Latest / Soul Salon with Ayandastood / Your body wants to take up SPACE. Here's how.

Transcript

Your body wants to take up SPACE. Here's how. · Soul Salon with Ayandastood

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  And then you talked about shrinking.
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  Let's go there because that is so real.
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  And you can see it on an embodied level.
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  Yeah.
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  Can you tell us more about how we can take up more space
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  literally and not feel this shrinking?
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  Even the way we use our phones, we're always trying to like...
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  It's, yeah, it's very, yeah.
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  What's it called?
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  I think it's called Foneck or something like that.
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  Oh, yeah, I think that's the way it's done.
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  But it is, it's the shrinking.
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  And okay, I'll give you a few really beautiful exercises
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  that I like to, I see my interaction with the world
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  as like play.
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  When you see things more as play, it takes the pressure off
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  and it takes the expectation of the outcome off
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  because you're just playing.
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  Yes.
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  So it's fine, like it's fine.
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  Unless you're very, very right to what I'm looking for,
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  competitive.
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  You might have some issues.
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  But one thing that I really love to do,
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  and it sounds so, it sounds so small,
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  but yet it's so powerful that aren't of allowing,
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  like allowing yourself.
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  So for me, I'm a music babe, obviously.
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  But like, if I hear a song and I'm out in public
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  and I'm listening to my music, I allow myself to move.
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  Instead of keeping it like, okay, like this is the most I can do
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  because I'm in public
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  and it's not acceptable for me to be expressive in public.
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  When I see people and they're singing to the top of their,
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  I'm like, freedom, freedom,
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  because you are using your free will to the max right now
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  and you're just expressing yourself
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  and being at peace with people
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  maybe perceiving you in a certain way.
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  So that is the first thing when you're listening to a song.
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  If you feel like you want to get a foot involved
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  and tap your foot, if you feel like you want to kind of,
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  I'm a bit of a hand girl sometimes, I'm like,
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  I'm like, you know, the little music County,
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  I'm like, you know, I'm giving a little shawl down people
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  and I'm like, you know, or sometimes I'll like sing
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  and I'm like, like a little mind.
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  So that's like a great one for allowing yourself
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  to be seen and taken at more space.
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  Yes.
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  And another one, and now this is a bit controversial.
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  Take us there.
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  But I noticed, I don't know with in British culture,
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  I'm gonna say British culture because I feel like it is
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  or etiquette, let's say, we apologize a lot.
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  I don't know whether you, like...
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  South African, too, but colonial.
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  Yeah.
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  And so, especially as a black woman,
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  I found I apologize a lot when it's not me.
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  So even if you're in public and you're in your walking
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  and maybe like you slightly getting in someone's path
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  or there in your path, I was noticing that I was like,
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  oh, sorry, sorry.
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  And I was like, but why am I saying sorry?
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  There's no need for me to say sorry.
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  There's no need.
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  So, not from a place of, I'm gonna stand in you.
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  But just from a place of, okay, we're just two humans
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  walking and we've just ended up in each other's path.
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  Or instead of if someone bumps into me,
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  me being like, oh, I'm so sorry.
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  I just hold the line and like, give someone a smile
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  but I don't need to be so apologetic for something
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  that I'm not doing, you know?
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  So that's a really beautiful one
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  for just allowing yourself to be like,
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  I don't need to apologize for being in this space.
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  I'm just here and I have a right to be here
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  like everyone else, you know?
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  And one more, I would say with your movement.
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  Now, I always say start at home
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  because it feels like the safest place.
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  But if you start at home and there's a move
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  that you like to do, that you notice
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  that you keep returning back to,
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  kind of call that like your motif.
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  Taking it from your home into like a public space,
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  whether that's at a party or something like that
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  and actually intentionally leaning into the movement
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  that made that you were using at home
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  that made you feel comfortable
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  but taking it into a space where it's completely new
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  and different.
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  That just allows you to take up space a little bit more
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  because even when I see, I can normally tell by the way
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  that someone holds their body and themselves
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  potentially how they move before I even start working with them.
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  Because a lot of the time people,
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  and I love obviously I love my dancers, you know?
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  But you like got it unlocked, like you're like,
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  you're like cool, you're open to expressing and exploring
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  but I really love working with people
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  that are building this new and juicy relationship
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  with themselves.
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  And so a lot of people that I work with,
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  it's like you're rigid.
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  But not as in you're just as in you're rigid
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  in different areas of your life
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  and it's translating to your movement.
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  Do you know what I mean?
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  I do.
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  So it's like, oh, or again, you're shrinking.
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  Where are you shrinking in other areas of your life?
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  Because dances like a mirror.
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  That's why I love it so much because it shows us, you know?
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  And often because people think it has to be so performative,
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  they're getting the, again, intentionality.
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  Why are you dancing?
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  Why are you dancing?
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  If you're dancing because you want to be a professional dancer
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  and you need to train, that's completely different.
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  But there are, there are all traumas
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  within the dancing industry as well because again,
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  how you look, you're not good enough,
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  thisworthiness.
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  But if you're simply dancing for recreation,
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  recreationally and for self-connection and community,
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  you don't need to be carrying all these expectations of like,
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  oh, it has to look like, it doesn't have to look like anything.
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  It gets to look the way you want it to.
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  And that's where people get confused because they're like,
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  oh, you know, or if I'm teaching a piece of choreography,
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  oh, I couldn't get it.
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  It's not divided in conquer.
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  It's okay.
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  It's okay if you didn't get it.
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  Because the aim of the session is joy.
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  If the aim of the session was slay the movement
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  and get on stage and give me a five, six, seven, eight,
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  it would be a different story, but it's not.
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  And so I think with anyone introducing themselves
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  to movement, they're not the worst,
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  but I don't think it's very supportive to look at people
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  who have been dancing for years
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  and just find a nice piece of music.
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  Put it on, start to explore and start there instead
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  of being like, I want to learn this move
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  and that move and that move.
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  Because again, within the dance industry,
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  what happens is when, also when you're training,
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  you are obviously taught specific movements and choreography,
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  but then a lot of dancers can't freestyle.
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  They really struggle.
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  I'm not going to say can't, they challenge their struggle
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  because I can, but again, it's a mental.
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  And so it's like, I remember one woman
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  that I worked with, blindfold, she had to take it off
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  because the element of control.
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  She was like, I need to see, I need to see.
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  And it's like, there's, you need to trust, not see.
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  You know?
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  Yeah, it's so interesting.
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  Wow, ooh, ooh, ooh.
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  There was so much magic there.
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  I think this idea of releasing control
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  and the dance is a mirror, let's start there.
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  That was such an incredible insight and window into
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  how we can all deepen our understanding of what dance is.
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  I think that really resonates where if you feel like
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  you're an embarrassing person,
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  that's going to manifest in, oh, I'm an embarrassing dancer.
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  Or if you're like, it's not safe to be embarrassing
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  or to cringe at myself, that's going to manifest as,
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  I'm going to shrink myself because I'm afraid
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  of showing up in that way that makes me feel ashamed
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  because of conditioning shame.
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  Ooh, big word.
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  Conditioning trauma, childhood and expectations
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  and all of these, all of these things.
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  So I love that everything that you're sharing so, so much
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  because I feel like also earlier you said that dance is a prayer.
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  And I think that possibility, not all of us experience
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  as like accessible to us.
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  And that it is accessible because we all have bodies.
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  We have a body you can use.
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  Yes, and so what you're inviting us into
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  with more playfulness, more allowing, you said,
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  that's such an incredible word.
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  You know, if I am judged, can I allow that?
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  If I want to be more playful, can I allow that?
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  Can I be a space of allowance for myself?
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  And I think in dance, many of us come up with the fact
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  that we're not spaces of allowance.
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  Yeah.
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  I think also something I'll say is,
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  I feel like such an incredible aspect
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  of various black cultures across the world is dance.
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  Yeah.
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  And then, and I think that's amazing.
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  And it's such a ancestral practice, tradition, gift,
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  which is so beautiful and needs to be continued
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  to be celebrated and more spaces, I think, you know,
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  all across the world are so important for movements
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  and for black communities to move.
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  And we've always done that.
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  But then I also want to say for the awkward black girls
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  that if you struggle with feeling confident in your movement,
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  they can also be that additional shame of like,
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  oh, I should be able to dance.
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  Yeah.
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  Exactly, I feel that way often where I'm like,
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  I'm coming home to the joy of dance rather than the excellence
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  or the being able to embody certain things, you know what I mean?
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  And trying to become a space of allowing myself
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  to play and to try, like I'm South African.
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  South Africans are incredible.
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  Amapiano is incredible.
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  He's been like, oh my god, like amazing.
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  And also, like, I have a lot of shame
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  that I cannot move the same in that way, yes, let's say,
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  or, and then I'm like, oh, I don't get to dance to the song
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  because I don't know exactly how to embody that in print.
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  And I mean, it's truly divine expression.
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  It's spiritual, it's cosmic, it's beautiful and bold and brilliant,
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  and also an energetic signature of a culture,
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  because it also happens both at an individual and a cultural level.
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  And I've just, wow, I'm in awe.
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  But then sometimes I think we lead feeling
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  on the outside of something looking into it,
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  stop us from even stepping a toe,
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  because we're like, if I can't dive in gracefully and be it,
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  become one with it, I'm just don't get to do it at all.
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  So you're really speaking to me to many of us.
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  And so I'm just, wow, I mean, oh, I'm so grateful.
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  I want to give you something.
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  It is inherent to you when you are speaking.
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  It makes me a bit emotional, actually,
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  because it is inherent to you.
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  You're already embodied, because it's your of the people,
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  like it's your blood, doesn't have to look.
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  And that's the thing, like, the looking,
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  exactly what you said, the looking,
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  you can do the movement, cool.
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  You can do our movement, but embody in it.
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  It's not even about the movement.
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  You know, like sometimes, I'll give an example.
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  You can have two dancers that are both amazing
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  in their own right.
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  One is giving you backflips, tricks,
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  this and they're amazing.
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  One is not doing any tricks, but you can feel it here.
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  And when you feel it here, that's what the souls resonate with.
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  That's the resonance, that's the relating.
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  And you'll automatically be drawn to that,
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  but because you can feel their heart.
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  And so to you and any other person
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  that doesn't feel like they're good enough,
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  it if it is in your heart, that's all that matters.
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  Like, as long as you feel it in your heart
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  and in your body, that is all that matters.
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  You are more than enough and worthy and inherent
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  to being in every space, especially that embodies
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  and is the movement of your people and your culture.
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  You don't have to, you know?
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  In a child, older child,
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  all of us received that.
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  That was so juicy and generous.
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  Thank you. I really received that and that resonates.
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  That's so stunning and I've, I have felt that, you know,
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  and what you said, where it's about them,
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  you also are one with the music.
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  You feel it, you feel that resonance,
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  you feel that connection.
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  And I really do feel that with Amapiano
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  and with other, you know, my own cultures and countries music.
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  And so it's beautiful.
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  I love that you said it's inherent.