potential
released!
P O T E N T I A L
At SOZO I teach a basic dance science and movement theory course to first year students. We usually spend a whole session talking about potential and kinetic energy. I like the students to actually notice, analyze and talk about physical examples they experience in a ballet class or a contemporary technique class. So, the first thing we take note of is that potential energy is stored energy in our bodies that could potentially become kinetic in the perfect situation with a right amount of ignition of force and therefor the kinetic energy is the potential energy in action… RELEASED!
When the energy is just in the potential state we may not assume or guess what could come out and be released. That gives the performing dancer an amazing playfield to be exciting in movement down to a fraction of a second and I could go on about this because I’m so passionate about it, but I actually was wanting to write this blog about the POTENTIAL in all of us.
What does it mean to say flatly that someone has “amazing potential” in something? A seed has the potential to grow into something, but without the right liquids and food and light, it will dry up and the potential will diminish and eventually die. Another logical and physical example. Potence is also a word we use to describe just how much strength and intensity something has to make a difference, break through, become powerful or even dominant.
Often, we can observe others and cannot quite describe why we feel this potential in them. We can’t really measure it or accurately name it. Society has trimmed us to even feel threatened by this potential of others around us. That’s sad. When do we finally give up trying to outdo each other or get tired of putting up with secret jealousy we feel when someone is excelling right in front of us. It catches us all.
One of the biggest learning fields for me is the school I created, SOZO visions in motion. My motivation was to create a space where potential could unfold and be released in a safe and sound space (meaning not without some edgy challenges determination and hard work).
I was still relatively speaking, a young dancer when I created the school and gave myself the job of an artistic school director at 36 years of age, still identifying myself completely as a professional dancer. Little did I know that I was stepping into the perfect situation to let a deeper layer of potential in myself come out and be released. People who knew me in my 20s will remember my shy, insecure self who only became fierce onstage (my safe place). I remember the first young aspiring dancers coming to audition and I felt an unexplainable potential in different ways about each one of those I asked to take a study place at SOZO back in 2007. Over the past 15 years I have learned that I can trust my sensing of potential. I decided to want to see potential in young people. I want to connect with it, to resonate with it. Actually when I really analyze what’s going on, its more that I make myself available in the moment and the potential shining out of someone in an audition, in the words of their motivation letter, resonates with me, brings me to a place of opening up my vision and enables me to see what that little spark I saw, could become with the right “food, water and light”, hence the SOZO ZONE.
A ZONE full of SOZO is what we offer.
SOZO - to be safe and sound, to recover, become liberated, whole, reach full potential.
ZONE - is an area that has particular features or characteristics (see above).
To be “in the zone” - in a mental state that enables one to perform to the best of one's ability!
At the time of writing, I´m almost 52 and I fully identify myself as a mentor and host that enables potential to develop, unashamedly, radically, righteously and truthfully in a space where everyone else is also entitled to the same. To encourage the celebration of each other and the self. To see others not just as an accessory around our own selves (who judge, critizise or praise us – and therefore forming our own self-image always based on that), but to see them as heroes of their own lives and training ourselves step by step to really notice them, look at them, listen to them, in the moment. This is giving potential a chance, giving it space to resonate.
I couldn’t even say that as a teacher or mentor that I actually “dig up the gold”. I believe someone must do the digging themselves. It’s enough to just tell someone they have potential, to help them find a “tool”, guide them with a first step, encourage them when I feel they may be weakening, almost giving up, have fallen, or partly failed. Nothing can be perfect on this earth so every effort, every courageous breath that musters up repetitively the decision to keep trying, is shining brighter and without a doubt fueling the potential. The moment you lay down on the studio floor and take that first in-breath of the Pilates exercise at 08.00 am or in the moment you walk home, reflecting about the day and you decide again FOR tomorrow… it’s the food, the water and the light, the comfort of safety to just try and find out, the truthful connection to the others around you all doing the same – a ZONE where potential is released. SOZO!