Levitate

The dream began 9 years ago. I was at Bumbershoot, a large, annual outdoor music and arts festival in Seattle, WA. I remember I was on my way to see some live music on the far side of the event. While negotiating the dense crowds, I was suddenly distracted from my planned direction. A thick cluster of people had gathered in a small area a short distance from the main path. Everyone seemed to be watching some hidden street performance.

Unable to ignore my curiosity, I investigated.  Amidst the spectators were a small group of young men and one woman demonstrating remarkable feats of acrobatics to the sound of "old-school" hip-hop beats. It was breakdancing, but not the breakdancing I had remembered doing as a kid. What I saw was the product of an art form that had evolved to the pace of the 21st century and these guys were making it look easy.

I was entranced. I never made it to the show that I had originally set out to see. I simply could not tear my attention from these dancers. They seemed to laugh in the face of gravity as they spun and flipped through space. I studied martial arts and basic tumbling as a kid, but as a young adult, I had let much of my training and fitness fall by the wayside. Still, even as I watched the performers, I felt a kindling in my spirit to realize my fullest potential for movement.

After that experience, what began as a spark of inspiration grew into fire capable of forging a union of mind and body, thus changing my life forever. I began to research everything I could find concerning the mastery of movement. On the physical level, I began to train and condition my body--focusing on increasing flexibility, muscular power, strength and endurance. To feed my mind, I read books and interviewed experts on ways to to dissolve the psychological barriers to peak athletic performance. I was a student in college at the time and I took extracurricular classes on rock-climbing, tai chi, kung-fu, yoga and kayaking.

I trained everyday for a year straight before I finally graduated university and moved to Portland in search of that which I had prepared for--a community of people who would understand the value of the movement arts and possessed the fire for it as well.

I found what I was looking for and immersed myself into the culture of breakdance and capoeira. My love for the culture of movement continues to this day. In my journey I've discovered that this path is not for everyone. I can appreciate that. I have also learned that in life, it is not so much what you do, but how you do it. Does your inner fire fuel your actions?

I now teach people of all shapes and sizes how to effectively move their bodies. In doing so, I know that I am helping them transform their mind and beliefs in the process. I want to show people that limitations can be transcended. Both mind and body are inextricably entwined. That's what my class Grounded Levitation is all about. In class, we face our limitations head on and gradually step beyond them. We ride the edge of what we have known before and leap off into yesterday's impossibility. I want to know who out there is with me on this. Shoot me an email dustdancer@gmail.com or come to BodyVox and try out a Grounded Levitation class or the Parkour class.