Think DOWN and forward, the slight rise and fall back forward will drift naturally, just as the waves crash down, the water jumps up and then cascades down to the sand.

But don’t say “down and up,” “stage front,” or “1 and 2, 1 and 2, jump.”

Don’t say “arms out,” “elbows back,” and “turn around.” Invisible ropes peel your arms from your sides outwards before a giant being picks you up by your elbow and moves you back as if you were a mere paper doll before It whips you around and you face him before plunging in fear into a tombé away from him.

Stop thinking. The voices in your head need to stop instructing you. That moment when you are really dancing is when the voice of perfectionism and precision, that rigid, rational voice, simmers down to a mere whisper that I barely hear because the gust of movements are just too loud. That voice in your head takes over the natural non-silent silence that marches to the beat of physics, the thump of your heart, your gasp for air, or the down beat of your fall. Action and reaction are the rhythms you heed and the its music must consume you.

As you bend your knees, gaze at the floor, and shoot you right then left arms out, exhale that accent down before you breathe in at the moment when you thrust so that you almost hear that crack of the whip as you snap to that position. And your movements must embody the soundwaves that result from that crack as you enter a flow of motion by turning around, sautéing up, and gently explode into a double leg jump before crashing down twice on one foot and exhaling that strength as your back bends in exhaustion and your collarbone turns to the heavens for air.

Your hands suddenly superglue themselves together as you slight bend your shoulders and stare at your feet with pliéed legs. But like a snake, your right leg glides away from your body towards the back corner as if running away. And you turn around to run after it only to see that the vision has escaped and it’s just your own two legs that give way to the disillusion as you catch yourself before your fall and then step twice to assure your balance. But you’re fine. Assert your control as you tightrope with relevéed feet stage left then stage right and extend your arms upward as if you’ve transfigured into a needle in the blink of an eye.

But that needle unravels like an onion peel as your spiral out of that erect image into a circular, graceful mess. And yet, spring up! You didn’t dissolve into matrix spiral, your energy pops up in the air and your excitement is evident with the flourish of back attitudes before your solemnly enter that arabesque. Don’t stop, but slow down. Slow. And soft, like dust in a windowless room. It moves so slowly, but moves with grace and energy, before you melt. Your biological clock, your body, melts like a Dalí clock in The Persistence of Memory. Make your movement a continuation of that clock’s trajectory as it melts off the branch and sinuously caresses the ground.

Hear everything in the air and nothing in your head. Move quickly like a gust or slowly like the dust. Energy never stops, it’s either kinetic or potential. Never erase the potential. Even when “still,” you can’t be still, for your feet push down to the core and your head reaches up to the cloud; or you stop existing. I move, therefore I am.