THE IMPERFECT DANCE
“What is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.”
King Dancer is my favorite yoga pose.
Not surprisingly, because I love to dance.
My children make fun of me: "Mom, you can't dance!" but I dont care. I keep dancing!
They're probably right about my lack of rhythm and technique. I took ballet classes when I was very young, but I was pretty bad at it. I didn't get fired from ballet school, but I came pretty close... I wanted to do my own thing, not those moves dictated by my (very mean) teacher.
Dancing to me is supposed to be fun and free, not another regimented structured part of our lives. We have enough pressure to be and do everything perfectly. Those expectations zap the joy out of everything. Life is messy. If we always expect perfection, we will live in a constant state of disappointment. As we learn in Buddhism, this is the cause of suffering.
I also realized early on that trying to be perfect prevented me from being myself because I wasted so much time and energy attempting to fit an image, a template set up by someone else/a society, or most probably advertising agencies. That perfection was someone's else idea.
Yoga taught me that a pose is "perfect" when it's imperfect, when it fits me and all my flaws. When I make it mine. As we read in the Bhagavad Gita:
"Its is far better to live your own path imperfectly than to live another's perfectly."
We need to walk our own path. Dance our own dance.
We will miss out on everything if I we spend all our time and energy learning steps until they're flawless.
Getting ready for that perfect performance will keep us in constant rehearsal and we will miss the only performance that matters: our life.
Our beautiful Imperfect life.
Put yourself out there. Don't wait until everything is "perfect" to start being yourself.
No one can dance like you.
So join me and dance your wild crazy Imperfect Dance!
The Imperfect Dance
I am dancing.
Even though I don’t know the steps,
I am dancing.
I am learning as I go.
Throwing myself into the wild dance of this magical, maddening world.
I don’t want to be a watcher
I want to be a dancer
I want to feel the dance in my body
Shamelessly, erotically,
Every muscle, bone and cell
Pulsating wildly
To the primal music of my soul.
I want to feel the dance in my heart,
Falling in love recklessly,
Not asking myself why
But why not,
Knowing that the worst regret is not to have loved too much
But to have not loved enough.
I want to feel the dance in my soul,
The ultimate dance,
The one that enraptures
And will not release you,
The dance of no return
The dance of ecstasy
That absorbs you, devours you
And melts into you
Until you become the dance.
(18 February 2019, South India)
(NOTE: I read my poems in my yoga classes and this one seems to have touched many, so this is my gift to you. It will be part of my upcoming book of Yoga Poetry)