Tag: Dance

BrainDance

One Sunday evening, while looking for something in my junk folder on gmail, I noticed a misplaced email from CVEC; Cannon Valley Elder Collegium. During our busy moving schedule, I didn’t notice I had not received the winter class list. I took a quick peek and the class titled Get Your Brain Dancing immediately caught my attention. The description was, in part, as follows:

“Cultivate joy and enrich your mind, body, and spirit through the power of dance, one of the liberal and performing arts! We will practice safe, accessible, brain-compatible dance technique and alignment, including the BrainDance, for improved balance, strength and flexibility…”

Sign for Northfield Dance Academy where the class is held.

I couldn’t resist…I only hoped I wasn’t too late to sign up, which I did the next morning. The class was capped at 15, and I was number 18, but the instructor ok’d it.

The “X” on this photo marks my in position in this dance line when I was seven years old.

I have always liked to dance, but my experience is limited…at least one dance class when I was a little girl, going to high school dances, dancing the waltz and polka with my dad, dancing at weddings, a ballroom dance class, an Irish dance class and a Norwegian dance class. My husband does not like to dance so we haven’t much. I have often thought that one thing I’ll regret is that I didn’t dance more.

I’ve been to two (of eight) dance classes and they have been a lot of fun and good exercise. I’m learning the BrainDance (I love the title), an actual routine that involves “a series of eight developmental movement patterns that help to organize the brain, strengthen neural pathways, energize the body, and reduce stress” (based on developmental skills of infants –  developed by Anne Green Gilbert, a renowned dance educator and author).

The class is very interesting, interactive and enjoyable. Who knows? Maybe this class will lead to other dancing opportunities. Dance on.

Movement at Temperance River State Park

At the mouth of Temperance River.

One beautiful afternoon during our stay up on the north shore, we walked along Temperance River towards Lake Superior, from the parking area to a wooden bridge that crosses over the river to the other side of the park. While on the bridge we looked downstream to the mouth of the river and there was a young man fly-fishing. As we looked upstream, towards the water falls, our son and his wife alerted us to watch for fish jumping out of the water trying to swim against the flow. It was fun to spot several fish jumping over the course of a few minutes. Some types of fish return to the stream of their birth to lay eggs. To accomplish this, they must swim upstream against the current of the stream. It looked like a tough job.

If you observe closely you can see a fish jumping in this 9 second video. Click link:

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The fish jumping was one of the interesting movements we saw that afternoon.

The other interesting movement we witnessed was on the rocky beach of the state park.

I didn’t have opportunity to get a good photo of this lone dancer on the rock, but I wanted to capture the memory.

We continued hiking to the lake and found a semi-shady spot to sit down and read our books on the rocky beach when I noticed on the other side of the beach a woman dancing by herself on an outcropping of rocks.  I was far enough away so she didn’t know I was watching her, but there were others close-by and she would have known they were there, but still she danced with abandonment.

And it brought me much joy.

I sensed her enthusiasm and love for the beauty surrounding her and she was expressing it by dancing. I try to express these feelings by writing and photography but part of me wants to secretly find a hidden beach somewhere and dance to my heart’s content!

 

“Let all who come to Love rejoice, let them sing for joy! And protect them, so that those who live in your love may dance in your light!”

An excerpt from Psalm 5 from the book Psalms for Praying by Nan C. Merrill