Since my haze, I have been out dancing and training again.  I can only dance/ train about 3 hours at one time or 5 hours in a day.  However, at least I can move again.  All of my friends and a few doctors have told me – Dave, something is going on for your body to be going through all of this dis-ease.  Yes – I agree.  Though I am processing it all.  I might finally be getting what has been going on.  It has to do with being present and grounded.

Over the years I have learned that whatever my process is on the inside, the outside world, including events and people, reflects my inside process.  So, what has been showing up in Tango is the importance of grounding.

I just worked Tango with someone that has a lot of ballet in her background.  The whole session came down to relaxing into her hip during a weight change without engaging all of the hip flexors and pelvic girdle.  Something relatively simple yet very hard for her with decades of training that taught to never relax into the hip socket.

That session brought to me reflection of my own life – relaxing into my own legs, hips, feet – basically grounding.  To fully ground, I get how I need to believe and trust in the ground holding me up and being able to fully surrender without having to be on guard against needing to quickly move to the next step.  In other words, trying to lead before it was time to lead the next step.

And so it is in my life as I move into professionally training individuals in Tango, movement, connection and accelerated learning.  I am aware of how I need to generate income by sharing my gifts in these areas.  And yet I am holding back of giving 100% and operating on all cylinders.  It is like driving a car as my friend Craig reminded me.  I can only see 200 feet ahead with the lights on.  Because I can not see more than 200 feet ahead, I can not immediately see income pouring in.  So I have been doubting if I will get to where I want (income pouring in).

I believe the message I am processing is in two parts.  One – trust that I will generate income, and even though I can not see more than 200 feet ahead, to keep driving with all cylinders of the car (output 100% passionately).  Two – work with grounding by connecting to my body through building my physical health for 90%+ output.  What’s being asked of me is to fully ground in Tango and in my life.

Grounding — how is your quality of grounding?  Can you relax fully into the floor, without tensing up waiting to give or get the next lead?

Another way of putting this is how present can I be with every move/ step/ beat.  For the third time I watched The Way of the Peaceful Warrior.  In the book and movie, a very zen like quality is presented around being present.  The subtitle of the book is – there are no ordinary moments.  The message is quite clear to me — how present can I be in Tango/ Life to each moment where every moment is extraordinary?

Allowing oneself to experience desire from the core is paradise. In Tango, desire is one of the most powerful energies/ ways to connect with one’s partner.

On Saturday I danced out at Cheesman Park.  Thanks to Darlene and her inspiration, we now have a regular milonga at Cheesman Park on Saturdays during sunset.  I had a wonderful breakthrough in my dancing.

As I danced with one particular follow, I allowed my desire to be close to her to fill me up and radiate out to her during my expression of dancing.  I instantly discovered a much stronger connection and pleasure in dancing.  I did this with another follow and discovered the same thing — stronger connection and pleasure.

Desire is different than just sexual energy.  I want to distinguish between them.  Desire is an energy of wanting, not necessarily having sex.  Desire can be felt and expressed in many ways.  The desire I felt was wanting to just be closer.  Now, some sexual energy did rise, but instead of just having it congeal in one area of my body (as what happens in lustful desire), I allowed the energy/ feeling of desire fill my whole body and connected that desire with the music, with my follow, with her steps, with my steps, with the gentle breeze, with her movements, with my breath.

I noticed I did a few things differently.  I looked more at my follow.  I had more surging quality in my walk.  I had a greater connection with the music.  I had a stronger posture — being more upright, and more outward lead from my heart and chest.

For many reasons which I did not know at the time, I have been not stoking my desire.  I realized quite awhile after that I did not want to put my self out so strongly.  I wanted to keep some of me in reserve so to speak.  I believed that if I put out my desire strongly, I would be rejected.  Now it is possible I will still be rejected — that a follow might pull away from my energy of desire.  Yet, wherever that belief came from, it is not with me now.  That belief certainly has not been helpful, but hindering.

I have since been playing with stoking desire in my dance.  When I fill with desire, I am also filling with me, or said another way, connecting more fully with my core.  My core is about desire.  According to the Abraham-Hicks material (info on manifesting), all humans at their core have great desire and we are in this life to connect with our desire, choose what we want, and express it by manifesting our desires.

I believe part of why few people dance with desire is two-fold.  For many, desire for another in Tango equals sexual attraction.  Second, to connect with our desire also brings up how often we have not manifested our desires and hence experienced the hurt/ pain of wanting but not getting.

In the tantric workshops I have attended, we engaged in exercises called Pujas where we looked into another’s eyes and on purpose projected different things.  For example, imagine that the person in front of you is your life-mate and you instantly love them more deeply than ever before.  Or, the person in front of you in your mother asking for full forgiveness.  Or, the person in front of you desperately needs your healing and blessing so project that into their eyes.  The bottom line purpose of pujas is to deepen one’s ability to connect with another.  This connection does not have anything to do with sexual intercourse.

So, in Tango I have explored imagining my partner as a beautiful being, a full goddess, wanting to be held in loving care as I dance.  Or my partner is a playful soul wanting to feel me fully alive with her exploring the desire in the music.

However, in my experience of working with hundreds of clients as a therapist/ life coach, I have witnessed how hard it is for so many to feel their desire.  As soon as someone connects with their desire, they also connect to the accumulated hurt of not getting their desire.

I recommend exploring feeling the desire of connecting with a partner, and manifest that desire through feeling the magnificence of the connection.

When I don’t feel my desire as I enter a milonga, I often imagine this might be the last opportunity I get to connect, the last milonga I may ever attend.  Any hesitation I have over connecting fully to myself and partner quickly dissipates.

I am so excited to further explore my desire in more dances.

I sit here on Monday morning, a week after I acutely sprained my back.  I am in a haze.  I have not danced in 10 days, and am dazed by pain killers with the nagging sense that my life is little without Tango.  In the past 10 days I have diligently worked on my professional Tango life, constructing my web site, writing my workshop guides, writing about how I can accelerate people’s rate of learning Tango from 50-500%, and researching institutions that grant Ph.D.’s in dance and education to research and evolve my methodologies of rapid learning.

Yet I have not danced.  My nights, usually filled with Tango music, delicious dances, kisses of the Divine, heart-filled relating, and sweating from enthusiastic milongas, have been empty.  A movie here and there is so empty. Once I got into Tango I thought I would not have lonely empty nights.

And during the past 10 days I have been working and envisioning my life as a Tango professional – without moving my body.  I haven’t even listened to Tango music the entire 10 days.  It was just too sad to hear the music without being able to dance it.  Again, I am aware of the haze I am in.

However, I am excited about moving forward into the professional aspects of Tango in the coming days – my first 5 pack of Tango lessons starts tomorrow; I DJ the first alternative practica downstairs at the Turnverein in Denver tomorrow; this Saturday I teach my first Tango workshop in Kansas City, MO; this week I finalize my booking of the August Teaching Tour in the upper midwest; my Tango Teaching Tour for the Kansas City 200 mile radius area is coming together; and my e-commerce foundation is coming together too.

What is this haze?  Is it the pain killers?  The extreme lack of movement in 10 days?  I could name many factors influencing my haze.  However, the metaphor of this haze is more telling and important.

I am getting as I write this that my Haze represents over 20 years of 35% productivity and/ or outward expression of passion.  Up until now, I have only operated on 1/3 of my ability in putting out my passion professionally.  What I mean by operating on 1/3 of my ability – hours working, marketing, sales, writing, studying in whatever I was doing.  For over 13 years I worked professionally in the personal growth fields, yet I could have done 3x the amount.  I was only operating on 3 out of 10 cylinders.

And no, I am not being hard on myself (as some people like to tell me).  I am only stating the facts.  Today I am aware of operating on just 3 out of 10 cylinders.  There were a few times in my life I operated on more cylinders.  When I was a national tour guide I operated on 9 out of 10 cylinders, or as a ski instructor at Keystone – 7 out of 10, or when I created and put on workshops and events for singles to meet – 7.5 out of 10.

I am acutely aware of my strong desire to bring my operational capability up to 9 cylinders out of 10 consistently.  This desire is in stark contrast to the haze I currently feel, the haze that I believe I have been living for the great majority of my adult life.

I know what operating on a high level of 9 cylinders looks and l feels like.  My question is what would fire up those other cylinders?  I just answered the question in my head and I am shocked – my answer is if I knew for sure I would manifest my current dreams, I would operate on 9 or 10 cylinders.   My life dreams cover life partner, financial prosperity and freedom, full Tango and Dance coach lifestyle (intensive Tango training/ 18 festivals a year – teaching at most/ travel 6 months a year/ milonga 6 days a week), full vitality and longevity and dream houses.

Why I am shocked is that I am operating as if I will not get those things.  However, if I were to operate on 9 cylinders I would manifest these things.  I seem to be waiting for my dreams to manifest to operate on 9 cylinders.  Quite a little messed up circle of hindering beliefs I have been living.

I will report later on what comes of this awareness of what I call transparent beliefs (beliefs unknown, unseen, transparent.)

Where in your life are you operating on only a small percentage of the cylinders you have available?  How long have you operated like this?  Why?  What would fire up your other cylinders?

I get the danger of not maintaining my health and structural integrity. This is a danger sign in front of a hot pool at Yellowstone National Park. One must watch their footing or they may be scalded to death if they walk off the designated path.

On Monday morning I awoke feeling much better than I had in 5 weeks of illnesses and medications.  And then as I bent over to pick up my laptop, an intense sharp pain dropped me to the floor where I stayed for an hour and a half before I was able to crawl to my bathroom.  I spent that day and the next day in bed, calling my neighbors to come over to bring food and water.  I could not move without severe pain.

On Wednesday, I could finally move a bit more to my kitchen briefly, and with enough Vicodin, I was able to get to a doctor for x-rays.  Nothing structurally had happened.  I just had an acute sprain of my sacral area.  I had to cancel my Midwest Tango Teaching Tour.  I was so bummed.

Today, I am reflecting on how just a few days ago I had blogged on the importance of my health.  Yeah, I get it!  What is even more important than training with dance partners or watching videos or going to festivals or taking classes is building my health and structural integrity.  I have been in bed with enough pain and lost out on enough dancing to get it.  GOT IT.

I have only danced 5 hours since the end of the Denver Memorial Day festival, so by the end of this week, I will have danced the least amount in 2 weeks since I started dancing Tango.  How did this happen?  Because I had been so sick in 5 weeks, I hardly exercised.  Then when I went to pull weeds for an hour, I over did it.  I did not engage my core, and I was not checking in with my body.

How many of us overdo it by dancing to all hours of the night without building up our strength or checking in with our bodies?  It is so easy for me to overdo it while I am experiencing my Tango Trances.  This overdoing it reminds me of a perennial spiritual challenge: to experience bliss consistently requires groundedness, where we have a life that is working, where we are responsible and maintain balance in all areas of our life.  If one goes for bliss without groundedness, one usually experiences big problems.  I have met wonderful spiritual people that cannot balance their checkbooks nor maintain a healthy relationship with their significant other, or they are in horrible health.

I have been warned about being out of balance …

I have been ill for over a month.  With my visit to Buenos Aires for 5 1/2 weeks in October/ November I have had pneumonia 2X, and been ill 3X.  I dance close to the limits of my health, and sometimes go beyond them.  I find that my ability to dance and learn Tango at an increasingly accelerated rate depends greatly upon the state of my body – my health and fitness level.

I am sure that this little revelation is not news to most of you.  However, what may be news to some of you is that sometimes cultivating greater skills in Tango requires attention on the body, not Tango.  In other words, I am at a point in my Tango learning where I must change my body’s health, fitness, and structure to maximize learning as well as being a productive Tango professional.

I want to note how important it is in accelerating Tango learning that we must go outside of Tango.  Tango brings up many issues, and our growth in Tango directly depends on how we process/ deal with these issues.  Issues may come up in the arenas of emotional, physical, spiritual, mental, social and political.

My next steps:

• Get down to 12% body fat with a body weight of 160 lbs. (this requires a loss of @23 lbs. of fat and an increase of 10 lbs. of muscle)
• Train with Kettlebells to dramatically increase core strength and flexibility, and reduce my kyphosis
• Train in YOGA to dramatically increase flexibility and body awareness
• Track my food intake to determine macro-nutrient ratios and tweak for optimal metabolic activity and therefore fat loss
• Work with pulmonary specialist and my general doctor to determine course of action to strengthen lungs and immune system

I intend to take pictures of my body to track the changes.  I did this once before when I did the Body For Life Challenge.  As I write these words of my intentions, I am quite aware of how sick I have been.  Even the thought of exercising right now as I cough is daunting.  However, I realize how important my health and fitness is to growing in Tango and being able to dance to the wee hours at milongas.

What are your weak areas or unprocessed issues that keep you from maximizing your ability to learn Tango at an accelerated rate?  What would you do to experience greater dances, connection and Kisses from the Divine (Tango Bliss)?

During the Denver festival many people asked me how I was doing – I often replied, “I am in Heaven.”  I am not religious, but I am deeply spiritual.  I have experienced several transcended states of being, including profound bliss with very expanded states of awareness.  During the festival, I entered into a transcended state of bliss.  The bliss was not just being filled with joy, but a deep sense of everything is truly OK and magnificent.  I call this state — the unbearable lightness of being.

The unbearable lightness of being is the kiss of the Divine.  It is a state of truly being at peace with all.  My spiritual cutting-edge is to allow this state more and more. At times it is unbearable. Let me explain.

After the festival ended, I felt deep sadness.  Sadness at the seeming loss of the state of bliss I experienced for hours on end.  Why I call this a “seeming loss” is that when I was no longer moving as one within the dance of Tango, I no longer experienced the deep bliss.  However, the bliss is always available.  So, why do I not experience this bliss consistently except in Tango?

In Tango I allow myself to let in this unbearable lightness of being.  I do not resist experiencing the depth of my Self in Tango.  When I move with another in Tango, when I connect with my breath, heart, movement, and reach out to my follow to feel her emotions and sense her response to everything I express, I let the Divine kiss me.  Bliss ensues.

I am painfully aware that this bliss is always present, but I just resist it.  Not always, but most of the time.  When I am in the embrace of Tango, I fully connect and express with my core essence.  I could do that at any time, but I often do not.  This is my painful awareness.

And when I allow this bliss in, it can become unbearable.  Unbearable because all the ways  I resist bliss comes up and taunts me – shame, guilt and worthlessness.  However, within Tango somehow I am able to just let all that negative taunting fade away as I focus on full connection with another.  That connection only goes as deep my self-connection.  Deep self-connection becomes easy when I focus on getting my Self out of the way to be able to move, breathe, feel and express with my partner.

I do not have big answers here on how to consistently connect with myself.  However, I do have Tango that continues to show me and teach me how to let in the unbearable lightness of being, allowing myself to be kissed by the Divine.

Every follow I dance Tango with is another opportunity to be kissed by the Divine.  And each kiss is bliss.  If any of you wonder why I have such passion in my pursuit of learning and teaching Tango, perhaps your wondering is fading with these words.