#8 Dance Through the Childbearing Year

Hi Birth Peeps,
The blog arrested this week, needed to move again. Which brings us to Change #8:
DANCING THROUGH THE CHILDBEARING YEAR.

I find it curious that the message is often sent to "move in labor," but in prenatal sessions and classes, parents "sit." In birth conferences, we "sit." Why is that? Perhaps like art, we leave dancing, and teaching dance, to the "stars" and coordinated experts!

But No! the new Birth Village must begin dancing.

Stephanie Larsen is an amazing woman who has created DANCING FOR BIRTH(TM), a refreshing, uplifting dance class for pregnant women, "Instructor Training," and an engaging DVD showing all the steps. After watching her DVD--I became really enthusiastic about dancing in pregnancy and birth. I loved the moves and the fun names she gives all the moves.

I asked Stephanie how dancing can help change birth in our culture. Here's what she had to say:

"When women start dancing, dancing brings a new connection with themselves--a connection that is not typically cultivated. Dancing increases acceptance of one's body, and love and respect for oneself; it increases self-esteem. Dancing informs a mother of what her body is capable of, and to feel pleasure to be in her body.

"In labor, women can experience an internal, intuitive, and ectatic state. This same state can be accessed while dancing. In labor, women rely on sensation and freedom of movement. Through dance a woman learns to feel sensation in her body rather than be numb to [or unaware of] sensations.

Women often feel suffering when they can't move in labor in the hospital, or they don't have the freedom to act upon the desire to move. Women can feel restrained by tubes, belts, and tethers of technology, but they can also lose their freedom to act, with or without medical tethering, by their own conditioning and disconnection with their bodies.

We give birth in our bodies. We cannot "think" and plan our way through labor. We give birth in our Dynamic Feminine energy and body; which means to move intuitively, mindlessly, and unself-consciously.

So Change #8 is about helping pregnant women and birth peeps to come alive in their bodies, to cultivate a new personal and collective relationship with our bodies by feeling pleasure and ecstacy and freedom to move--before labor and in labor!

I'm going to take one of Stephanie's DANCING FOR BIRTH trainings so I can bring her approach to my parents and workshops. I hope you will, too. Check her out at www.DancingForBirth.com or call her at 866-643-4824.

In-Love,

Pam