Inner Dance

I had just returned to Cebu when a friend invited me one night to an inner dance session. I thought it was a new dance craze in the city like ballroom, reggae, and hip hop were once upon a time. Instead, I found out with some fascination, inner dance is actually some sort of freestyle moving meditation, a healing art that moves you in more ways than one.

While some would call it new age, inner dancing, also called Kali-Pi Mu (Your happiness), is said to be the lost healing dance of ancient Filipino medicine men and women, the Babaylan, healer priests and priestesses of pre-Hispanic Visayan tribes.

Now rediscovered, it is attracting quite a number of people -- the affluent, yuppies, healers, and artists, among others – not just in the Philippines, but also Singapore, Indonesia and other countries.

That Friday night, I joined three other neophytes at the dance studio. Without the slightest idea of what must be done or what would happen, we lied down on our yoga mats and started by going into “alpha” mode (the relaxed mind state) through meditation.

Eyes closed, I breathed in and out, and felt so relaxed I almost fell asleep. After awhile though, I felt the background music shift. Skeptical, I continued to lie there like a block of wood until someone touched the top of my head and I sensed a jolt of energy flow -- a tingling of the neck, a touch on my spine and elbows, and soon, butterflies on my stomach. It was the awakening of the energy points or chakras, I was told.

My body felt liquid. My eyes burned with flashes of color so light. Before long, I sensed the twirl of my fingers, the fling of my hand, then the swaying of my arms. These jerky movements would have been weird or ridiculous had I had my eyes open, but I just surrendered to the rhythm within.

According to Pompet “Pi” Villaraza, who rediscovered inner dancing in a Palawan island called Kalipay years ago, “Inner dancing happens when a person becomes conscious of his or her own energy and that of the surrounding environment. You gather energy and become a powerhouse and you can do healing.”

Practitioners say that inner dance is not a discipline, nor is it a teaching. “When you come to discover it, you will find that it is not something you learn. It starts with the premise that movement is not something we do, it’s something we are.”

Two hours later, the session was over. But the incredible lightness of being remained.

-- SunStar Weekend, 10/4/08