The Down-Up Dance

Hello, beautiful soul!

I'm so looking forward to this week, friend. We're going to experiment with one of my all-time faaaaavorite (and in my opinion, one of the most important) "moves" that we can feed our body as we dance.

In today’s modern lifestyle, most things are easily within reach most of the time. We rarely need to reach very high or crouch down very low to the ground. Everything is so handy! Great, right? Well... Unfortunately, there’s a downside of this convenience: if you don’t use it, you can lose it. Pretty soon, it can become really challenging to squat down to the floor to pick up that Lego, or difficult to twist and unplug that charger cord under the table.

The happier side of that news? If you DO use it, you can help to keep it (or reclaim it)! Woohoo!

So what’s the secret to youthful pliability? Moving our whole body through full ranges of motion, in a large variety of ways (just like youth do---woot)!

This week in Aya, we're going to highlight a simple way we can incorporate this into our day-- anytime, anywhere. We can even weave it right into our dance!

Introducing the Down-Up Dance

What is that simple way? Let's call it the Down-Up Dance! It goes like this:

Simply lower your body all the way down to the floor (or as low as is currently comfortable), and then get back up and reach to the sky. Then repeat, in a variety of ways.

That’s it! Soooooo simple, right? But also so important.

Benefits

You may be wondering: why on earth would I want to go down to the floor and get back up? Here are a few wonderful reasons!

Creativity: Focusing on something such as exploring moving along the vertical line gives us something specific to explore and play with. This little bit of restriction can help to unleash one's body from movement habits and move in new ways.

Freedom: The more we free our body to move in a variety of ways (including up and down the vertical line), the more we liberate our unique, authentic self-expression! Woot!

Spaciousness: No matter how much space we have available to travel side to side, this focus reminds us that we can also move along that vertical line. This allows you to still move quite vigorously, and/or stretch out your body more fully, even if space around you is limited.

Fun: The floor and the sky are like whole other worlds available for us to explore with as we dance! What's it like to dance with your hands up high, above your head? What's it like to dance with your belly (or back... or side...) touching the floor? So many options to explore!

Fitness, Health, and Longevity: Plus, moving through the sagittal plane in this way, is so GOOD for your BODY. For example, it can help maintain (or reclaim):

Joint Health & Mobility: it engages major joints like the hips, knees, ankles, helping to maintain joint range of motion.
Muscle Strength: functional movements like this engage key muscle groups (think: quads, hamstrings, glutes, core, etc.), helping to maintain or improve strength and ability.
Balance and Stability: Dancing down & up in a variety of ways activates your stabilizing muscles and vestibular system as well. This helps to maintain your agility and balance (which also helps prevent injury).
Bone Density: Movements like this that are "weight-bearing" and involve resistance to gravity, tug on the bones involved, stimulating bone growth and helping to maintain bone density.
Nervous System Integration: Doing this in a variety of ways challenges coordination and proprioception (your body’s sense of where it is in space). This keeps your brain and nervous system alert and engaged, and improves motor skills, agility, and responsiveness.
Circulation and Lymphatic Flow: Doing this multiple times will really get your heart pumping and blood (as well as lymphatic fluid) flowing.
Flexibility and Tissue Health: Large dynamic movements tug on tendons and fascia, and help to 'melt the fuzz' and keep your whole body supple, elastic, and expressive.
Functional Longevity: Practicing going down to and getting back up from the floor will help to keep us agile and independent (yay)!

Whew! All that from just going down to and then getting up from the floor? :) YES! Isn't your body amazing? I don't know about you, but just thinking about all of this has me ready to get up and MOVE! Is your body craving it too?

How to do the Down-Up Dance

Ok, so how will we play with this in class?

You can simply incorporate dancing a little closer to the earth or sky anytime throughout class (as much as you'd like).

Perhaps start by just --every once in a while-- lowering down a tiny bit closer to the floor, or reaching just a tiny bit higher to the sky as you dance. It could be an inch. There's no pressure, friend. As always, we want to continue to dance in ways that feel comfortable, intuitive, and pleasurable for our body.

You can do it during choreography, or free-form movement (or both)! Do it a little. Do it a lot. Whatever. This focus is simply here to remind us that the floor and sky are both available, and that dancing with them can be so very liberating!

If it feels comfortable enough to dance your entire body all the way down to the floor and back up, please feel free to do so. It's so fun! It can feel so stretchy and gooey and deliciously freeing! However often, and to whatever extent you want to incorporate this into your dance is just perfect, babe.

You can do it in a million different ways. And, in fact, the more variety the better. Simply tune into your body, play, sense for pleasure, and enjoy the dance.

Ready to give it a go?

Ok, friend, so that's what we're playing with this week, but (of course) no need to wait for class. We can do the Down-Up Dance anytime, anywhere. It's a fantastically nourishing movement snack! You can do it without music, or put on a great song, and let it be a dance. You may even notice that different songs inspire you to do it in really different ways. How cool is that?

As always, I can't wait to play, and see what we discover together this week. See you soon!

Much love,

💛 Dani