The Doors - Maps for Movement Exploration
Where We Are in the Loop
As we explored in the previous chapter, you're in a state of awareness, and your awareness filters the stimuli you receive from all the information constantly available to you. Every 1/18 of a second, our nervous system receives information from all of our senses, but our state of consciousness determines what we actually perceive.
Once you're in a state of awareness - whether contracted or expanded - and you're receiving stimuli from your senses, the next step in the retroactive loop is what I call "doors" or "pathways."
When I'm dancing, I notice that different possibilities for movement show up. I might feel pulled toward working with my physical body, or toward expressing an emotion, or toward following an image in my mind. These are the doors - the various ways I can relate to what's happening in the moment.
I borrowed this language because it describes what I experience: when I'm receptive, certain invitations appear, and I can choose to walk through one of them and explore where it takes me. The door itself isn't the destination - it's just the entry point into a particular way of moving and discovering.
An Example: Multiple Doors Opening
Let me give you an example of a possible session. I'm moving in my studio to some electronic music, just following whatever wants to emerge. I've been dancing for maybe twenty minutes when the track changes - suddenly it's South American shamanic music, traditional drums and flutes with this deep, earthy rhythm.
My awareness in that moment is open. I'm not thinking about anything particular, not trying to make anything happen. Because of that receptive state, I can suddenly perceive multiple invitations simultaneously - different doors opening.
The first is imaginative - I feel pulled to do a traditional dance, like I'm performing a ceremony for rain to fall. My arms want to reach upward, my feet want to stamp in ritual patterns. There's this impulse to enact something, to tell a story through movement.
But simultaneously, a different door is opening. This is more somatic - I want to enter the rhythms with shapes and movements. My body wants to respond to the drums. There's an impulse to move with the beat, to let my torso follow the percussion.
And then there's a third possibility - something more shamanic. I suddenly feel connected to an animal, maybe a jaguar or an eagle. Not thinking about it, but actually feeling that quality wanting to move through me.
These are examples of what doors are - directions that appear and lead to movement. I can feel all three invitations in that moment. Not as thoughts about what I could do, but as actual impulses, different pathways opening.
What I've Learned About Using Doors
When I choose a door, what I've found is that I need to fully commit to the trip it's offering. I have to believe in what I'm doing and go deeper and deeper into the door, continuing the trip as long as I can. What's interesting is that in each moment, a new door might open because my state of consciousness changes due to the flow I'm in.
The doors aren't absolute - one after the other. Most often it's a constant flux between all of them. Many doors are available at the same time, and what I'm still learning is to sense which ones are calling, which ones have energy behind them.
Some things I've noticed that help:
- Stay in movement - The doors are explored through the body, not through mental concepts
- Trust the spark - Each door opens with what I call a tiny ignition that I need to feel very carefully
- Expect transitions - Doors flow into each other naturally
- Commitment is everything - When I'm half-hearted, the exploration stays superficial
The Five Main Doors - What You're Dancing In Relationship To
Most conscious dance traditions - from 5Rhythms to Dance Awake to various somatic practices - arrive at similar maps, even if they use different language. These five doors keep appearing across different systems.
These represent what I'm connecting with, what's moving me, what I'm having a conversation with through my movement. I'm sharing them as reference points that have been useful in my own practice.
The Somatic Door - Dancing the Body's Intelligence
What I'm dancing in relationship to: Physical sensation, body structures, the intelligence of the physical form
This door is about dancing what your body actually is - bones, muscles, joints, weight, breath. You're following physical sensations and impulses rather than emotions or images.
When I work with this door, I might decide to lead the dance with my hands. My hands start drawing shapes in the air, and following those shapes drags me down to the floor. My hands keep exploring along the ground, and this pulls my whole body into rolling, sliding, discovering what movements my hands can create when they have the floor to push against.
Or I start stomping hard because it's what my body needs in that moment. The feedback of impact travels up through my legs, and this makes me want to jump. I start exploring the room with bigger jumps, and the dizziness from spinning while jumping makes me want to go to the ground, where I keep spinning but now horizontally, rolling across the floor.
Sometimes I focus on a specific body part. What can my shoulder blades do? I start moving them, and this pulls my arms into different positions, which shifts my ribcage, which changes my breathing. One body part's movement reveals what other parts can do.
Or I'm working with rhythm. There's a beat and my whole body wants to match it. I start bouncing, and the bounce travels through my skeleton, and I discover how my spine can absorb and redirect that momentum.
How I work with this:
I scan for physical sensations - what wants to move? I follow the smallest impulses. I might choose to let one body part lead and see where it takes me. I pay attention to feedback - when I stomp, what does that impact make me want to do next? When I spin, what does the dizziness suggest?
What this has shown me:
My body knows things my mind doesn't. When I follow physical intelligence instead of mental ideas about what looks good, I find movements that actually feel good and often look more interesting because they're authentic to my structure.
The Emotional Door - Dancing Feelings as Energy
What I'm dancing in relationship to: Emotional energy, feelings wanting to move through the body
This isn't performing emotions or expressing feelings you think you should have. It's letting the actual energy of emotion - which exists in your body as physical sensation - move and complete its cycle.
Let's say I'm dancing and I notice I'm feeling angry. Not thinking about why I'm angry, just noticing the physical sensation of anger in my body. Where is it? Maybe it's heat in my chest, tension in my jaw, a clenching in my fists.
I let that sensation guide the movement. My jaw wants to clench and release, clench and release. My fists want to punch the air, or push against an invisible wall. My body might want to stomp or make sharp, cutting gestures. I'm not performing "angry dance" - I'm following where the actual physical energy of anger wants to go.
What I've learned is that if I follow it fully without stopping or controlling it, the anger transforms. It might become power, or clarity, or it might just dissolve. The emotion completes its cycle and turns into something else.
Or maybe I notice sadness. It feels heavy in my chest, like something pulling downward. My torso wants to curl, my arms want to wrap around myself or reach out slowly. There might be a quality of melting or sinking. If I follow this fully, the sadness moves through - it might become openness, or softness, or it might shift into something completely different.
The key is: am I following what the emotion actually wants to do in my body, or am I performing what I think sadness or anger should look like? There's a big difference. When I'm really following the energy, the movement feels necessary, not decorative.
How I work with this:
I notice: what am I feeling right now? I locate where I feel it physically. I give that sensation permission to move me. I don't try to make it pretty or appropriate. I follow it until it naturally transforms into something else, which always happens if I don't interrupt it.
What this has shown me:
Emotions are energy that wants to move through the body and complete a cycle. When I let them move fully, they transform. The stuck feeling comes from interrupting the cycle halfway, not from the emotion itself. Most emotions, when fully expressed through movement, last only a few minutes before transforming.
The Imaginary Door - Dancing Images and Metaphors
What I'm dancing in relationship to: Images, metaphors, imaginative scenarios
This door is about following a trip, a story, an image as far as it can go. You're letting imagination create a whole journey through movement.
When I work with this door, an image appears and I commit to exploring it fully. Maybe I imagine I'm made of smoke. Okay, how does smoke move? It rises, it curls, it disperses. My body starts moving in those ways - rising up slowly, making spiral patterns, spreading my limbs wide as if dispersing into the air. I stay with this image, going deeper. Smoke is also formless, so my movements become more fluid, less structured. Smoke responds to air currents, so I start responding to imagined winds pushing me in different directions.
Or maybe I'm imagining pushing through a dense jungle. I start reaching forward, pushing branches aside with my arms. The ground is uneven - I'm stepping carefully, sometimes high-stepping over roots. Vines are grabbing at me - I'm pulling them off my body. I might spend ten minutes exploring this one scenario, really committing to the trip, seeing where it leads.
Animals work well with this door. I decide to move like a snake. My spine becomes the primary mover, undulating. I'm low to the ground, maybe moving across the floor with just my torso doing the work. My tongue flicks out. I coil and uncoil. I'm not just thinking "snake" and then moving on - I'm exploring what it means to be snake-like for an extended period, discovering all the ways this image can reshape my movement.
The key is commitment to the trip. I'm not sampling images quickly - I'm going deep into one image and following it as far as possible, letting it suggest movements I wouldn't think of otherwise.
How I work with this:
I let an image arise or I consciously choose one. Then I commit to it fully. I ask: what else does this image suggest? If I'm water, am I still water or waves or rapids or a deep pool? I stay with the trip until it naturally transforms into something else or until I've exhausted what it can show me.
What this has shown me:
Imagination isn't separate from embodiment. The right image, fully explored, can unlock movement patterns I couldn't access through physical sensation alone. My body responds to metaphors and stories, and committing to a trip fully creates a different quality of movement than sampling images quickly.
The Ecstatic Door - Dancing Pure Energy
What I'm dancing in relationship to: The energetic layer of our being, life force energy moving in and around the body
We have an energetic layer to our being. You feel it most when you're excited - that buzzing, tingling sensation, that aliveness rushing through your body. But when you meditate or bring your awareness inward, you can learn to tune into this energy field even when you're calm. It's always there, this subtle vibration in and around your body.
The idea with this door is to move with this energy and to be moved by this energy.
When I work with this door, I'm not dancing a story or an emotion or following my body's structure. I'm tuning into the energetic layer and letting it guide the movement.
It often starts with simple repetitive movements. I'm bouncing, just bouncing, and I bring my awareness to the energy field in my body. After a few minutes, I start to feel it more clearly - there are waves of energy moving through me with each bounce. My arms start moving not because I'm deciding to move them, but because I can feel the energy wanting to move them.
Or I'm spinning, and I tune into the energy. The spinning creates patterns of energy moving through my body, and I follow those patterns. My body might start to shake, or undulate, or make gestures I wasn't planning - I'm following where the energy wants to go.
Sometimes this feels wild, almost primal. Sometimes it feels ecstatic, like every cell is vibrating. The key is that I'm not choreographing - I'm tuning into the energy field and letting it move me.
How I work with this:
Repetitive simple movements help - bouncing, shaking, spinning. These make it easier to tune into the energy. I bring my awareness to the sensations of energy in my body - the tingling, the waves, the vibration. Then I let that energy move me instead of controlling the movement. I can't force this - I can only tune in and surrender to what the energy wants to do.
What this has shown me:
There's an energetic layer to being alive, and when I tune into it and let it move me instead of controlling the movement, something alive and unpredictable happens. It's not about expressing something - it's about being moved by the energy field itself.
The Shamanic Door - Dancing Archetypal Patterns
What I'm dancing in relationship to: Archetypes, figures, collective unconscious
This is the door I understand least and experience most rarely. Sometimes when I'm dancing, what comes through feels like it's accessing archetypal patterns - figures and energies that exist in the collective unconscious.
When I work with this door, my hands might make gestures that feel ancient or ritualistic. Not because I'm choosing to, but because they're just happening that way. Or my body takes on a quality that feels archetypal - warrior, elder, healer, trickster - without me deciding it.
This is different from the imaginary door. With imagination, I choose "I'll move like a warrior" and explore that. With this door, something warrior-like starts moving through me and I'm following rather than choosing. It feels like I'm accessing patterns that many humans have accessed throughout history.
Sometimes this connects to animals but in a different way than imagination. With the imaginary door, I decide to explore snake movement. With this door, something serpent-like begins to move me, and it feels like I'm channeling an intelligence rather than following an image.
I'm including this door because it's part of my experience, but I'm the most uncertain about it. Is it actually accessing collective patterns, or is it my unconscious pulling from cultural images I've absorbed? I don't know. What I can say is the experience feels different - less like me doing something and more like something moving through me.
How I work with this:
I can't force this door. It shows up after extended dancing, or in group settings, or in nature. It requires a particular kind of surrender. The times it's happened, I've been dancing long enough that my sense of being "me" has become less solid, and something else can come through.
What this has shown me:
There are movement patterns that feel like they come from somewhere beyond my personal experience. Whether these are actually archetypal or just deeply unconscious, the experience of being moved by something rather than moving myself is real.
The Five Energies - Qualities You Can Invoke
Beyond the doors themselves, I've found it useful to work with different energetic qualities that can support exploration.
Think of these not as separate doors, but as qualities or flavours you can bring to whatever door you're working with. They're useful when I want to shift the quality of my movement or when I feel stuck and need a new approach.
Earth - Grounding and Connection
The quality: Heavy, rooted, connected to the ground, stable
When I invoke earth energy, my movements become more weighted, more connected to the floor. My feet press into the ground with purpose. My pelvis drops lower. There's a quality of being anchored, solid, present.
This is useful when I'm feeling scattered or when I want to establish physical presence before exploring other qualities. It's also where I often begin a practice - feeling my bones, my weight, my connection to gravity.
How I work with it: Stamping, walking with weight, dropping my center of gravity, feeling the floor supporting me, slow deliberate movements that emphasise my relationship with the ground.
Water - Flow and Fluidity
The quality: Continuous, flowing, smooth, wave-like
When I invoke water energy, my movements become more continuous and fluid. Joints soften. One movement melts into the next. There's a quality of letting myself be moved by currents rather than making sharp decisions about where to go next.
This helps when I feel stuck or rigid, when I want to access emotional flow, or when I'm transitioning between other energies.
How I work with it: Undulating my spine, making circular movements, letting momentum carry me from one shape to the next, imagining my body as liquid.
Fire - Transformation and Intensity
The quality: Sharp, percussive, explosive, releasing
When I invoke fire energy, my movements become more staccato, more intense. There's suddenness, breaks, explosions of energy followed by stillness. This is where I access power, anger, boundaries, the capacity to break through resistance.
This is useful for releasing stuck energy, for accessing personal power, or for breaking out of patterns that have become too comfortable or predictable.
How I work with it: Sharp gestures, explosive jumps, percussive movements, letting sounds emerge, quick directional changes, movements that release tension.
Air - Lightness and Expansion
The quality: Light, quick, playful, expansive
When I invoke air energy, my movements become lighter, faster, more playful. There's a sense of space opening up, of reaching outward, of joy and freedom. My gestures might become more gestural, more expressive, more varied.
This helps when I've been in heavier energies for a while, when I want to access joy or playfulness, or when I want to explore the space around my body more fully.
How I work with it: Light footwork, quick changes of direction, reaching movements, letting my body feel almost weightless, playful variations.
Space - Stillness and Witnessing
The quality: Still, receptive, witnessing, present without doing
This is less a quality of movement and more a quality of awareness. When I invoke space energy, I might slow down dramatically or stop moving altogether. There's a sense of witnessing rather than doing, of being aware of the space around and within my body.
This is useful for integrating what's happened during a practice, for resetting when I feel overwhelmed, or for accessing a quality of presence that isn't about doing anything.
How I work with it: Very slow movements, long pauses, standing still while sensing the environment, lying down and simply being aware.
How the Doors and Energies Work Together
These maps - the doors and the energies - give me a framework for understanding my movement exploration. But they're just reference points, not rules.
In any moment of dancing, I might be:
- In the emotional door (dancing in relationship to feelings)
- While invoking fire energy (to help transform or release stuck emotions)
Or I might be:
- In the somatic door (dancing body wisdom)
- While invoking earth energy (for grounding and presence)
The doors tell me what I'm dancing in relationship to. The energies give me qualities I can invoke to support that exploration. Sometimes I use these maps consciously, sometimes I forget about them entirely and just move. Both approaches are valid.
A Final Thought on Maps
These are just maps. The territory is the lived experience of dancing - the actual sensations, the discoveries, the moments of surprise when something unexpected happens.
The most important thing isn't whether I can name which door I'm in or which energy I'm invoking. What matters is whether I can trust the impulses that arise, follow them fully, and let them lead me into authentic movement.