Embracing Aging with Gratitude – How Teaching Flamenco Dance Has Changed for Me as I Approach 80
As they lift their chests and their faces, and shoot energy out their hearts, hands, and fingers, their dance becomes strong and powerful and their body image changes. “Feel the music. Let its energy go deep into your body directing your movements. Don’t think about what to do. Think about blending with the music and letting it move your body. Rejoice in it and honor it,” I encourage.
I try to enhance their understanding of the music and the many nuances of Flamenco song, incorporating the Flamenco rhythms. We do palmas, clapping our hands in intricate rhythms. My 85-year-old, stroke affected husband, still vital, beats the rhythms on his cajon, helping my students hear the beat and the counter-beats. Our young guitarist helps too, and they learn.
My students are growing and I am excited by it. I want them to be their very best, and they blossom like flowers. As I age, I try to give them the things I have felt are the most important, things that will make their dancing better and better. It feels like a distillation of all I have learned since the 1970’s, when dance became a major and constant part of my life.
I acknowledge my body’s natural deterioration, marked by arthritis and my recent hip replacement. My weakening muscles today affect my balance as well as giving me pain. I watch my students more now, critiquing them instead of always doing all of what I am asking them to do. It helps them in new ways; my perspective changes when I watch, and I see more from this vantage point. When I think of the Gitano Flamenco teachers I’ve had in Spain, they too taught that way. I had forgotten.
The full experiences of my life, including the early troubled learning of dance from unqualified teachers –with mistakes and setbacks, then later, the triumphs and good teachers in Spain, all have enriched my life. As I enter what will probably be my last decade or two, I am excited to pass on to my students what will make their dance lives easier than mine was. And I am grateful for the gratitude, and feeling joy that all this is still possible and exhilarating as I approach 80.
©2024 Marianna Mejia
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