JEN AKS 0:00
Welcome to the Wisdom from Within podcast, where human stories inspire authentic connection and impactful leadership. My name is Jen Aks, and I am so psyched you’re here. Let’s get started. Oh my god, I was dancing.
Like forever and ever and ever. Oh my God. Okay. I am so beyond excited for this conversation.
And I’m telling you, anyone that’s listening to this is so freaking lucky right now. And I’m not even kidding. Like, I’m not exaggerating. I am truly beyond this woman, it is going to empower the hell out of you.
No pressure. Um, like her presence, her talent, her energy, she’s phenomenal. And she has gone through the journey of being one thing and listening to her body and following that intelligence from within and shifting and pivoting and awakening and becoming this incredible talent that like hits the stage. Are you ready for this like physics mind brilliance into bassist, taught herself by the way, to the stage who is making insane impact and not just the stage, she really has made so much impact.
I mean, on me personally, because I’m so incredibly inspired by your journey and your ability to listen to the wisdom from within. Let’s go! What a perfect example. Okay.
I am just really going to, I’m going to read part of your bio. Your bio is really beautiful and robust and long. And I’m going to let you speak to so much of it, but I do want to introduce you properly and say, and I also want to really honor and make sure that I’m um pronouncing your last name correctly. Elaz, right?
SARAH ELAZ 2:05
Yes, beautiful. Nice work.
JEN AKS 2:07
Yes. Okay. Sarah Elaz is an electric breakout artist in the jam scene, celebrated for her magnetic stage presence, instinctive bass playing, and bold style. A classically trained dancer, turned bassist.
Her playing is physical, emotional, and rooted in her lifelong connection to movement. She’s first picked up the bass in 2020. Let’s go during the pandemic and quickly gained attention by documenting her journey online, later launching her viral bass cam and fit check trends. Sarah has also emerged as one of the most exciting new voices in the Grateful Dead universe, touring nationally with incredible people.
She has shared the stage, she has shared her message. She is a woman who has taught herself and led herself on this incredible inspiring journey. Sarah, I’m so excited that you’re here.
SARAH ELAZ 3:12
I feel like I know the story, but when hearing you’re out of someone, uh someone else’s mouth, you you uh it gives me the gives me the tingles.
JEN AKS 3:21
You know what? That’s your body speaking because it’s your story and it’s something to be so damn proud of. So your body is like, yes, yes, hell yes. Um, I love it.
Okay, let’s just dive in. I wanna I want you to share with the listeners, just talk about your journey and where you started and just how you got here and you know, through the lens of this body intelligence and how you listened and when you didn’t and why it worked and when it didn’t, and just share all the things.
SARAH ELAZ 3:53
Totally. Yeah. Oh my goodness. All right.
I mean, where do we start? I I think um with not only because yeah, go ahead.
JEN AKS 4:00
I was gonna say we we are go back, girl, go back because you’ve got an incredible. I just heard a bit, but like, you know, the physics and like where you thought you belonged and what you were part of. Yeah, you know, we gotta go even farther back than that.
SARAH ELAZ 4:13
Like where I want to start is being three years old. Okay, let’s already knowing that I need to move, you know, um, being three years old and already being a performance and already being a dancer and already be already being someone that loves to share this joy and having this joy that’s kind of seeping out of me. And that’s really kind of where it starts, is Sarah the dancer. Wow, and and Sarah the mover and Sarah the shaker and Sarah the performer.
Always from a young age, I was the one, you know, the like the the Simba and the Lion King, the the one that was out front dancing, being silly, being performative, and just being joyful. And I am so lucky that I had the opportunity and the freedom to continue being a dancer for a long, long time, for whatever 30 years. I I got to dance and and do that and share that love. And so that’s kind of where it all starts for me.
And um, yeah. So would still carry that with me.
JEN AKS 5:18
Yeah. Clearly, I mean, your stage presence is phenomenal, and you’re so connected to your body. When I watch you play bass, I’m just like actually blown away by how you embody who you are. Were you always this?
Was this always the path? I mean, you you were a dancer from three years old, connected to your body, and then you went into academia pretty heavy duty, right? You were on a path, you were on a path. That’s I want you to share that story.
Yeah.
SARAH ELAZ 5:49
Yeah. So, so yeah, so I was a dancer uh for my whole life, competitive dance. It it felt like a path, but of course, it’s hard to it’s hard to foresee, it’s hard to look at a life that’s funded by by dance and the arts, right? Everyone, you tell someone you want to be a dancer when you grow up and they laugh and they say, Okay, but what’s your backup plan?
JEN AKS 6:10
Right, exactly.
SARAH ELAZ 6:11
And so it’s it’s funny, physics was even not even my backup plan when I was looking to to continue my education and go to uh go to college. Uh, both my parents were engineers, so as um a way to spite them, I was like, Well, I don’t want to be an engineer, I’m gonna be a physicist. Oh my gosh, you know, which is so silly. And uh, but I still had this love uh of kinetics, and I mean, what what is physics but the study of being and the study of movement and the study of what is.
And so it was just another way to look at the fluidity of life in the universe was to study it mathematically. And so I went into college. I actually wasn’t dancing at the time. I I decided I was gonna not be a dancer anymore.
I’m gonna be a physicist, I’ll probably continue my education, maybe get my PhD, work in a lab, be an engineer, who knows? And I get into college, and there’s a big hole in my heart, of course, because I’m not on stage anymore. And I think I think what happens is I I tried out for the dance team and I didn’t make it. And so I was like, all right, well, I guess I have to major in dance and physics, and I have no other choice.
So I had both of them at the same time, and it really kind of started this trend in my life where I’m always doing more than one thing at once. That’s it’s always both, I say, and that that can be taken as ever you want. But I I needed kind of this duality of extreme structure of physics and the math and the science and the homework with the freedom of dance and creation. And where I went to school, UMS Amherst, it was a wonderful dance program that we were studying improvisation in addition to ballet, modern, jazz, composition.
We were we were doing and exploring these really beautiful psychedelic improvisational somatic practices that still inform it informed not only what I do now, but also informed my physics in a way. Like I got really passionate about the intersection between like Eastern mysticism and quantum mechanics. And there’s so many similarities between what the math is telling us when you’re studying the nature of existence and what we’ve what Taoism and what Buddhism teaches, there is extreme overlap between that and physics. Then you can then you’re kind of thinking about all these heady things and you’re moving through it, and you’re you’re exploring the world as a physical being, and you’re getting another side of the prism.
And you’re kind of just it was all me just adding on to my curiosity about the world and about my body in the world and about my existence in the world, and all and all of it kind of had this beautiful pot of forming my life view and my my worldview, even if I’m not out here studying physics, it’s it’s a massive part of my worldview and my philosophy and my and not not only in oh, what is the bigger picture, but how I make decisions, how I follow the energy, how I right? This is that’s what kind of what we’re talking about is how to trust your intuition and and follow the energy in the movement. It’s all to me goes back to quantum mechanics and physics.
JEN AKS 9:27
Wow, unbelievable. So now tell me about this world and this path. You were on it for a while, and what made you detour? Totally.
SARAH ELAZ 9:35
So you know so yeah, so so I graduated from from college and I had a physics degree and I had a dance degree, and I think immediately I knew that I I needed to be a performer. I think I I’m always driven by sharing and and sharing my art and being on being on stage is where I live and where I I thrive and where I need to be to it feeds me. And so I graduated school and I was like, okay, well, I’m gonna be a professional dancer. So I moved to New York City with big dreams and I had a blast.
It was it was really, really special. I I found myself immediately, not immediately, but pretty quickly in an in circles where I was doing work that I was really proud of. Uh the longest running show I was in is a show called She, a Choreo play. And it was a half contemporary dance show, half play uh that touched upon topics of sexual violence against women, touched upon police brutality, touched upon healing through movement.
And it was a really beautiful show that I think changed a lot of people’s lives and changed my life for sure. I was in the show for five years. Wow. And we would travel around, and not only would we showcase the show, but we would lead workshops about healing through movement, and we would be talking about these topics, and it was right around the time of the Me Too movement.
So it was really timely, timely work. And um, there was even like the first time Trump got elected, we had a show the next day, and I will never forget that show. Just the energy of the room. Like I still get like chills, chills thinking about it.
And and so, yeah, in this journey, there’s a huge point, like five years of my life where it was devoted to being a dancer, mainly in spaces, social justice spaces.
JEN AKS 11:19
Right.
SARAH ELAZ 11:20
Which it was so it was a beautiful work, and I mean we were doing beautiful dancing too, and I made the most amazing friends and and connections. Yes. And it all kind of changed when that show got canceled, and I kind of was reaching an age where it was harder to get gigs as a dancer because as a dancer, you you time out at 30, right? Right, right.
Your body hurts, everything, you’re you’re not the same anymore. And so that show got canceled, and I was simultaneously um seeing more live music. And I was going to shows at Brooklyn Bowl, which as you probably know is my home now. I’ve played 20 shows there, but this is at that time that that never even crossed my mind.
And so probably, yeah, I guess what year was that? Maybe this was a couple years before the pandemic. I was still a little bit away from playing bass, but then with that show gone and my dance career dwindling, I was seeing more live music and I was being in the audience. And I found a new, I found a new dancer in myself because at first I was on stage, right?
And I was performing for people and I was showcasing my talents, I was being watched. And now I kind of went into this dancer role where I was always at the front, I was like a rail rider at the front of concerts. And my my role as a dancer went from, okay, no, I’m not the one being watched anymore. But I I noticed that when I danced really heavy, a lot of people around me are dancing too.
So I almost became a dance ambassador in my own mind. Maybe, maybe this is just fire. Right. I love it.
Yeah. Again, I could have just been smoking weed, but um, but I think it, I think it does make sense that uh, I mean, party motivators exist for a reason, right?
JEN AKS 13:15
I was one, by the way. I was a party motivator for a long time, but go ahead.
SARAH ELAZ 13:20
Um, I mean, you know, you already know exactly. And so my role went from being on stage to being a dancer in the audience, but I felt this, I felt that it was my job to be as authentically big as I could be. And I say authentic, I’m using the word authentically because I’m not I’m not saying that I was out there trying to overdance and I don’t know, do it for the spectacle of it. It was me feeling that it was now my duty to be authentically, to authentically dance big at shows so that other people felt comfortable to do the same.
JEN AKS 13:54
Wow.
SARAH ELAZ 13:55
Because I think we live in a society where uh we’re not taught, I mean, we’re not taught to express ourselves in general. That’s one statement, but especially not through our body. And I was, I had was given this gift of being a dancer. I had trained in it.
I was I am so comfortable in my body that it was almost it’s my pleasure to to to dance big and and then have other people feel comfortable do it around me, and it spreads, and all of a sudden there’s a huge dance circle of 20 people going crazy, yeah, and people experiencing true freedom for the maybe for the first time. And so I existed in that space for a while.
JEN AKS 14:36
Okay, I want to pause here before we get to the pandemic because that’s a huge turning point for you. Yeah, because we’re not even at the good part yet. We’re not well, this is all good, it’s all really incredible. I am so taken by the level of connection you have with your body and your mind.
Like you have really bridged this beautiful deep understanding that is very, very rare through using your mind and the study of physics, but connecting it to your body in such an extraordinary way is incredibly inspiring. I actually would love for you to share a little bit about that shift because when we spoke earlier, you were telling me when you were in that physics world and like also now knowing the power of the connection between your mind and body through this journey is even more profound. But you had said that you really experienced some sexism in this world. And and I’m so, and like just sort of this dominated.
Well, you can talk about it, the energy that was there and how that impacted your shift as well. But I’m even more curious now because I want to know from like this emotional standpoint what that was like for you, that experience, being someone that is so confident and so embodied. So, can you just talk about that chunk for a little bit? That pivot is very interesting.
Yeah.
SARAH ELAZ 15:53
Yeah. And you know what? I mean, again, everything is connected.
JEN AKS 15:57
Yeah.
SARAH ELAZ 15:58
Right. And so I look back on the years of college and I think the dance. So we have physics and dance, right? Those are the two things I was doing simultaneously.
When you look at physics, I was experiencing sexism in a way that I was told that I was not rigid enough, right? That I was not serious enough. That I um I had pref professors that were like, no one’ll take you seriously if you keep acting like a dancer, like, oh shit. You shouldn’t wear this to your honors thesis.
I was like wearing a skirt with a slit. I also like had just I had a knee injury, I couldn’t even fit on pants, and I got I got reprimanded for wearing a skirt with a slit on it for my honors thesis, where I’ve already written two papers that have been published. Oh yeah. So so on one side, yeah, in the in the physics world, I was told that I was not rigid enough, right?
That I was not serious enough, that I was not those those are the only words for it. And that was really painful.
JEN AKS 17:01
Yeah.
SARAH ELAZ 17:01
Simultaneously in the dance world, I was too rigid. I was in these, I was in these improvisational spaces and these these spaces that were meant to open your mind and get you free, but for some reason I was never free enough. And it was always, oh, you’re the someone once called me, oh, you’re the energizer bunny. Like you’re just like um, you’re rushing too much, you’re not letting go enough, you’re not.
I can’t even find the words for it because I’m now looking back and realizing I was experiencing two like two sides of the same cone. Like I was too commercial for the dance world, the improvisational dance world. Yeah, I was too rigid and commercial, and in the physics world, I was too loose. And that messed with my mind.
I would imagine.
JEN AKS 17:51
Right.
SARAH ELAZ 17:52
How did you navigate that? I I’m gonna say that I wasn’t navigating it well. Looking back, looking back, you know. Um, I’m sure we all experience it if we’re if we’re meditating or if we’re in some class where they’re telling you to relax and your mind’s racing, you’re like, Am I relaxing right?
Oh my goodness, am I doing this right? Oh, oh, how long, how long should I be doing this? Like I was I was experiencing those spirals for sure. And it probably it probably did affect my performance as a dancer and maybe affect where I was going.
And probably, and it really affected my confidence. Yeah. Because I think um, especially when there’s a a group mentality and you’re not perfectly fitting into that box, yeah, you think it’s something wrong with you. And I think that’s kind of where I was, and and again, this is this I think happens when you’re in your early 20s, you’re still figuring it out, you’re not confident, you don’t know where your path is yet.
And I always felt like I didn’t fit in, both in the physics world and now looking back in the dance world as well.
JEN AKS 18:57
Yeah, yeah. Very interesting. How did you decide? Like what was the moment, or was there a moment?
What drew you in one direction?
SARAH ELAZ 19:10
I mean, I think what drew me in this scenario, the dance one is probably less serious, right? I think the dance one was more of an internal battle. It wasn’t the same as physics telling me that I need to change and can’t be the right person. And so I was drawn to dance and I had a little bit more hope in it because I had a little bit more love in it.
And so, and so of course I I had to follow the dance, I had to follow the movement, I had to follow the performing.
JEN AKS 19:39
Yeah. Uh did you ever look back? Did you ever like there were were there any regrets, or was it just like your body told you kind of thing, or you just naturally no regrets?
SARAH ELAZ 19:51
Yeah, I think I think by then, but but so by then I had graduated, I’d moved to New York, and I had at least found people that had a similar outlook as me for for that for the time being.
JEN AKS 20:05
Right.
SARAH ELAZ 20:06
It was it was easier to find allies as a dancer than it was as a physicist and just jobs in general. Like I would have had to study in school, I’d have to be curious about something. Yep. It by the time I had moved to New York, I’d at I at least started learning how to follow the energy and how to follow the good energy.
JEN AKS 20:26
What did that feel like? Right.
SARAH ELAZ 20:30
I think still, still tough. I I um even today I find myself in in places where I recognize the energy is wrong, but in my mind, I want it, I still want it so bad, and I still think it’s right, so I still push against it.
JEN AKS 20:46
Wow.
SARAH ELAZ 20:47
And so you’re you’re still always um on that balance beam of chasing after what you want, having a vision, having a goal, having a three, five, 10-year plan. But then being able to be flexible and scrap it if all of a sudden a better option comes along or a better energetic force pushes you left or right.
JEN AKS 21:10
Well, you’re so connected to all of that energy. So I would imagine, as tough as it is, you’re like familiar with that ebb and flow. It’s interesting. I would love for you to answer that.
And then I want to go to the pandemic because the pandemic and your turning point is so big. I think that there’s like a lot of people that feel that way. It’s like that push and pull, that see-saw. It’s like this way or that way, and don’t know what to do.
Like, what would you say to someone that was battling that like energetic pull in either direction and and just not knowing what to do?
SARAH ELAZ 21:44
Yeah. I um the first thing that comes to mind is ride the wave. Surf it, baby. Yeah, surf it, babe.
I picture it. Yeah. There are always gonna be ebbs and flows, and there has to be. Yeah.
There literally has to be. If your life was only positive, you would actually only feel negative, right? I am a huge fan of the yin yang symbol because there is something so important about the ebb and flow, the natural ebb and flow. Mind you, we’ll get there.
So so what I say is if it’s if it’s a wave that you can surf, and you I think inside our hearts, we know when it’s a surfable wave, you surf it, and it’s gonna be a little scary at the top and the bottom.
JEN AKS 22:31
But go with it. I love this analogy.
SARAH ELAZ 22:34
However, there are some times where you know that there is some outside force, let it be an employer, let it be a partner, let it be a person, let it be an outside force that is not a person that is making those waves bigger and those ebbs unnaturally bigger and smaller. And when you finally are able to realize that pit, that feeling in the pit of your stomach, when you know that that is an unnaturally high wave caused by something that is not good, you need to learn how to walk away. And and again, it is something that I and dealer, even like um wrote a post-it note. Like my post-it note is uh, I will not abandon myself this year.
Oh I wrote it on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day. Um because when you’re still learning this journey and when you’re younger, you will abandon yourself to continue riding that wave that you think is right. And that is when you lose yourself, and that is when you lose the goal. That is when you will less likely find what is meant for you because now you have abandoned your core values for an unnatural wave.
JEN AKS 23:52
I love it. I’m working on it. I’m working on it. I I just fucking adore you, and you’re so wise, you’re so in tune, and you’re such an example.
And I just love, I love your energy for all generations. Like truly, you’re speaking to my generation and you’re speaking to the younger generation, and um, and you’re just perfectly placed. Okay. So the pandemic.
Great, let’s talk about this.
SARAH ELAZ 24:20
Great. So, okay, so yeah, me surfing my wave. Yes. Uh how did it even happen?
How’d the base thing happen? I think it was okay. I was just I was having dreams about it. Yeah, this this narrative has changed now that I’ve been doing it for a while.
Um, so what happened? I uh my dance career wave was ending. It was really sad. I was, it was, I was going through a tough time.
I think when you tie yourself to an identity and a name, I am a dancer. And all of a sudden, you are not doing you are not dancing, right? You’re dancing at shows, but you’re not performing. So I’m having an identity crisis.
I’m really low, but I’m finding love in music. And I have been a fish fan for years. I’d I’d started seeing fish in 2010. Now I’ve seen 160 shows.
Oh my god. Oh, yeah. I I throughout this entire timeline, I was a fish fan. And around right before the pandemic, I was seeing a lot of fish shows up close.
And my friends and I were always on the side of Mike Gordon, who’s the bass player. And we were all we’re just, I would just watch him. I would just watch Mike. And you know, a hundred shows later, maybe less, and most of them up front, watching the bass, in my mind, I said, Oh, I get I could do that.
I get that. That makes complete sense to me. What he is doing, I could do that. Oh my god.
And then I started having dreams about what if I played the bass? Just like, what if I could do it? Like, could I do it? I could totally do it.
But like, what if I could do it? Wow. And at the time, I um, me and my ex-boyfriend were living together, and he owned a bass, and we had a bass and an amp in the house. And there was one day, and this is like right before the pandemic, I asked him, Hey, can you turn, can you teach me how to turn this the bass on?
I just want to just try. And we always make the joke that all he did was teach me how to turn it on. And so he taught me how to turn the bass on, and he taught me how to read bass tabs online, which is um just symbols where it’s like a little diagram of the strings, and it gives little numbers of what fret your finger should be on. So it’s like a three, a five, and it’s like whatever he taught me how to read a tab, taught me how to turn the bass on, and walked away.
And then this is again probably January 2020, maybe a little bit before. And he would start coming home and I’d be like, Hey, look, I learned a whole fish song. And he’d be like, What?
JEN AKS 27:09
Oh my god.
SARAH ELAZ 27:10
Okay. And so I had this like mini passion of just learning song, learning fish songs. And I loved it, and I couldn’t get enough. And so then 2020 hits.
And I think at the time I was working, I was working at this amazing dance studio called Forward Space that’s run by Kristen Sadeakis, who’s Jason Sadeakis’s sister, and it’s all like dance fitness in a club-like environment. And so there’s strobe lights and there was live music. No, you we should go together. Yes, please.
Still family. So I was working at Forward Space. I was working at a restaurant. Of course, all those things shut down, and I have nothing to do.
And so I’m like, all right, all day, every day, I guess I could just learn bass. And it was fun having a partner in the house, and we would learn whole fish albums, and we would learn whole Grateful Dead albums. And all of a sudden, for the first time in my life, I was a full-time artist because I had no side jobs. I’d been living in New York City for, I don’t know, four years.
I don’t remember now. Now, now the time is weird. But I was I was a I was a dancer, I was a server, I was working at a Pilates studio, I had other jobs. Now all of a sudden I wasn’t a dancer, but I was a full-time musician, and I just had unlimited time to learn music.
JEN AKS 28:30
Wow.
SARAH ELAZ 28:32
And I remember TikTok had just started, like people had just started being on TikTok. And I started a TikTok account. And originally I was gonna post dance videos on it, but I soon learned that I could record bass right into TikTok. And um, I made a bunch of really cool friends that way.
Uh, even my my roommate who I live with now, we met on TikTok, and she’s an amazing musician. And uh me and a bunch of these strangers started the first ever great digital Grateful Dead cover band where we’d each one by one add a piece of a song together.
JEN AKS 29:09
Wait, how did the Grateful Dead come into this? Because you were like doing fish.
SARAH ELAZ 29:12
And then Yeah, I think um, I think I just yeah, it’s just easier. There’s just more people playing it. So I think the Grateful Dead came on because people were posting Grateful Dead guitar covers on TikTok. Okay, and I was just able to add bass on top.
JEN AKS 29:27
Got it.
SARAH ELAZ 29:28
Okay, and so we started doing Grateful Dead covers on TikTok.
JEN AKS 29:33
Oh my god.
SARAH ELAZ 29:33
And that’s how I learned all the Grateful Dead songs.
JEN AKS 29:36
Oh my god.
SARAH ELAZ 29:37
And so I mean, it’s like part one of the bass stories.
JEN AKS 29:42
Okay, that is so. Here’s something that you and I were talking about briefly before that that like somatic intelligence that really came through for you. I would love for you to just talk about that a little bit because it is this whole podcast is about awakening the intelligence systems within ourselves to know that we have so much more power than we think. The kinesthetic, emotional, and somatic intelligence is what I primarily focus on, even though there’s others.
And you house so many intelligence systems and you tap into them. And this ability, kinesthetically, really. I mean, you use your body to help you learn this art form that has now created such success for you. I mean, that’s a natural intelligence that so many people don’t tap into.
So I’m wondering if you can speak to that a little bit. Yeah, I yeah, totally.
SARAH ELAZ 30:39
I’m it’s uh it’s really cool because right, this all starts as me being a dancer, which is full body. It’s a that’s a full body somatic experience.
JEN AKS 30:52
Absolutely, right?
SARAH ELAZ 30:54
You are you are using every part of your body to analyze every part of a song. So that’s the way I think of it as a dancer, right? I was already taking rhythmic analysis classes and choreographing dances where my arms were the guitar, my legs were the bass. Again, it’s not as cut and cut and dry, right?
But the way I look at dance is you’re analyzing music with your body.
JEN AKS 31:18
Full incredible definition. As a dance educator, I’ve never heard that before, and I fucking love it.
SARAH ELAZ 31:24
Cool. So that in itself is a study and a practice. And I think being having been trained in that for 30 years, right, of course informs the way that I play music now. Because all of a sudden, I’m only using one part of my body to do one part of the song.
JEN AKS 31:47
Right, right.
SARAH ELAZ 31:48
And again, it’s it’s I can’t I shouldn’t say, oh, it’s it’s one thing is easier than the other, but it all informs other parts. So this is all using fine motor skills or gross motor skills to either analyze or create now rhythmic patterns. And I feel that my biggest strength actually as a bass player has nothing to do with all the fancy tricks, any fancy licks. It’s actually my ability to ground myself in the groove and in the rhythm.
JEN AKS 32:27
Yes.
SARAH ELAZ 32:28
And as a dancer, that’s all it is, right? As you you know, as a as a dancer, one of the first things we do in a dance class is we we center ourselves, we ground ourselves in the groove.
JEN AKS 32:37
Yeah.
SARAH ELAZ 32:38
And just as in dance improvisation, there are no wrong answers. You can ground yourself in a groove and make choices and follow the vibe. I’ve found that as a bass player, if I am truly rooted and grounded in the groove, there is not a single wrong note I can play. And I didn’t even make that up.
That’s something that Victor Wooten says. I think it’s like one of the first things he talks about usually. Right. Um when he’s talking about bass is is groove first.
And if you are, if you are there, there is not a you can play any note and any scale and any key because you are in it. You are inside the music.
JEN AKS 33:18
Okay. I love this because this applies not only to your story and and this specific example, but to everyone, whether you’re a speaker, whether you’re a teacher, whether you are a coach or a lawyer, like whoever you are, it’s about instinct and it’s about that body intelligence and really being able to connect to it on a deep, deep somatic level. And the thing is, is that the trust is essential, right? Building that trust within ourselves to follow that groove, to follow that intuition, to lead ourselves into the story, into the music, into whatever it is you’re doing, into the game that you’re playing, onto the field, whatever the path is, it’s like when we can learn how to listen deeply to that intelligence within us and follow it, magic happens.
And that’s what you’re talking about.
SARAH ELAZ 34:18
Yeah, exactly. I um the the word that comes to mind is your lizard brain.
JEN AKS 34:24
Talk about talk about that.
SARAH ELAZ 34:26
It’s that um, it’s the subconscious part, it’s that subconscious um control, yeah, and the and that innate uh you can call it muscle memory. I just like the word lizard brain because it makes you like you see all these animals moving so gracefully. It’s not like they’re over or analyzing any move that they’re doing, they’re moving because they need to, they’re moving because it’s the impulse, because it’s um just what they have to do. It’s innate.
Yeah, it’s innate, exactly. And so as a performer, and I guess, yeah, in in life decisions, right? The thoughts get in the way, right? The overthinking gets in the way.
JEN AKS 35:08
Oh, yeah.
SARAH ELAZ 35:09
And if you’re thinking, someone told once told me, if you’re thinking, you’re not playing. And so if you’re if you’re thinking, you’re you’re not deciding. And so tapping into the lizard brain and that coming out of just pure trust is is what makes, I think, the the experience not only just more enjoyable, but produces better results. And I think any musician will say that.
Musicians would call it flow state, call it whatever. There’s so many different words for it, but it’s that we’re still we’re we’re chasing that same feeling that everyone gets when they’re in the right place at the right time, with the right people, eating the right food, feeling like everything is piecing together perfectly. That feeling that everyone knows when you meet your soulmate and you’re like staring into each other’s eyes. I don’t know.
There’s like so many experiences where you just feel centered, and that’s the flow state.
JEN AKS 36:05
Yeah, I I love that so much. And I’m coming back to the trust and the ability to really hear that because, like you said, there’s so much conditioning, and that’s the piece that really stays in the it’s like that. We need to get the subconscious to meet the conscious and then create the grounded perspective that we are the truth of who we are. And so I find and I know probably people are listening going, I want that.
I I want that flow state. How do I get that flow state? And it is a practice, it is, you don’t have to be a dancer to arrive in your purpose, right? That’s not what we’re saying.
It’s like you don’t have to be so connected. There is no, there’s no timing and and and it’s all works. So, like start right now. So, to right now, to start connecting to that, to your body, to the wisdom, to the intuition, to follow the gut instinct that pulls you on the stage.
Or, like you said, I love that you were out in that club, you know, dancing and giving other people permission. Like maybe look around and see someone doing it, and then you feel better or safer. It’s a it’s creating that safety to trust, right?
SARAH ELAZ 37:16
Safety, yeah, totally. Yeah, yeah. My my first my yeah, my first idea was exactly kind of what you’re saying. But the way I was I was thinking of it is yeah, like forgive yourself, right?
Allow yourself to be you. I mean, I um everyone loves to use the word cringe, but uh I think it it is uh cringe is a code word for authenticity, authenticity. I don’t know, that’s the way I’m trying to use it. Yeah, like I um giving yourself the permission to be imperfect and and messy, and then again, going back to my my phrase of the year and not abandoning yourself and not abandoning that that first intuition, even if it’s quirky, even if it’s weird, right?
Even if you’re feeling uncomfortable in it. I think um at the beginning of all my cinematic practices, like I kind of felt silly, right? The first time you’re in a a dance class or a gaga class and you’re I don’t know, pretending that your spine is a snake and you’re trying to be seaweed, like you kind of feel a little silly at first. And again, you’re having these like thoughts of like, yes, am I doing this right?
What do I look like? What are they doing? And that practice of knowing that you’re being silly and and understanding that those thoughts are okay, but leaning into it and trying out new things, yeah, leaning into it because look what happens on the other side.
JEN AKS 38:42
Your greatest, most authentic voice shines through. And then, and then it goes back to what you said. It’s like you give permission to other people to do the same. So, like, really, it’s a movement that we’re talking about here.
This is not just like a one story, one message. This is truly a movement to awaken the intelligence that somatic knowing within ourselves so that we can be fully us to then give permission to more people so it spreads and spreads and spreads because authenticity, like you said, is really the key. Like we want to hear authentic voice, right? Go ahead.
What were we gonna say?
SARAH ELAZ 39:17
And now I was saying, and then exactly what you’re saying, and this is how we build community, right? This is like the bare bones of how to create community.
JEN AKS 39:26
Yeah, oh my gosh, I love it so much. I need you to tell people how they can see you, what is coming up for you. You’re incredible, you are climbing, climbing, climbing so gracefully, and people are just gonna see you on a million stages. Okay, yeah, okay.
SARAH ELAZ 39:42
So, yeah, now I’m a bass player.
JEN AKS 39:44
Yes, but you’re also a dancer, like you, you you guys, you have to go see this woman perform. Like you just she’s mesmerizing because you are dancing, you are the instrument. Oh, totally. I do splits on stage, yeah.
Of course, and I love the angle that you do. Like a lot of times, is that on purpose, or is that just like here’s my phone, and it’s like this is a good place to put it.
SARAH ELAZ 40:06
It started not on purpose, but now I lean into it again. If you just like follow the energy, things have like happy accidents.
JEN AKS 40:13
That’s so okay. We need to, you know, wrap this up in a second, but I really love that. Can you just speak to that for a minute? Because that angle of the phone is like so cool.
So I love knowing that it was just like, okay, I’m gonna place this here and now it’s the thing. Yeah, talk about that because that is following.
SARAH ELAZ 40:28
Yeah, so you’re talking, yeah, you’re talking about uh my bass game series where I put my yeah, phone on the ground and I take videos of me playing and I post it, and people get to see like um a really cool behind the scenes angle of me playing. And yeah, it it and as many things, even this bass career started as a happy accident. And it’s it’s just it’s a combination of like rule one in my life is show up and say yes, right? Fake it till you make it, whatever all those things you can say.
But I think um a lot of us get caught up, especially as creatives, of oh, we need to come up with the next big idea, right? Like, oh, this song has to be the best. This business proposal needs to be earth-shattering. But you forget that a lot of these things creativity, you’re pulling something from the ether, this unknown from the ether.
And so I’ve always found that my best bass lines I’ve written, the best ideas, this bass can, this fit check really just happened because I just did something one day and it stuck. So the invitation is just do things, even if they don’t feel perfectly. That angle is like a it’s weird. It’s some videos like it on paper, it doesn’t work, but it really does.
So again, do not forget that creativity and Trey Anastasia will say this. He says it’s about songwriting. It’s um writing a song, a good song is like getting hit by a train. But in order to get by hit by a train, you have to hang out on the train tracks.
Brilliant, brilliant guy. Love him. Oh my god. So let’s live our lives on these proverbial train tracks of just doing things and not again, not overthinking them, lizard braining them.
I put the phone down. All I did was put the phone down. Put the phone down. I mean, don’t put it down, put it down to film yourself.
Yeah, that’s a confusing way to put it. But um, right, do it, just do it, just do something. Just again, I’m like all these, all these like people, wise people are coming to my brain. Uh, good ideas and bad ideas come from the same place.
I had a director tell me that once. So why not just do things?
JEN AKS 42:43
Is there a bad idea? Do you think? I mean, I guess there’s a bad idea.
SARAH ELAZ 42:46
There’s less interesting ideas, less catchy ideas, right?
JEN AKS 42:51
True. But just do it. But just yeah, do it, just do it. I love it.
You’re incredible. I’m so excited to be on this journey with you. I invite every single person listening, tell your friends, have them listen to this podcast, because this is truly this story. Your journey has been so inspirational.
And um, I’m excited for you. I’m just excited for all that you’re doing. So thank you for your voice. Thank you for your presence.
Thank you for your vulnerability.
SARAH ELAZ 43:19
Thank you. Yeah, follow me, follow me online. Sarah. Did you tell us?
Did you tell us how to follow? Oh, you need to tell us, please. Sarah, that’s my name. Just follow search my name.
Uh, I also have an original band called Boo Jim, and we put on uh immersive theatrical jam band shows. So think of a combination of a rock opera plus an improvisational performance. We have dancers, we have lights, projections, costumes. We put on amazing shows that combine all my favorite things.
Uh, we’re gonna have a huge, I don’t know when this podcast is coming out, but my huge birthday show is March 27th at Brooken Bowl. It is gonna be wild. I’m also on tour with uh Barely Dead, uh, which is an amazing high energy Grateful Dead band. We go all around the country.
I also have a collective called Bushwick’s Dead, and we have a residency at Brooklyn Bowl. Again, if you’re in New York City, we put on very exciting Grateful Dead shows, but I’m always doing more and a lot. And you’re going to see me. I have a lot of big things that I probably can’t talk about on this coming up this year.
And you will see me in a lot of unexpected, awesome places.
JEN AKS 44:19
Oh incredible. Woo! I love this conversation. Okay, everybody.
We will see you next week on Wisdom from Within, where human stories awaken. Leadership from within, leadership from within on all freaking levels. I love it. See you next week.
If something in this conversation spoke to you, don’t keep it to yourself. Send it to someone who might need that message too. You can also send me a comment because I would love to know what it is that landed for you. But most importantly, take a moment to pause and listen to what it is that resonated because that’s where your real guidance system lives.
The one you can trust, the one you can rely on. See you next week.