"Know your body"

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/this-could-be-big-abc-news/ultimate-example-preventive-medicine-232140727.html

The above story is about Bill Weir, a journalist for Nightline, doing a routine story and discovering a heart defect that could have cut his life short. In the story, he says, "Know your body."

Yes!

Knowing your body is more than just exercising and eating right. It's about genuinely having a relationship with your body; with all of your bodies. Your intellectual body, your kinesthetic body, your emotional body, your physical body, your energetic body... all of these exist in different forms, but they are YOUR BODY. (And my body, but I'm using Weir's words, here).

Dance is such a deeply integrated way to know many of these bodies. It is a way to know the self. And the self in relationship to the larger Universe. or universe.

Dance is about knowing the body in space. About knowing the muscles that work to make the body move. About translating emotion through the physical form. About recognizing emotional activity as it moves through the kinesphere. About negotiating time. About deciphering poetry. About understanding numbers and math and physics.

Know your body.

The microcosm of the universe.

Strangely enough, the more I learn, the more I turn back to that initial principal. (New readers, I encourage you to dive into the musings of 2010 for more information on the body as a microcosm of the universe.)

Take care of our bodies. Respect our bodies. Be honest with our bodies and our interactions. Know yourself, Know ourselves... Know your body.