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Meditative Dance

Mole

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The purpose of meditative dance is to enjoy moment by moment.

Normally we direct our muscles to act; we direct our feelings to feel; and we even tell ourselves what to think.

But in meditative dance we slowly and gently learn to stop directing ourselves and we learn to follow ourselves.

We gently learn to stop telling ourselves and we start listening to ourselves.

We start by first listening to the music, and then the silence.

And so we create a gentle wave within ourselves of the music and silence.

And then we dance right off the top of the wave and simply follow ourselves.

A purpose of meditation is to still our minds.

And a good way to still our minds is to move our bodies.

Would you care to dance?
 

Asterion

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... Can't be bothered, at least normal meditation requires no effort... I wouldn't even bother with that, I don't see any point, it's never helped before, It just wastes time.

/brutal honesty
 

jenocyde

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What is the benefit of not leading yourself?
Is having an active mind seen as worse, or less organic, than having an empty mind?
In order to move your muscles, don't you have to direct them?
What is the purpose of trying to artificially separate your mind and body?
How are we separate from "ourselves", in reference to telling and listening?
 

Asterion

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I guess, if balance is really as great as they say... then having constantly racing thoughts would be seen as unbalanced? So you can balance your thoughts by meditating?
 

jenocyde

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But what if I'm always physically moving when I think - would that then be balance?

Also, if mental motion is negative, where is the positive in the movement of the body? Isn't that just exchanging vices?
 

antireconciler

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Also, if mental motion is negative, where is the positive in the movement of the body? Isn't that just exchanging vices?

lol. The difference between self-willed thought and monkey-mind thought is perhaps lost on Victor. Or, he just couldn't be bothered to articulate the difference.

I take Victor to be advocating stillness of mind in the sense of reducing monkey-mind/background/chatty/anxious/fear-based thought and thus being at one with the flowingness of the present moment. He probably doesn't mean to exclude actively-willed/self-derivative/intentional/rational thought which is obviously necessary.
 

Mole

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Let's give it a whirl.

It's so simple - we can turn you into a whirling dervish overnight.

First turn on you radio to some dance music and dance for five minutes.

Second, sit down for five minutes.

Do this five times.

It takes 50 minutes.
 

Mole

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... Can't be bothered, at least normal meditation requires no effort... I wouldn't even bother with that, I don't see any point, it's never helped before, It just wastes time.

/brutal honesty

Well, let me explain.

As you dance for five minutes, your metabolism rises.

And as you sit for five minutes, your metabolism falls.

And as you do this five times over fifty minutes you set up a metabolic wave in your body, quite like a sine wave.

And interestingly, the larger the metabolic waves in your body, the healthier you are.

And the opposite is also true, that when your metabolic waves are flatlining, you are dead.

So this this form of meditative dance brings us alive.
 

Mole

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I guess, if balance is really as great as they say... then having constantly racing thoughts would be seen as unbalanced? So you can balance your thoughts by meditating?

Ah yes.

As I dance for five minutes, my metabolism rises, and I feel euphoric.

And then as I sit for five minutes, my metabolism automatically falls, and the relaxation response kicks in automatically, and I feel relaxed.

As I do this five times over fifty minutes - I alternate five times between euphoria and relaxation.

So I balance euphoria and relaxation one with the other five times over fifty minutes.

So you are learning not only how to be euphoric and not only how to relax, but how to balance one with the other.
 

Mole

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lol. The difference between self-willed thought and monkey-mind thought is perhaps lost on Victor. Or, he just couldn't be bothered to articulate the difference.

Oh, I almost forgot.

An important part of learning a new skill is the rest period.

In the rest period after practice, you are assimilating and digesting everything you have learnt in the practice period.

So the rest period is just as important as the practice period.

So you only dance and relax every second day. And so you rest on the other day.

If you rest on the other day, you will return to your practice relaxed and refreshed, ready to learn something new.

So just as we alternate between dancing and sitting, and just as we alternate between euphoria and relaxation, we alternate our practice day with our rest day.

It is called l'alternance.
 

Mole

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What is the benefit of not leading yourself?
Is having an active mind seen as worse, or less organic, than having an empty mind?
In order to move your muscles, don't you have to direct them?
What is the purpose of trying to artificially separate your mind and body?
How are we separate from "ourselves", in reference to telling and listening?

I dunno.

And I dunno what to call this form of meditative dance.

It is dancing for five minutes and relaxing for five minutes. And you do this five times. And it takes fifty minutes. So should I call it - "5X5X5"?

Or even - "Take five"?

Or should I simply call it - "l'alternance"?
 

Lacey

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Dancing is good for the soul and mind. If I want to calm down excess mental energy, sitting still doesn't work. I have to move. I've never called it "meditating", but I guess it is. And, well, I use it as prayer too. Sometimes I can't form the words in my head so I dance instead.

This alternation thing is interesting though. I usually just dance for an hour or two until I get tired.
 

Mole

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But what if I'm always physically moving when I think - would that then be balance?

Also, if mental motion is negative, where is the positive in the movement of the body? Isn't that just exchanging vices?

And what is interesting is that we cannot direct ourselves to be euphoric, nor can we direct ourselves to be relaxed.

However we can direct ourselves to dance and we can direct ourselves to sit.

And the dancing indirectly leads to euphoria and the sitting indirectly leads to relaxation.

And further we cannot directly to tell ourselves to increase our metabolic waves, but by alternating dancing and relaxing five times over fifty minutes, we can indirectly increase our metabolic waves.

If we could directly order ourselves there would be no need for meditation.

However we have the illusion we can directly order ourselves so we see no need for meditation. This is sheer vanity.
 

Mole

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Dancing is good for the soul and mind. If I want to calm down excess mental energy, sitting still doesn't work. I have to move. I've never called it "meditating", but I guess it is. And, well, I use it as prayer too. Sometimes I can't form the words in my head so I dance instead.

This alternation thing is interesting though. I usually just dance for an hour or two until I get tired.

Dancing for an hour or two is called industrial exercise. Usually it is done to industrial music, using industrial drugs.

We live in an industrial society of machines that can work without resting. And so naturally we try to imitate them.

And if you measure the metabolic rate of any machine, you can see it is flatlining - it is dead. But if you measure your metabolic rates, you will find they come in waves. And the bigger the waves, the healthier you are.

But working non-stop or running non-stop or dancing non-stop is unnatural. It does not increase your metabolic waves, it flattens them. Doing anything non-stop is turning you into a machine - a working machine, a running machine and even a dancing machine.

And doing anything non-stop is harmful to the body and the psyche.

We all need to rest to assimilate and digest.

We need to rest to refresh ourselves. For instance if we don't sleep everyday we go quite mad quite quickly.

However we have all been acclimatised and trained in the industrial way of life by our schools, our work places and our sports.

So we need to quite deliberately accustom ourselves to a natural form of life.

And the natural way of life is called, "l'alternance". We can practise by alternating between dancing and sitting, between euphoria and relaxing, between practice and resting.

We set up natural metabolic waves and allow ourselves to become natural and healthy.
 
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Lacey

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To elaborate: Well, I dance pretty hard for awhile, then pace quietly for awhile, then dance harder for awhile again. But I don't just sit down and stop completely. I wouldn't call the way I dance "industrial exercise". hahaha I'm definitely not a dancing machine. At least not in that way.
 

Mole

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To elaborate: Well, I dance pretty hard for awhile, then pace quietly for awhile, then dance harder for awhile again. But I don't just sit down and stop completely. I wouldn't call the way I dance "industrial exercise". hahaha I'm definitely not a dancing machine. At least not in that way.

If you dance hard for while, about 5 minutes or so, and then sit down, your relaxation response is automatically activated.

You don't have to do anything; you don't have to think anything; you don't have to say anything - your relaxation response occurs automatically if you sit down after hard dancing.

And if you do this five times in fifty minutes, you establish a healthy metabolic wave in yourself.
 

Mole

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Meditating Together

And the very nicest thing is to dance meditatively with a friend, or someone you like, or even someone you love.

So you play two different roles, turn and turn about.

One dances for five minutes, while the other sits and watches over you.

And then you reverse roles and you sit for five minutes and watch over the other while they dance.

You do this five times and it takes fifty minutes.

It has a most profound effect on both parties, both the dancer and the caretaker.

It's true, it does set up a healthy wave in both of you, but most of all, it establishes a deep flowing bond.

You are being rocked together in the bosom of the ocean.

You see each other as you are, without pretence.

And you care for one another.
 

Asterion

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touch your toes.

touch your hands.

spin around 3 times for 5 minutes.

jump like a racoon and swim in a puddle of mud for the next 5 minutes

repeat as desired, if not desired, then move on to question 8

8. If a triangle has 3 sides, a square has 4, and an eye has infinite, how many sides does your hand have?

9. If you stand in a vacuum, is gravity stronger, or weaker?

Try the practical application of Q9. then move on to the next section

Exibit A- are you still breathing?
a) no, where am I and why are the lights so bright?
b) yes, the vacuum did not kill me as my king so intended.
c) I didn't actually participate in the experiment, instead, I used a test dummy (my sister)

To all those whom picked option c:
How diabolical are you on a scale of 1 to 10?

If you've answered anything greater than 5, you should definitely participate in meditative dance therapy. If you stopped reading this 100 lines ago, then you have passed the test.

/jibberish... sorry bout that, I just wanted to imitate Victor :D
 
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