YES! Your Yoga Can Dance!

What was this 5-day challenge and why did we do it?

Humans have been dancing since the earliest recorded time. What is it about dance that is different from walking, running, hunting, gathering, and other movements that have also been part of (and fundamental to) our evolution as a species?

Dance can be defined in many ways.

It can be loosely defined as the movement of the body in space, in a rhythmical way, often (but not always) to music. Dance can be expressive, a way to release or express energy, emotion, an idea, or a story. It can be something that expresses the joy of movement! It can be something done purely for its own sake, like play! 

Dance can be ritualistic, ceremonial, recreational, artistic, or done for exercise. 

It can be choreographed or improvisational. People dance in diverse ways for a variety of reasons. Yet we, as a species, have danced for thousands of years! We have danced through wars and weddings, through burials and births, through grief and love. We have danced to show gratitude. To dance is to embody the awe, mystery, and complexity of what it is to be alive and to be human. 

Yoga (like dance) is a practice that observes and holds the totality of our human complexity. 

It is, like dance, an art of integration. It is a practice that allows all the disparate parts of ourselves to come together as an integrated whole. That whole being greater than the sum of its parts. We are complex organisms. And the practice of yoga is a practice which honors this beautiful diversity and complexity. As with dance, we explore body, breath, space, mind, and rhythm (via breath and heartbeat).

There is now interesting new research that looks at how dance, music, and rhythmical movement can help our brain, body, and nervous system self-organize.

It has been used to help people with Parkinson’s, early onset Alzheimer's, and other forms of dementia, anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, and more. Dance involves shifting weight, changes in direction and dynamics, and moving rhythmically to either an internal or external beat. It nourishes bones, muscles, joints, connective tissues, and our entire nervous system. It is especially good for enhancing kinesthetic awareness, and helping to improve the functioning of our proprioceptive, visual, and vestibular systems. When it involves moving with other people, many of these benefits are amplified. It involves not only our muscles and joints, but our entire nervous system. The mechanisms as to why dance movement is so effective for health and well-being are becoming clearer to those researching its efficacy from a scientific perspective. And that is a wonderful thing. But the power and potency of dance movement is something we humans have innately known for a long, long time.

This challenge just scratched the surface of the many ways we might play with elements of dance, music, rhythm, space, weight, and effort in our yoga (and vise-versa). 

There is no right way to engage with this exploration, and no right way to dance or do yoga. We can learn so much by the simple act of saying...

Yes! YOU and your yoga can dance!