Rhythm Rebel Dana

This photo is from the first time we brought the LIBERATION movement journey into a live space at iBODY, and watching it move through a room full of humans was electric! The whole room becomes a shared pulse of joy, power, and creativity.

LIBERATION was created for this moment in our movement world… a time when so many teachers and dancers are ready for fresh music, fresh language, and the freedom to move in ways that feel fully their own.

Watching this community dance it so wholeheartedly was powerful! LIBERATION has officially stepped out into the world. And this is only the beginning.

We will soon be taking this on the road and hope to dance with all of you on a sacred dance floor somewhere!

LIBERATION is also available for instant download for people who want to teach it or just dance it from home.

I saw this quote this morning and had to sit down. First because when things that track so hard and fit my current reality show up in my feed I have to ask,
"Is this divine guidance or my phone spying on me?" So here it is.....

“The guilt you feel for setting boundaries is a sign of how deeply you were trained to abandon yourself.”

I don’t know who originally said it. I just know it found me at the exact right moment. It caught my breath and hit my gut so deeply.

As business owners, teachers, and community makers we are asked to choose. We make hard calls. We end contracts. We shift roles. We protect culture. We say no when it would be easier to smile and say yes. And every single time, someone is disappointed.
Or hurt. Or loud.

And if we’re wired like I was, the first instinct isn’t clarity. It’s guilt.
Not because the decision is wrong.
Not because the boundary is cruel.
But because somewhere deep in our nervous system lives an old program that says:
“If they’re upset, it must be my fault.”
“If I just explain better… soften more… try harder… maybe everyone will be okay.”

I spent years believing that if I could just be kinder, clearer, more accommodating, the betrayal would stop. The gossip would stop. The projections would stop.
They don’t.

Leadership is a mirror. People see in us what they’re wrestling with in themselves. Strength feels like control to some. Boundaries feel like rejection. Confidence feels like arrogance. Standards feel personal. Conversation is taken as confrontation.

And when you’ve had a lifetime of training to protect unstable dynamics, to manage other people’s instability and emotions, to keep the peace at your own expense, setting a boundary feels like betrayal. Even when it’s self-respect.
That’s the part that hit me.

There will always be critics. If we live boldly, someone will talk. If we shrink, someone will talk. So we might as well live being true to ourselves. I’m not interested in being universally liked anymore. I’m interested in being clean in my integrity.

To the leaders who carry the weight of decisions no one else sees…
To the ones who get judged for protecting the container…
To the ones who feel the ache after releasing people and situations, even when it’s right…

That ache doesn’t mean we abandoned them.
Sometimes it means we finally stopped abandoning ourselves.
And that is a different kind of strength.

Ready or not, we are dancing into the year of the Fire Horse.
I've felt this coming on and can say that I am freaking ready!
As a Wood Snake in the year of the Wood Snake, this past year went deep. The shedding was real! Cords were cut. Layers repeatedly dropped.

Snake energy took me underground and into the parts of myself that were still holding on out of habit.
And it wasn’t just personal.

The Year of the Snake pulled the curtain back everywhere.
False gurus exposed. Power dynamics revealed.
The darker side of humanity stepping into full view.
Pedestals cracked. Masks fell.
Illusions dissolved in real time.
It shook things, but it also clarified things.

I've watched myself outgrow roles.
And deeper than roles… identities.
Versions of myself that were built to survive, belong and attempt to stay safe inside systems that quietly required conformity.

Teacher. Good girl. Rebel. Leader. Follower. Disruptor.
I am coming to realize that even the empowering identities can calcify. At some point, they stop feeling real and start becoming armor.

And, it wasn't just me. The year of the snake exposed how tightly we cling to identity in this world. Political identity. Spiritual identity. Moral identity. Tribes forming around belief and echo chambers instead of deep investigation and embodiment.

I have watched people defend roles and ideologies as if their existence depended on it. I have watched gurus crumble because the identity outgrew the integrity. I have watched institutions crack under the weight of illusion.

And if I were honest, I saw where I was still doing it too.
There were identities I had carried long past their expiration date.
Places where I was performing a version of myself that once felt true, but no longer fit the woman I am becoming.

So I am choosing to dance in the chaos, without a name tag or headline explanation. I believe as identity drops, truth in the body emerges. Snake energy stripped me back to that.

And I am seeing it happen everywhere now. The collective shedding and unraveling of inherited narratives.
The necessary exposure of false certainty.

The world is molting. And molting is a hot mess.
Which is why Fire Horse energy feels so welcome!
Because once the mask drops and the skin sheds, movement becomes possible. I am looking forward to a year feels like courage after revelation. Living my truth without shrinking into a name, a role, or a tribe.

Identity can be a tool. And like all tools, they can be used for help or harm. But, I will never allow it to be a cage.

And I am ready to run without the cage.

To run with power that feels embodied.
To carrying only what strengthens me.
The snake revealed it.
The horse moves it.
And the fire horse?
I am so ready for fire that feeds my heart and strengthens my spine.
Feet rooted.
Heart lit.
Hair flying.

I saw this poem today and it made me think of how the body knows what it’s like when something is ending before we admit it. I’ve felt that moment in my body many times. My breath changed. My excuses couldn't sustain me anymore. My dance was begging for more freedom and real joy.
I didn’t leave with answers. I left with sensation.
Dance has always told me the truth before my mind was ready.
The grief. The desire. The pull forward that I don't completely understand.
There’s a kind of starting over that may look feral to others.
It happened to me when my body could no longer negotiate with what needed to go. If you’re in one of those dances, feeling the next step without a map, allow yourself to trust that.
Something SO much better is waiting if you just keep going!

Since you asked…

What do I actually call the classes I teach?
Are we looking for a label or a modality name?

Honestly, I usually just call it dance. Or movement.

Like most people who’ve been at this for a while, I didn’t train in just one place. I studied different modalities and teachers, and I learned as much from what I wanted to carry forward as from what I didn’t. I practiced, evolved, and let it all blend into something that feels aligned and alive.

Most of us train this way.
We study systems.
Many of them.

We cross-train. We apprentice. We borrow language, structure, and discipline. We gather tools from different rooms, different teachers, different seasons of our lives. And then we go live our work.

A doctor doesn’t say, “I practice Johns Hopkins.”
A lawyer doesn’t say, “I practice Harvard.”
A chef doesn’t say, “I cook the Culinary Institute of America.”

They practice medicine.
They practice law.
They cook.
I move.

What happens on my dance floor isn’t a method, an identity, or a dogma. It doesn’t come from a manual.
It’s presence. It’s music. It’s play. It’s power. It’s permission. It’s years of listening to bodies, including my own. It’s intuition, humor, nervous system awareness, depth, and the life I’ve actually lived.

The energy is different.
The tone is different.
People leave more themselves, not trying to fit into anyone else’s shape.

That’s what people feel.
And that’s not something you can trademark.

Nobody owns dance.
Nobody owns movement.
Nobody owns my body.

So, what do I call it?
I call it showing up, pressing play and letting bodies do what they freaking love to do.