whether devastatingly mortal or softly like the touch of a baby’s hand.
When I got into my car I heard the news about the earthquake, and it was around 8 a.m. Caracas time. Later on today, out of the blue around 9 a.m., a good friend also ex-Karateka, called me to say hi. And we talked about Japan, and then she told me this sensei had died due to complications of the heart about two months ago, and that sad news just blew me away. I didn’t imagine he would die, I always remembered him as this robust, healthy and positive man. So I took the news of his death also as a relationship to transformations, of the inevitable passing away of the physical, of inevitable change. I thought of the young widow and her child, and the challenges she now faces to continue believing in life, and living her present, her day to day, without her loved one. Truly death is not tragic for the one who dies, for he or she is in a better place. Death is tragic only for those who remain alive and remembering the love and the energy that the person gave in their moments.
Around 10 a.m. my wonderful father who is 85 years old, sends this email titled “I Believe”. He sends it with all this honest love, and my heart fills up with smiles and tears. I never expected my dad to be so...candid. My image of my dad was the one who was very strict, and he usually communicated with grunts when meeting my friends. He was not the sort to send a message with a text like this one:

“I Believe...That you should always leave loved ones with Loving words.
It may be the last time you see them.
I Believe... That you can keep going long after you think you can't.
I Believe...That we are responsible for what we do, no matter how we feel.
I Believe...That either you control your attitude or it controls you.
I Believe...That heroes are the people who do what has to be done,when it needs to be done, regardless of the consequences.”

Today is also my husband’s 48th birthday. I invited him to lunch at my favorite restaurant (Japanese food of course). I would like to believe that each time we are together, that it is a gift from God. We are truly blessed to share and be together, even if we are totally different from each other. We have grown apart sometimes, but most of the time the mutual agreement is to grow back together. What is happiness? That can only be defined by each person. And no definition is identical to another. What is marriage? This also can only be defined by the two. And up to my imperfect knowledge of this thing called living together and loving each other, no marriage is alike another.

And it is here where I say… thank you husband, thank you dad, thank you mom, thank you brother and sister, thank you teacher and friend, thank you patient and kind reader. Now is a good time for happiness. Life is to live it as best as you can.

I love you.

The beauty of imperfect Aikido

The beauty of imperfect Aikido
Last weekend, Yoshimitsu Yamada shihan came to Caracas to give what I can only describe as an historical seminar filled with great energy, guided by a very generous and self-sacrificing man smiling at 200 or more Aikidoists whirling about on the tatami. There can be so much to write about this, and further on, I will. But in this note, I’m just trying to share some reflections on the yudansha exams. First of all, everyone passed. Second of all, maybe not everyone agreed that everyone should have passed. But I guess this is what happens in a very human activity such as Aikido. Thirdly, there were over twenty (20) people presenting exams from shodan on to nidan and then sandan. There were also lots of different styles of doing Aikido, even if we were all under the same roof and under the same umbrella, and representing the same organization called Sansuikai International.
During that Sunday, as the exams were being done, for the first time in my very short existence as an Aikidoist, I did not sit on the tatami with my friends, wrapped in the energy cocoon natural to this experience. Instead, and because I was fighting a fever from a “rain cold”, I quietly put my slippers on after the last class before exams, went up to the women’s room and took a shower to calm the rising fever. I got changed into comfortable Sunday clothes, picked up my vid-cam and sat on the bleachers to do something very important. I watched.
Watching through a video lens is different than observing quietly with just your eyes. During the shodan exams, I did just that. I watched with my eyes and kept the video camera and my mouth shut. And then came the nidan exams, so I chose to record a friend’s exam with my brand new high definition videocam. Besides her exam, I also taped all the other nidan randori, and then later, I taped the sandan exams. This all happened in a space of about an hour or so. More than twenty exams from shodan to nidan to sandan in a space of maybe 60 minutes or less. I’m not sure. I admit I was expecting the sandan exams to be longer, but no. If at all, each sandan exam lasted probably 2 or 3 minutes, but not much more. It is said that sensei Yamada throughout the seminar from the beginning, carefully observes all the Aikidoists who are candidates for exams, and that is why the actual exams are short because he already has been seeing them work their way through intense seminar classes with all types of ukes during the weekend. It’s also a realistic approach for seminars where many Aikidoists come from abroad, and have to rush back to the airport Sunday afternoon to catch their flights back home. Another food for thought is that the shodan exam is longer than the one for nidan, and the nidan exam a bit longer than the sandan. Reaffirmations of a process. A precious heart getting polished, taking more time at the beginning, then less and less time, but with more and more details until attaining the essential Truth, the nature of one’s being.
In my semi-delirious state of mentally controlling a fever and a maddening headache, I was aware of the beautiful and imperfect nature or “gem-heart” of all my friends. I also thought maybe as a race, we humans need these rites of passage to publicly acknowledge our efforts of simply expressing our gratitude to be alive and growing and learning. Aren’t Aikido exams just that? An exam is a rite of passage that each examinee experiences. There’s the ritual, the outfit, the tribal leaders, the guru, the family, the loved ones, the friends, and then also the fear and excitement, the thrill and relief, the breathing and the exhaling, the expectations and sometimes the necessary pain of disappointments for the also necessary awakenings.
Besides the need for rites of passage, I think humans also have this need to be judgmental only because it is the easiest habit we’ve acquired to actually reflect our own natural fears, doubts and certainties. When we peel off all the extra layers of ego on top of ego, we discover a simple equation:
I live, therefore I communicate.
I express myself in variable and unpredictable circumstances (randori), therefore I am stripped naked of illusions and presumptions, and I can only be myself as I have always been throughout this path of self-knowledge, of learning to love myself and others, of forgiving, of laughing, of crying, of awakening to a nature of imperfect goodness that can actually work itself out in this beautiful chaos.
I celebrate that each and every one who presented their exam was able to rise to the challenge. The courage to communicate their personalities and life and love through Aikido, despite injuries, physical and spiritual trials, or simple lack of sleep, is something that inspires me to give the best of myself each day. I always end my chronicles with gratitude, and this is not an exception.
I am thankful for being in this path, and of having been able to gather my hyperactive and feverish energy to sit quietly. Watching and loving.
______________

La belleza del Aikido imperfecto
El pasado fin de semana, Yoshimitsu Yamada shihan vino a Caracas para dar lo que yo sólo puedo describir como un seminario histórico lleno de gran energía, guiado por un hombre muy generoso y abnegado, sonriéndole a 200 o más Aikidokas girando a través del tatami. Hay tanto que se puede escribir sobre esto, y más adelante lo haré. Pero en esta nota, sólo trato de compartir algunas reflexiones sobre los exámenes de yudansha. Ante nada, todos pasaron. Segundo, quizás no todo el mundo estuvo de acuerdo en que todos pasaran. Pero supongo que esto es lo que ocurre en una actividad muy humana tal como el Aikido. Tercero, había más de veinte (20) personas presentando exámenes desde shodan a nidan y luego sandan. También había muchos diferentes estilos de hacer aikido, aún si estuviésemos todos bajo el mismo techo, bajo la misma sombrilla, y representando la misma organización llamada Sansuikai International.
Durante ese domingo, mientras los exámenes se realizaban, por primera vez en mi muy corta vida como Aikidoka, no me senté en el tatami con mis amigos, envuelta en el capullo de energía natural a esta experiencia. En vez de eso, y porque estaba lidiando contra una fiebre producto de la “gripe de lluvia”, silenciosamente me calcé las zapatillas después de la última clase antes de los exámenes, subí al vestuario de damas, y me tomé una ducha para calmar la fiebre amenazante. Me puse mi ropa confortable de domingo, tomé mi cámara de video, y me senté en las gradas para hacer algo muy importante. Observé.
Mirar a través de un lente de video es diferente a observar silenciosamente con mis ojos desnudos. Durante los exámenes de shodan, hice eso justamente. Observé con mis ojos, y mantuve cerradas la cámara de video y mi boca. Y luego empezaron los exámenes de nidan, y elegí grabar el examen de una amiga con mi nueva videocam de alta definición. Además de su examen, también grabé los otros nidan randori, y más tarde, grabé los exámenes de sandan. Todo esto ocurrió en un lapso de una hora o menos. Más de veinte exámenes desde shodan a nidan a sandan en un espacio de tiempo de quizás 60 minutos o menos. No estoy segura. Admito que estaba esperando que los exámenes de sandan fuesen más largos, pero no. Si acaso, cada examen de sandan duró quizás 2 a 3 minutos, pero no mucho más de eso. Se dice que sensei Yamada, a través del seminario y desde el comienzo, cuidadosamente observa a todos los Aikidokas candidatos para exámenes, y es por eso que los “tests” en sí son cortos porque ya él los observó trabajando a través de las clases intensas del seminario, con diferentes tipos de uke, durante todo el fin de semana. Es también una actitud realista para seminarios donde muchos Aikidokas vienen de otros países y deben correr al aeropuerto el domingo en la tarde para alcanzar sus vuelos de vuelta a casa. Otro pensamiento que alimenta mi mente es que observé que el test para shodan es más largo que el de nidan, y el test de nidan es un poco más largo que el test de sandan. Son reafirmaciones de un proceso. Es un corazón o una gema preciosa que se va puliéndose, tomando más tiempo al principio, y luego menos y menos tiempo, pero con más atención a detalles hasta obtener la Verdad esencial, la naturaleza pura de tu propio ser.
En mi estado semi-delirante de controlar mentalmente mi fiebre y ese desesperante dolor de cabeza, estuve consciente de la belleza y la naturaleza imperfecta o “corazón / gema preciosa” de todos mis amigos. Pensé también que quizás como raza, nosotros los humanos necesitamos estos ritos de iniciación para reconocer públicamente nuestros esfuerzos de simplemente expresar nuestra gratitud de estar vivos, de poder crecer y seguir aprendiendo. ¿Acaso los exámenes de Aikido no son eso esencialmente? Un test o examen es un rito de iniciación que experimenta cada candidato. Está el ritual, la indumentaria, los líderes de cada tribu, el gurú, la familia, los seres amados, los amigos, y también están el temor y la emoción, la conmoción y el alivio, la respiración y exhalación, las expectativas y a veces el dolor necesario de las desilusiones en pro de los también necesarios despertares.
Aparte de la necesidad de estos ritos de iniciación, creo que los humanos también tienen esa necesidad de ser sentenciosos sólo porque es el hábito más fácil que hemos adquirido para en realidad reflejar nuestros propios miedos, dudas y certezas naturales. Cuando desnudamos todas esas capas extras de ego sobre ego, descubrimos una ecuación sencilla:
Vivo, por ende me comunico.
Me expreso en circunstancias variables e impredecibles (randori), por ende me hallo desnuda de cualquier ilusión o suposición, y sólo puedo ser yo misma como siempre he sido a través de este camino de auto-conocimiento, de aprender a amarme y a otros, de perdonar, de reír, llorar, de despertarme a la naturaleza de la bondad imperfecta que en realidad puede funcionar en este caos hermoso.
Celebro que cada uno de los que presentaron exámenes fue capaz de estar a la altura de sus propios desafíos. El coraje para poder comunicar sus propias personalidades, sus vidas, y el amor a través del Aikido, a pesar de las lesiones, las pruebas físicas y espirituales, o la simple falta de sueño, es algo que me inspira a dar lo mejor de mí misma cada día. Siempre termino mis crónicas con gratitud, y ésta no es la excepción.
Me siento agradecida por estar en este camino, y de poder haber reunido mi energía hiperactiva y febril para poder estar sentada tranquilamente. Observando y amando.

Thank you

Too much noise. I need to be still. I wish to be silent.
If I wake up without a smile on my face, there are no complex explanations. This is not good.
So again, back to basics.
Basic love, basic breathing, basic forgiving.

I had no right to be in your private picture I saw on that rainy day. I realized that I can’t be a part of that. I am way too experienced, way too aware of ego, way too tired of confusing myself or others anymore. Time to be unconfused. Time to heal. This is an awakening in the middle of the rain. It tasted salty. It burned an open scar. But then, as I bravely bore the pain, a sweet burst of sun. I knew this was a necessary lesson.

And as I was walking today, I came across this. It is simple and necessary.

I didn’t see anything I already didn’t know. I just hadn’t acknowledged it. We were wrapping ourselves in a net of lazy habits, of old repetitions to sooth the ego. And before I allow my mind to spin, I lay myself naked on fertile ground with love, and contemplate the growth of a seed that thrives on a better relationship with you.

It won’t be easy. But I’ve taken a good step forward. So you can love her.
So I can love him. So we can grow and learn, and not hurt anybody anymore.