Photo by Graziano Bizzi
January 13-14, 2018
It’s a beautiful January morning in one of the few periods of the year when tourists do not crowd the streets and city squares, and Venice, Italy, reveals all its beauty along the Fondamenta di San Girolamo, near the gym where the Dance of the Vajra for the Benefit of Beings course will be held for two days with instructor Paola Pillon. The winter light comes in from the big windows and illuminates the mandala that waits to come alive with pamo and pawo. It is a pleasant surprise that we are more people than expected and the course begins with a good balance of participants for the female and male parts.
It is a beginners’ course, which will soon prove to be absolutely useful and profound even for those who have already attended other courses. Some practitioners, already a little expert in the pamo part, work at learning the pawo part.
Paola opens the course with a concise but very clear explanation on the meaning of the Dance and of the mandala, on the benefits that the Dance brings and on its finality as a practice. Then we start with the precise and careful study of the steps, alternating between “aspiring” pamo and pawo, with Paola demonstrating each step and participants repeating them under her guidance.
In the afternoon of Saturday and Sunday Adriana Dal Borgo, who is in Venice in this period, gifts us with her presence, dancing with us and generously sharing her experience as an international instructor.
Over this intensive weekend of Dance, with about six hours a day of practice, we learn all the steps of pamo and pawo and spend the last hour and a half dancing without interruption so that these remain etched in Body, Voice and Mind.
The atmosphere is cheerful, we have our lunch breaks together so as to intensify the relationship between Vajra brothers and sisters. And at the end of the course we could not miss giving a toast to our precious Master and his most precious teaching with a good spritz (a typical Venetian aperitif)!
Gyamtsholing sincerely thanks Paola and Adriana for this magnificent course and invites all participants to come back soon to dance on the mandala of the Ling of the Ocean.
Sabina Ragaini
