Dolphin Swim - Or Contact Dance under water.

Jens, who holds an incredible dance and movement class called Soul Motion, recently told me about an experience he had that combined dance and water.

A group of people set the intention of moving with each other in a small pool. Everyone had nose plugs and was prepared for full immersion, as well as a lot of body contact. The rules were simple: move slowly and gently and in ways that feel good to your body, keep hands open and relaxed, (no grabbing) eyes closed, come up for air any time you want/need to. They started with a breathing exercise to settle everyone. After everyone was relaxed, the facilitator urged them to start moving around the pool with heads above water before diving underneath the surface. His descriptions were luscious and interesting. We set a date to try it out in the Little Red Day Spa.

We followed the formula above and I was blown away. There were only four of us in the hot tub, and we could have fit 4 more in there! We tended to whirl and curl around each other. Amazingly enough, even with eyes closed, none of us bumped into anything other than each other, and that really felt more like sliding and caressing. After about twenty minutes, I was tired and winded from holding my breath so much, as I found that I preferred to stay under water. Jens said with larger groups of people, you occasionally end up on top of the pile and that gives you a chance to catch your breath. Since there were so few of us, we didn't make enough of a pile to end up out of the water by chance movement.

I am currently trying to figure out how this could be done at the spa. It reminded me a little of ecstatic dance in that it was a fluid coming together of bodies without agenda or plan. Just pure movement and joy in engaging in that movement. I am guessing that it would work best as a group session. 6-8 people could move around quite nicely in the tub. Maybe it could be spa night, where there would be more people allowed than can fit in the tub, knowing that people would not be in the tub the whole time.

Lots to think about. If this sounds like something you would be interested in, please email me, Sophia@HengstStudio.com and I will put you on the list of people who would like to be my testers! Experimenting can be fun.