because I was so focused on my body’s choreographies, combining strength and twists with props. I was one of many people in the room. On my mat, I wasn’t dying or suffering; I was trying to get into postures – well, maybe living is the ability to have con- ditions for dying and suffering, but on my mat, I was okay in my dying and suffering towards an asana. I’m not sure what the other students were going through, but it’s reasonable to assume we are all going through some- thing. Studying Ashtanga Yoga, the eight-limb path, I practiced the step- by-step approach to the realization of yoga, or the yoke, with the univer- sal self. Through the ethical guidelines of the Yamas and Niyamas, the limbs progress from the external to the inter- nal and are the foundations of living an integrated life. As choreographies of being intentional with movement culti- vated by focus, this differed from what I know as a dancer - movement as met- aphor. My need for my mat began to change my perspective. Ahimsa, nonviolence. Brutality, as in cruelty toward myself, the forces were thoughts in a constant wheel of worry, and I noticed the ferocity of energy against my body. How could my body betray me? As time and tests passed, I learned my body was sav- ing me. My cancer was localized and hadn’t spread. Body still knew what to do even though my consciousness wasn’t aware. Softening, I accepted and began to move from the discom- fort of uncertainty to knowing. Gratitude. Often the theme in my cohort of yoga teacher trainees, a mul- tigenerational group from all kinds of work and family lives, shifted my practice. I was able to practice. I didn’t care that I was getting better; the idea was not just to get into a press-up handstand in my mid-40s or get into the most intricate binds, but when we practice regularly, we grow our prac- tice. So I grew with fellow yogis who may or may not practice teaching, but
Led by my dancer friend Kelly Del Rosario, I simply pushed and pulled. I wasn’t working out for fitness gains, but again, I could connect with my body through movement and my body’s capacity to heal my sur- geries appropriately. Surrounded by a bunch of silent boxers who rarely speak and electronic dance music, I could be all of me, in those moments — bald and sweaty. No one asked me about my lack of eyebrows, why, or how I felt — EVER, and I was discharged from being labeled as a patient. The spaces and edges we rarely dance in until we have to live in them, allowing our movements to verb a comfortable identity of our- selves. Movement is my immediate and natural identity in flux, and by finding opacity alongside the wings, ducking in and out of the light, I was okay, maybe even more than fine. My third spaces are open, wide spaces where I could be left alone to move in unison and in time with friends
partnered by diligently kept me com- pany. At the same time, nurses poked and prodded me, taking blood and try- ing to find veins during the long hours of sitting during chemo. I learned to move in place, exercising ideas while grasping to understand how the toxic- ity of the yew plant, one of the chemo- therapies I received, was reducing my chance of cancer recurrence. Svādhyāya or self-study. The cho- reographies of being in my historic neighborhood, the Castro, became a site for critical study as I didn’t need to go far to practice moving. I walked my pups, practiced yoga, and still danced. I also made shorter dances for Rhythm & Motion. My former com- pany ballet teacher at ODC/Dance, Ms. Liz Gravelle, teaches at the Academy of Ballet on Market Street. Through unison steps shared with classmates, my friends and I would take on these needed movement exer- cises. When glissades showed up, we
we attended to the philosophies of yoga, thinking about Patajali’s writ- ings, and began to share our sankulpas, our reason for existing; I shared secrets and reconnected. My sankulpa: I exist to share intentional movement to cre- ate peaceful thoughts and actions. It wasn’t new, but hadn’t been articulated before; this intention has always been a part of my dancing. Brahmacharya or moderation. As I began to share my diagnosis more openly, I recognized sweet gestures from near and far and maneuvers that stung. Suddenly, I would go from open- ing a care package with soft socks, snacks, and flowers to having to hold space for a conversation about another person’s anxiety around cancer, illness, and dying. I greeted friends through thoughtful texts and daily haiku emo- jis with Wordle stats. The abatement of conversations with agendas allowed me to notice compassionate actions that offered rituals for loss. Those who would witness me by flying into town for 36 hours, encouraging me to won- der about the guaranteed better times ahead through writing, make me laugh and not interrogate my conditions. These big hearts passed through state and international borders to lift me, and I welcomed them. In sharing this diagnosis, dancers called me from their busy lives and various tours. They held me and shared how they had made their decisions through breast can- cer and other life-threatening illnesses, helping transition me from unknowing diagnosis into being in the season of breast cancer. Santosha or contentment. Breast cancer season was filled with the heaviness of surgeries, chemotherapy, and radiation. They were also filled with long chats with my neighbor Sue, her cats, London and Boston, discuss- ing opera narratives, art making, pol- itics, and shared dreams and visions. The steadiness of a long marriage with first sips of morning coffee, friends, and dancers I’ve been directed or
MOVEMENT MAPPING CARE TRUTH. I come home in my body through movement, landing after falling is essential. Holding myself for partnering, I create shelves and fulcrums, knowing my movement is a rigorous form of identity. I recog- nize myself in the constants of formations, walking my dogs and trac- ing neighborhoods in San Francisco, dancing in circles with friends again and again, moving over borders, states, and years. When my MFA studies took me to extreme heat I slowed physically and accelerated mentally simultaneously. Last May, as I was completing my yoga teacher training, I was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer, and with a sharp inhale, everything froze. by YAYOI KAMBARA
as I began to share my diagnosis more openly, I recognized sweet gestures from near and far and maneuvers that stung.
Are you going to be okay? Trust me, I will tell you when I know more. What do we dance in the face of uncertainty? Trust me, I will tell you when I know more. Connection. I still had a sense of pur- pose in May 2024: a scholarship from Core Power for 200-hour yoga teacher training. I initially scoffed at the train- ing as corporate but then fell into the people and teachers around me, con- necting through spiritual learning and a purpose quest. So, one of the first people I told was Ashle, my lead teacher, who encouraged me to com- plete the program. While I was in a sea of uncertainty, yoga was a place I could forget for moments when I was diagnosed with a life-threatening dis- ease and prioritize being, and trying to be present. At that exact moment, moving largely in transitions and find- ing the smallest of movements in bal- ance, I was OKAY. My manic brain wasn’t seeking answers I didn’t have
ON CARE: Technique. How could my body betray me? After years of under- standing the body as the brain, as Hope Mohr shares, how come I didn’t recognize or know something was wrong? I stumbled through my days in a fog; a grey had cast its shadow on everything. Parent- ing and partnering are steps I know how to perform “full out with feeling” suddenly dulled; I couldn’t feel the cathartic high of these rou- tines I knew by heart. I couldn’t extend my limbs to create the vir- tual lines of care and connection I knew as technique. Patience. As I waited for long weeks to see a doctor, sharing this news felt irresponsible. How could I answer the barrage and multitudes of questions from my tight inner cir- cle? What stage is it? Do you have to go through chemo? How bad is it?
would get dinner. These steps of set- tling in my neighborhood, at the barre, on the mat, became my third space - where I could have another identity formed by the in-betweens. I wasn’t a patient undergoing treatment or a par- ent on the Parent Guardian Associa- tion; I didn’t have to be the Yayoi who was producing or researching a new work, or have people ask me what I was working on, or, even worse, how I was feeling. I could dance. My back could hurt in arabesque, and simultaneously, the speed returned in my legs and I occasionally regained a double pirouette. Saturdays. I looked forward to going to the boxing gym once a week, even when neutropenic, and had to be care- ful about catching colds and viruses.
and strangers who cared enough about my being there, not about the conditions I was dancing through. Asteya or Non-stealing. How quickly we forget. I speak of move- ment and forget the stillness. They could be just balances, moving so microscopically it’s barely detectable. But it’s in the moving I revive the body’s memories and heal. As I write and put words together and order them, I reveal my process, moments becoming a frame for understanding the choreographies of grief and care, relinquishing the last of my fears to open up to opportunity. ON GRIEF: Aparigraha or freedom from grasp- ing. My triceps touch my knees;
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In Dance | May 2014 | dancersgroup.org
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