stop dancing
/I want you to stop dancing.
For a whole week.
Stop doing those little jigs you do in the kitchen while you make dinner.
Stop bouncing up and down on the walking path with the kids.
Stop twirling in the living room when your favorite song comes on the radio.
(Do people even have ACTUAL radios anymore??)
Stop leaping from one lily pad to the next in your neighborhood pond.
Just STOP.
I know, I know…I’m suppose to be encouraging you to dance more — that is what Joanna and The Agitators is all about, right??
(If you’ve been wondering who the actual “Agitators” are, here is your answer: The Agitators are all the little people who live in my brain and tell me what to do. They are very agitating. And they snore).
For the next two weeks, I want you to stop dancing and do something else.
I know, CRAZY, right?
Do this instead:
Notice when you have an impulse to move.
Notice what it feels like NOT to follow that impulse.
And then chose to:
Ignore everything I just said and dance as much as you want.
Do something else, like gardening or cooking or drawing or playing guitar.
Do something else AND THEN start to leap from one lily pad to the next.
Why?
Because it is the start of summer and I think that calls for a slight shift in how the day is spent.
And
Because I think it is important to take breaks sometimes from habitual patterns and approach them again from a new perspective.
I have taken long breaks from dancing.
Days, weeks, months….even years.
And when I am ready to engage again, I enter into an entirely new dance.
I sense my body in a whole new way.
The space I am moving in seems unusual, and so I encounter new pathways, new relationships, and new impulses.
In this way, novel connections are made.
And in this way, change is created on this planet of ours.
So take your two-weeks off from dancing, and then…
Well, will you look at that!!!
How convenient!
The timing works out just so, doesn’t it?
After your two weeks of no dancing is up, the summer dance session starts!
Who knew???
All of us will be bright eyed and bushy tailed from our dancing break, ready to enter anew.
Registration opened on Monday and classes are already filling.
And oh my, it is an amazing and irreverent and thoughtful and warm and funny and welcoming group of folks who are choosing to take the summer session, which means you will fit right in.
If you are so inclined, would you please share this newsletter with just one person who you know could benefit from joining this vibrant, feisty, and delightful dancing community?
And then share it on all those social media platforms too….twitter and pineglade and facebook and tumbler and instagram and….are there more??
Your dance mission is to notice when you want to dance, and then decide if you do or do not follow that impulse. What happens if you do? What happens if you don’t?
I would love to hear how it goes, so post your comments here.
With Warmth and Jivey Vibes,
Joanna
of
Joanna and The Agitators
sweetly agitating/persistently upending
www.joannaandtheagitators.com