The Transition to Organic Energy

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Originally written by Zara M on 04 September 2013

The ‘Downward Dog’ pose in yoga is referred to as one of our ‘resting poses’, but to me it feels like jolly hard work! Our instructor describes his feelings whenever he is asked to go into ‘Downward Dog’ as relieved, happy and ready to ‘let go’. When I prepare to go into the ‘Downward Dog’, I am pretty much focussed on the fact that my body never does what I want it to do. Grrrr!

The ‘Downward Dog’ pose is the one where your hands and feet are flat on the ground and your bum is up in the air so that you look like a nice clean pyramid with your back and legs straight. The reality in my case is an awkward, clumsy and bent kind of hill. After the last class though, I now feel that I know what my problem is. It is all about the transition from tension to organic energy, and as our instructor expresses; “letting go, while remaining strong and grounded.”

The lesson was made up of our usual sequences, prominently punctuated with ‘resting poses’. The idea was for us to get used to creating physical energy within our bodies during each strenuous sequence, and then ‘letting go’ while keeping that energy and awareness intact by transitioning to ‘organic energy’. I must admit that I went through most of the class not really knowing what was meant by ‘organic energy’, and I didn’t want to interrupt the flow of the class by asking my silly question. So I went online afterwards to do a bit of research, and what I discovered was rather interesting. Let me share…

“Muscular Energy moves from the outside inward, toward the core lines of the body. It hugs the muscles to the bones on all sides and integrates the limbs and joints, creating more stability, (stirum). It is this conscious flow of energy that creates over all physical integration, strength and stability in a pose. It draws the various parts of the outer body closer together. By initiating Muscular Energy, we create more awareness and sensitivity. Muscular Energy initiated by and is reflective of the strength of our intentions, desires and will.”
“Organic Energy moves outward from our center, through the core lines of the body to the periphery or edges. It is a powerfully expanding, lengthening and widening energy that radiates out in all directions. Organic Energy is expressive and lengthens the limbs and opens the joints, widens the limbs away from each other, and expands the muscles and skin away from the core.
These actions are always done in a balanced way for optimal flow of energy and intention. Muscular Energy is always initiated first, then followed by Organic Energy, both are always maintained in balance throughout a posture or a vinyasa or flow of postures.”Ref: http://sacred-earth.typepad.com/yoga/2006/09/muscular_energy.html (04/09/2013)

These descriptions remind me a bit of when I watch couples dancing Tango Nuevo. They seem to have that springy expressive flow with surges of energy building up and sweeping through them; they look strong and in control, yet simultaneously look as though they are constantly ‘letting go’. It is quite beautiful and mesmerizing to watch, sometimes I even go into a bit of a trance when I watch a couple dancing like that! I wouldn’t be surprised if the experience of the transition from muscular to organic energy in yoga might be well described as meditative too. Perhaps it is?

When we dance Tango there are those disconcerting moments where we lose our balance, and this is because we are experiencing a disconnect, which means that the mind and body is out of sync. Using Yoga to practice our transition to organic energy, and letting the tension in our bodies go can help with this.

It might all sound a bit complicated, but the principles are simple. One of the most important things to remember when dancing Tango or practicing Yoga, is to check the foundation principles; Keep your breathing pattern going in order to maintain the mind/body connection, and remember to spread your weight by opening up your hips and chest, and keeping grounded by pushing your feet into the floor. Once you have mastered that, then your mind and body are in place, and anything is possible!

I realise now that my struggle to feel that the ‘Downward Dog’ is a ‘resting pose’ is due to the fact that I am not ‘letting go’ of my muscle tension and making the transition to organic energy. When I was advised to let my head hang down heavy, it helped and I could feel all of the tension in my neck and shoulder release. That was a great feeling, and I felt I could then focus even more on pushing my hands and feet into the ground and lengthening my back to achieve that streamlined pyramid, or at least my personal version of it, legs rather bent! Apparently it is acceptable at this stage to have bent legs though, and the more flexible my muscles become the better my ‘Downward Dog’ will look.

Anyway, it’s not about what you look like in Yoga or Tango, it is about how you feel. Do you feel grounded and balanced? Do you feel strong and in control of your energy, your body, and your movement? Do you feel good? I repeat – do you feel good? I’ll leave you with that thought, until next week.

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Reflecting on ‘The Resting Pose’

Originally written by Zara M on 29 August 2013

I was sad to have missed the Yoga4Tango class last week. Unfortunately I haven’t been well and so I have pretty much locked myself away, partly not wanting to spread my germs, but mostly because I was feeling sorry for myself. The result though, was that I was quite disappointed in myself for not pushing past barriers that I knew didn’t really have to be an issue. I spoke to one or two Yoga practitioners last week who encouraged me to go to the class and the practice sessions even if I wasn’t feeling very well, because the sessions would in fact be healing and have a positive effect on my body and health. I was encouraged to give it a chance, but I ignored the advice and instead I have felt more rubbish than I needed to feel this week. Cue violins. I tend to have high expectations of myself and constantly beat myself up mentally over any perceived personal failure.

Why am I telling you this? Well I believe that in our classes we have been encouraged to take the time to prepare our bodies for the poses, holds and sequences mentally and physically by breathing our way into it, and establishing balance and grounding. All of this is a mental preparation that has a positive physical effect on us. Once we feel steady and strong, we then have the mental and physical capacity to push ourselves past boundaries and ease into the next level of the pose or sequence, and often during the lessons I have felt quite surprised at what my body has been capable of. All it takes is a little bit of self-belief, focus and determination. It is easy to give up before we have pushed ourselves to the real limit, not because we think it is impossible to reach, but because we can’t be bothered, or we allow fear or insecurity to stop our progress.

In Tango this happens all of the time. Instead of summoning positivity, we may envelope ourselves in a dark cloud of doubt and end up not getting the potentially enjoyable and satisfying experience and sense of achievement we normally seek. Many a time, I have gone to a Milonga in the wrong frame of mind, and sat in a corner with a scowl on my face wondering why nobody wants to dance with me, when really I have put myself under unnecessary pressure and ended up feeling frustrated for not living up to my own high expectations. You have to bring with you the right attitude if you are to achieve your goals. This is the same whether you want to enjoy Tango, whether you want to push through your perceived limits in Yoga, or whether you allow a bit of a cold to stop you from doing the things you want to do.

On the other hand I suppose it is always important to remember that there will always be the possibility of failure, but it is how you perceive that failure that makes all the difference. Do you let it affect everything? Or do you just assume your resting pose and re-group until you are ready to carry on? A resting pose therefore is not a sign of defeat; it is a sign of respecting your body and reconnecting your mind with your body’s needs.

Maybe I will just see this week of illness as an extended resting pose. Now I am ready to rise and start again.

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Strong Foundations and the Soft Embrace

Originally written by Zara M on 21 August 2013

When I heard that the class would be focussing on Yoga techniques for the “snuggly” Tango embrace my ears pricked. This “snuggly” embrace is something I’ve heard a lot about recently, but apparently it isn’t something you get an awful lot of on the dance floor, at least not in London Milongas. The class description for last week stated that we would be working on achieving a strong foundation, and exploring how this helps with a soft embrace, while still keeping a steady posture.

When I think of the word “snuggly” I imagine myself melting into a sloppy heap in the poor man’s arms and being cradled to sleep. Nobody really wants to dance with someone who has switched off completely and gone off into a world of their own though. It is much more pleasurable to dance with a partner whose body and mind can be relaxed and present at the same time.

The “snuggly” embrace therefore, is about relaxing into a very warm and flexible close embrace. One that allows you to move about more freely, while remaining connected. It is about enjoying some delicious, subtle and twisty bodily movements, while still maintaining your own balance, grounding and personal expression.

We have been learning in the classes about the importance of being able to breathe our way through yoga pose sequences, and also how to relax our bodies and still be alert and able to maintain full awareness of what is happening within and around us. There has also been an emphasis on returning to our resting poses. We were asked, in a rather wonderfully philosophical manner, “In the midst of ‘life’ can you relax and let go?”

I have been thinking about this question and how it relates to Tango and the “snuggly” embrace. For me, dancing Tango is exactly that; it is about being able to disappear into the experience of the dance with my partner, but still be fully aware of the music, my body and the environment it is moving through on the dance floor. It is about inhabiting two worlds at once and allowing them to merge. How do we achieve this though, when there is so much to think about?

Well, there was a point in the class where I found the answer… I was being assisted to help open up my hips. The assistant was behind me providing a gentle pressure on my thighs. My immediate reaction was to tense the muscles up, which of course worked against what she was trying to help me with. I think this is because when you are thinking about a specific part of your body and focussing on improving what that specific part is doing, then you are in effect separating your body into sections that you have to think about, rather than feeling your body work together as a whole. You’re basically giving yourself more work to do! When I was encouraged to relax the muscles and focus on my breathing however, I found that my muscles began to relax by themselves while I was able to remain conscious of what my body was doing. It was a very satisfying and natural feeling of flexibility, and a release of tension.

It might sound obvious, but I think that when we dance it is easy to create unnecessary tension because we are thinking too much about what our bodies are doing, in this fragmented way. This is perhaps how many of us have been taught to dance Tango though. At the beginning of the class, the instructor addressed the difference between what he refers to as “partial truths” and “the ultimate truth”. Partial truths, according to him, are what many Tango Teachers instruct you to do in order to establish a good posture and embrace, which are the basic and most important principles of Tango. Has anybody ever told you to keep your shoulders down, head up, tailbone tucked in? By the time you have finished adjusting all the different parts of your body and put them into the correct places so that you don’t look too much like a duck, you’re too scared to move in case it all falls apart! You’re so tense and in such deep concentration that the chance of you achieving that “snuggly” embrace is next to nothing.

This is basically what happens when you separate your body into sections and try to force each section into submission. Yes it is true that in order to have an amazing posture you must do all of these things, but they are only “partial truths”. In Yoga4Tango it is suggested that there is an “ultimate truth”, and this boils down to grounding and finding the body’s alignment – not by thinking too much about the body in terms of sections working separately, but by feeling the body working together as a whole.

The exercises we have been practising in the classes have been about letting go of thought. First we were taught how to move our breath through each section of the stomach one section at a time, but now we are expected to be able to sweep the breathe through in one smooth movement while still being conscious of the different parts it is moving through.

When you are taught how to dance Tango too much of your attention is brought to what parts of your body are doing by themselves. Yoga4Tango encourages you to let go of those thoughts, and instead feel the alignment of your body, the balance and the grounding and feel yourself open up. Once you have got your grounding and alignment right, and you can feel the length of your body taking up all the space it can, then you can let your body move in a constant flow, through the poses, just as you would do on the dance floor. Smooth, grounded, graceful, and relaxed yet fully aware.

This week I have decided to apply this philosophy to life. Too much focus on specific details tends to magnify problems, separating them from the bigger picture. So I intend to connect everything together, see life as a whole experience, and move smoothly through it, day by day, step by step. Join me… and join me in next week’s class, it’s fun!

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Feeling the pose

Originally written by Zara M on 14 August 2013

I have to say that I found this week’s Yoga4Tango class to be somewhat more challenging than the first week. The experience of the class is so focused and intense, not to mention strenuous and fast-paced, that it is essential to bring your mind and your body to the class at their optimum levels of alertness. I was both hungover and fatigued from a socially hectic weekend, and I had blisters on the soles of my feet from dancing too much Tango in shoes that don’t agree with me!

Despite having to struggle through the class, I was glad to have experienced this because it brought to my attention the fact that engaging the mind and the body doesn’t just happen, you have to consciously work at it. It is hard work, and distractions can easily take over and make it easier to give up your focus.

When you come to a Yoga4Tango class you are dedicating your mind and your body to an hour and a half of focused and disciplined exercise, muscle engagement and relaxation. I find it quite strange to place the words ‘exercise’ and ‘relaxation’ in the same context, and especially strange to refer to ‘relaxation’ in terms of ‘focus’ and ‘discipline’. But I guess I am learning how to be relaxed yet conscious and present at the same time; alert and yet still; and how to engage my muscles to create strength and grounding, while also opening up my body and mind to enter a realm that is separate from the one I usually exist in (the one with all the external and internal noise I was talking about last week!) None of this is possible or easy when your mind is focusing on perceived weaknesses such as blisters on feet when you are trying to balance on them; it is about moving your mind past this, because it is not just feet we are balancing on, we are using the muscles in our legs and stomach, and aligning our bodies to create a sense of harmonic tension with the environment around us; and always breathing.

This week’s class began with the focus on developing our breathing technique, and understanding more about the concept of ‘grounding’ and being in control of the mind. The instructor acknowledged that as Tango dancers we are happy to project our minds and be creative, but it is important to be able to control the mind and rein it back in. Breathing helps to bring the body into the space the mind inhabits, and vice versa. When I was doing the breathing exercises I found that my attention shifted from the pain I was experiencing in my feet, and spread out to an awareness of other parts of my body. It felt like spreading out my attention almost diluted the once-magnified pain I thought I was experiencing. Interesting eh?

Developing a strong core is also important for good grounding, and learning to be aware of the various muscles in our bodies, especially the core muscles, when we are moving, helps to keep us balanced and strong. I find that because I am a fairly light person, I find it difficult to imagine that I can have any sort of presence or contribute any significant weight when I am dancing. Many partners have told me that I’m so light they can just whip me around the dance floor. I don’t particularly want to be whipped around the dance floor though! I would love to be able to stand my ground and be a force that is part of the dance, and that contributes towards it, rather than just being taken for a ride. Weight doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with how grounded you are or how much force and presence you have when you are dancing.

For example, you might be on the heavier side and just “drop” into each step with your weight making you feel a lot more work to dance with, or you might be like me, much more feathery, but your partner will feel like they are dancing by themselves. When you dance Tango, you want to feel a connection with your partner. It might be a very subtle connection, or it might contain a lot more springy energy, but either way, there are fibers of energy connecting you both which is what makes a Tango dance feel wonderful. Yoga4Tango is making me realise that I don’t need to be a passive dancer just because I am lighter in weight, I just need to be more mindful of what I have at my disposal – I can control my body by grounding it with my mind and being aware of the muscles I am using, and also the space my body is inhabiting and how my body uses its muscles to move through that space and interact with anything it comes into contact with.

An important and rather interesting point I picked up on in the class is that the necessity for having a strong core and working the muscles in your stomach in Tango in order to remain grounded and be able to move fluidly is debatable. The instructor suggested instead that our balance and movement comes from how we align and ground our bodies, which is where the exercises we have been practicing come in.

I was also inspired by the instructor’s encouragement for us to use gravity to ground our bodies into the earth Often the instructor’s assistant who circles the room helping to correct people’s poses and body alignment, will come along and spread my fingers wide and push the palms of my hands firmly into the ground with her own, or she will pull my feet and stretch the joints to extend my limbs and encourage me to take up all the space my body has at its disposal. It reminds me of how good it feels when I am dancing Tango and I remember to extend the whole of my leg, engaging the muscles in my thighs and using them them to push my weight into the step when I am being walked backwards around the dance floor. It feels good because I am asserting my presence and taking up the space that is mine, and I don’t have to be particularly heavy or strong to do this, just confident and open, using gravity and the energy in and around me.

Which also relates to something else the instructor mentioned in the class. He told us to feed off the energy in the room, and explained that it is less challenging to practice Yoga in a class full of other people doing the same thing than it is if you are by yourself, because you have the energy bouncing around the room from everyone else. Sharing energy when dancing is essential to create connection and rhythm and lots of yummy springy movement, so I am not surprised that you can also feed off other people’s energy when practising Yoga.

I could probably write a lot more on these topics, but I have to round it up now. I will leave you with one more inspiring comment the instructor made which has allowed me to view things differently. He said that you can get to the stage where you can practice yoga without having mirrors surrounding you to check the positioning of your body, because it is more about “feeling” the pose and “listening” to your body. When I dance Tango and I am truly absorbed and engaged with my partner and the movement of our bodies, I dance with my eyes closed, and you know what? It always works far better! This goes to prove that the mind and the body have a very special relationship indeed. I can’t wait for next week’s class – I will be bringing my mind and my body to it in perfect condition this time!

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My First Yoga4Tango Class

Originally written by Zara M on 09 August 2013

Last weekend I attended my first Yoga4Tango class. Yoga for Tango – What’s that? I thought. Balancing acts and Boleos? I had no idea what to expect, but what I came away with from the class I can only describe as an inspiring, and sweaty yet refreshing experience. I have no experience in Yoga at all, and I have only been dancing Tango casually for about two years. To say I was apprehensive was an understatement.

The beginning of the class was spent listening to the instructor as he put the classes into context. I liked what I was hearing. He explained a little bit about the principles and theories he would be using to merge elements of Yoga practice with our understanding of Tango, to enrich our dancing experience. I found it particularly interesting to hear him talk about the mind-body connection, with a focus on grounding, and filtering out “noise”.

Living in the city, with stressful jobs and family lives, “noise” is something that becomes a part of our experience of life. Most of us don’t even notice it until we get a headache! He explained that the working mind always wants to go backwards and forwards, but that it is important to just be here, and present, observing the body and the space around us. I immediately related to it, because this is what we all want to achieve when dancing Tango. Perhaps some of us even dance Tango to escape all of the city noise?

The session was held in a bright and airy gym room with mirrors along the front wall, which was a bit disconcerting at first, I was in the front row. There were between twenty and thirty of us in the class, but there was ample space and everyone was provided with their own mat and yoga accessories. People brought their own bottles of water, and some even had hand towels, which was something I hadn’t thought of.

I was worried that I wouldn’t be up to the Yoga standard of some of the others (especially those that came prepared with towels – they obviously knew what we were in for!) The course description did state that it would suit anyone who does Tango, and that modifications would be given for all of the Yoga poses in the sequences. So I tried not to worry, and instead relax and focus on what was happening.

We were introduced to different methods of breathing, and allowing breath to travel through different parts of the body consciously, which I found to be very relaxing. It is something I have never even thought about before. Breathing just happens, it’s not something anyone thinks about unless they are trained to. After practicing the simple technique of inhaling and moving my breath up to my lower stomach, pausing, then further to my upper stomach, pausing, and then right up to the top of my chest and pausing again before letting it flow all the way back down through my body, I found I was able to focus entirely on my body and the space around me. It was fun too, and gave me a bit of a head rush when i sat up. It made me more aware of the different sections of my body that I use to twist and dissociate when I am dancing.

The exercises were continuously related to the experience of dancing Tango throughout the class. For example, did you know that when you dance and you become out of breathe it is because your mind/body connection is in conflict? You need to breathe continuously to stay grounded. It makes sense. Personally I felt that being conscious of my own breathing made me feel more in control and aware of what my body was doing, I imagine that when applying that to the dance floor, a dancer is likely to have a much richer experience and be more aware of how their body and their partner’s body communicate; and also how they become part of the moving dance floor, which is really like a whole flowing, living and breathing organism.

The rest of the lesson picked up in pace and we were taught a series of poses for different sequences, along with modifications. There was no pressure on anyone to keep up or push themselves over their own limits. The instructor was very clear and supportive about the fact that people’s bodies work in different ways. For example, I felt better when he reassured everyone that it was absolutely fine to have bent knees for certain stretches, which I personally found to be an essential modification because my body isn’t as flexible as I’d like it to be! Also at the beginning of the class he demonstrated two ‘resting’ poses that he encouraged us to use if we were feeling like we needed to drop out and rest our bodies. I observed a number of people using these poses throughout the session, which was good to see.

I think what I found most surprising and exciting about the class was the fact that I came away feeling so wonderfully at peace in my mind, and yet my body had undergone an extremely thorough workout. It was a very satisfactory and invigorating feeling. The kind of glow you get after enjoying an amazing Tanda!

Despite the intense workout, which was the pace I chose for myself – each person will have had a different experience depending on what they felt was right for them – I felt charged with such positive energy and adrenaline, that after the class I was inspired to walk home, which would normally have taken a good half hour bus ride. Yoga4Tango must be good for me, I thought, seeing as I never walk anywhere if there is a bus that will take me! I suppose this goes to show that I took something valuable away from the class, and the good vibes and energy are what will be bringing me back again next week. Thank you to Winston for an inspiring new experience, see you again on Sunday!

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