Embodying the Movement Practice of Stability and Change

I am sharing and commenting on this excerpt from one of my favorite daily books of contemplation and inspiration because it speaks to something that is very important to my own perspective about movement, not just yoga but all the movement of living life..

The quote begins:

I teach a flowing style of yoga in which one posture flows into the next. The transition between postures are postures in their own right. The breath and the meditation are unbroken. This is not true in all styles of yoga, nor is such a flow necessary in order for a form of yoga to be effective. The lesson remains, however, that it is our tendency to pay attention to the postures themselves, not to the spaces in between. So it is in life. We leave one relationship or job and set out sights on the next. We cross one item off the to-do list and dive into the next chore. The illusion is that the posture ends.

The reality is that the posture never ends, it just shifts from one form to the next, one lesson to the next, one opportunity to the next. We remain life's student whether we are inhaling or exhaling, in a relationship or out of one, saving the world or looking for a temp job. The posture never ends.

-Rolf Gates, "Meditations from the Mat"

I wholeheartedly agree!

As a species (or perhaps just as a culture) it seems we tend to pay attention to the static moments and the "tasks" of living, and ignore the spaces of movement, the periods of transition in between.

Because of this propensity, we miss out on so many opportunities to notice, observe and learn about our many habits and patterns. We focus on the destination or final product and overlook the options and choices we unconsciously ignored as we moved toward this (temporary) destination!

Because of this habit of focusing on product without recognizing the complexity and process that is involved in all movement, we miss out on the opportunities to explore the choices that are available to us, if we could but see them. We miss out on so many opportunities to expand our resiliency.

In Laban Movement Analysis we use the concept of the “phrase” to expand our focus from the single point in time. We recognize that every single movement and movement sequence can be described within the concept of a “phrase” which recognizes that all movement has a beginning From which we move Through (space, time, an emotion, a body system) that results in our arrival To another place or state (that can and will itself be part of the Through or To of other phrases!

Movement is always moving from-through-to! Every breath, every action, every thought, every relationship, every movement has these three “states” - and this applies to the practice of yoga as well.

This habit of focusing almost solely on the “To” part of the process (the product) is something I observe repeatedly in those clients who seek my support to deepen their yoga practice (as well as those who seek my support for other challenges!). Most clients come to our work together focused on some act of "doing" that they find challenging: they want to "fix" whatever is wrong and then hold on tight to the “right” way of “doing”. They are usually very surprised when I invite them to slow down, shift their focus and join me in exploring the experience of being with the process. Together, over time, we will move From and Through the more foundational developmental patterns that will, with practice, expand their capacity to discover ways to arrive To the place/posture/moment that they desire that is more fully enlivened and more easily created - in their yoga practice and in their life. A place/posture/moment that is, itself, a new place to move From!

This is my approach because I do not teach yoga. My approach as an RSME/T is one of somatic movement repatterning which can deepen ALL movement practices, such as body practices like yoga as well as the actions of simply moving through one’s life.

When a client comes to me to help them with a challenge, I use my extensive understanding of all aspects of What, Where, When, Why and How of movement, including the foundational developmental patterns of human movement, to help them expand their capacity to move (physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually) with more ease. I support them not to DO a specific thing, but to cultivate their ability to explore the possibilities of movement while they also learn to observe themselves. I support them to observe their experience and notice the choices available to them. I support them to be more consciously embodied as they move from, through and to these desired "postures"...of yoga, and of life.

As Rolf Gates says, the posture never ends and this is because yoga (like life) is made up of an ongoing complex series of movements! Being more able to Be present within this complexity opens up so many opportunities to Live Life More Fully!

for more information, check out my website: http://www.embodimentllc.com/individual-sessions

My Process of Getting to Know the Moon, February 2021

At the most recent Winter Solstice I made a commitment to myself to deepen my understanding of and relationship with the Moon.

I don’t really remember when I first met the Moon. She has just always been there. I don’t remember when I learned that the Moon orbits the Earth and that the Moon controls the tides or when someone taught me about the relationship between the Moon’s cycle and the one happening in my younger woman’s body each month. All of these pieces of information have been in me for a long time; however, at Yule I committed to deepen my understanding of Her movement and energies, with a special curiosity about the reason for and the effects of the darkening phase of the Moon in each month.

I realize now - although I wasn’t aware of this consciously in December - that this desire to have a deeper, more aware relationship with Mother Moon is part of a larger process I’m always and will forever be a part of: the process of deepening my knowledge, understanding and experience of embodiment.

I have to admit, I have struggled in this particular cycle of the Moon that started as New on January 14th after a two day period of Darkness and then reached its Full face of light and brightness on January 29th.

My feelings of struggling have increased as the Moon has darkened. The struggle has manifested in multiple ways. Poor quality of sleep. Sheer exhaustion by early evening followed by waking fully in the middle of the night. Intense dreams. Unusual lethargy in the morning. A lack of motivation to explore my regular practices that, usually, I approach with fondness, if not actual glee.

And through all of this struggle I’ve been doing my best to explore the lesson that I believe the Moon offers us in this particular cycle: the experience of Grounded Uplift.

I was quite excited to begin this cycle of exploration. I remember thinking, as we wrapped up the last Dark Moon Sister-Circle, that grounded uplift was gonna be my jam! And for a bit it was. I even created a video for my Youtube channel about Core Awareness and moving from the Core that was inspired by my ponderings of this concept of grounded uplift. And then the Full Moon passed and since then life has felt challenging. At first I thought it was simply the normal winter season blahs that I usually feel in late January/early February; however, I realized that this experience has more of a quality of Pull to it. I feel pulled off my center. I feel as if I’m trying to Pull myself into the future more quickly than is possible. Meditating on this sense of Pull, I connected it with the energies of La Luna.

You may have heard people say “We are all connected.” I myself have been using the tagline “Remember, we are all in this together.” as I end most of my Embodiment videos I create for Youtube. I realized Interconnectedness was what I needed to slow down and give attention to: it seems so simple now that I have realized it

“Of course…I am connected to the Earth and the Moon is connected to the Earth and so…oh yeah, the Moon is connected to me. Interconnectedness. Wow.”

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To help me explain to you a bit more deeply how all this fits together I am going to shift focus and share a bit with you about my studies in movement, somatics and embodiment. If this isn’t of interest to you, I invite you to jump down to the next line of asterisks!

Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) is a observational framework to help me observe, experience, language and explore the body in movement (my own body, other bodies, bodies moving in their environment). I have been studying this framework at a very deep and high level for over a decade.

BodyMind Psychotherapy (BMP) is a “simple, user-friendly approach to working with the body in psychotherapy.” I have been self-studying BMP for more than a decade and am currently in the Level One Certification program. In BMP I am deepening my understanding of the value of and the practices of being fully present in the energetic physical sensory system I recognize as “my body”. I am exploring this work for my own personal deepening as well as to expand my capacity to be more fully present while in relationship with all of my different type of clients.

I realized just this morning that in my commitment to be more present and aware of the Moon, I am calling on facets of both of these frameworks. I use LMA when I am actively observing the ways She moves in Her own rotation as well as how She moves in Her orbit through Space around Earth. Like in both LMA and BMP, I am also being invited to pay attention to the way that Her presence and energy has effects on the environment as well as on Me as a part of this interconnected ecosystem.

In my studies in LMA, I have learned a “whole, part, whole” approach that allows me to have a better understanding of movement in any given context. This involves having a big picture idea of what you are exploring, observing or learning so that as you explore and learn about and from the parts you can then bring this awareness back to the whole so that, ultimately, you are in a dynamic spiral of deepening your understanding of both the whole system and the parts involved!

In BMP, we actively explore the Body Systems from an anatomical, physiological and psychological perspective. We use the “whole, part, whole” approach to bring our attention to what we experience as we attend to our Whole selves from the perspective of each body system as it relates to itself and to the Whole.

Wow, THAT was a lot of words. Never fear! I invite you to take a breath and know it is okay if your cognitive brain feels overfull or on sideways (as one of my dear friends describes it!) I invite you to take another breath and read on when you are ready if you’d like to deepen your understanding of all these words/concepts from an embodiment perspective.

If the idea of deepening your understanding resonates inside of you, I invite you to take twenty to thirty minutes to explore this practice:

First, allow five minutes to Check-in with your eternal resources of support. (the blue video link will take you to a guided experience, if you don’t know what this means.)

Then allow yourself five minutes or so to move in relationship with your Skin, ALL of it, every inch! (If this sort of movement feels challenging to you, I invite you to simply imagine the experience of moving with your Skin as if it is the leader of your dance.)

When you are done moving, take a two to three minutes to journal about anything you noticed as you moved/imagined or as you observe the effects of the experience. Possible things you might notice are a change in your vibe, a shift in the awareness of your sense of the size of your Whole or of your Parts. You might have noticed images, sensations, rhythms, stories, emotions, temperature, color or some other experience uniquely your own. Write it down without (too much) cognitive analysis!

Then Check-in again and clear your somatic palate. Settle. When you feel as if you are ready for another experience, allow yourself five minutes or so to move in relationship with your Bones, all the parts of your skeletal system. (Again, if movement does not feel safe or accessible, then I invite you to imagine letting your bones lead the dance.)

When you are done moving/imagining, again take a two to three minutes to journal about anything you noticed or notice as you write.

What did you notice about moving in relationship with your Skin? your Bones? How did the experiences differ? How were they similar? (‘d love for you to share in the comments!)

I have shared this with you because this type of understanding is interwoven in my story of my struggle this month and I appreciate the opportunity to support you in your own experience with my perspective/approach, if this is/was of interest to you.

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To return more directly to my process with getting to know the Moon and embracing the dark in this cycle:

When I started my focused exploration of this concept of Grounded Uplift some three weeks ago (oh my, it seems like months have passed since then!) I understood this exploration to be simply about the balance of energies between gravity and levity. In other words, I initially approached this as an exploration of the physicality of balancing those two dynamic stresses. To allow myself to experience the unconditional loving force of gravity that is essential for me to be in relationship with Grounded Support (as I mention in the Check-in video mentioned in the practice above) while also tending the experience of the kinetic energies that invite me to lift upward and support me to be an upright, moving being.

What I did not take into account in my oh-so cognitive/physical approach to this exploration is that I am relationship with the Moon just as the Earth is. Her energies PULL on the Earth’s fluids. Yes, she pulls on the oceans and lakes of the Earth and this means that She also pulls on the fluids in my body as well. Not only does she affect the blood pulsing in my veins, moving with each beat of my heart but her energy pulls on all the Parts of my entire Fluid system (yet another Body System!)

And whether we consciously realize it or not, our fluid system is intricately related with our Nervous System and our Emotions.

And although I did not realize it earlier in this moon cycle, the Moon has firmly and insistently reminded me of all of this connection in this last week. Was my nervous system affected? Yep. My emotions? Check. My inner tides? Oh yeah. Sleep? Yep. Mood? Yes yes yes!

Mother Moon has guided me to BE in the struggle. She has pushed and pulled me to shift my perspective, to more actively notice all the Parts of my process, parts that were disparate and disconnected three weeks ago. She has guided and continues to guide me (as the process is in no way completed) to, ultimately, have a deeper, richer understanding of all my Parts (Moon, Body, Movement, Spirit, Counseling Support, Therapy, Education, Meditation, Nature, Somatic Abolition, relationships, living life fully, LMA, BMP and and and…) and their relationship with my Whole.

It has been a struggle and yet in this uncomfortable experience She has helped me see that I have a pattern (that I cannot yet verbalize) that I would like to release: a pattern that can deprive me of my capacity to embody, to FEEL the Grounded Uplift dynamic that is always available to me…and to all of us. A pattern that she is inviting me to release (or at least, the parts that I am able) in this Darkening time, even as I write this blog post.

It is with this energy and understanding that I will be joining with you, my Sisters. Together we will blend all of our ideas, energies and desires about Grounded Uplift during this darkening of the moon cycle.

I look forward to gathering together to move, meditate and share in this month’s Embracing the Dark: A Sister-Circle Darkening Moon Meditation.

(If you are reading this after February 7th and feel called to join me in my Embodiment explorations, please check my website for upcoming events that may be of interest.

Finding Comfort, Support and Ease in this time of Covid19: the practice of The Check-in

This is a slightly revised excerpt of an email that i shared with my clients yesterday. I hope that at least one of you will find what I share helpful to you in your process of staying healthy and fully alive in this unusual of times. - Victoria

Today is day 28 for me in this process of keeping to my home, physically distancing when I am out and connecting with other humans only on-line or across a 6 foot trail!  There have been challenging moments and rewarding moments:  I can share with you that I have felt the experience of ALL of the zones a person can live in (according to Tom Senninger), and have been finding all sorts of opportunities to practice my tools of self-soothing - the very same tools that I share with all my clients, whether in private movement sessions, private clinical sessions or moving together in my group Embodiment classes.  

The process of what I call “The Check-in” has been crucial for me in my pursuit to find some sense of the Comfort Zone throughout the day.  When Comfort, Security, Safety is not really to be found, it is the Check-in that helps me keep my feet and head in the Learning Zone.  

Sometimes I need to do a full-blown, time-out sort of check-in, giving myself 15 - 20 minutes of breath, grounded support, orienting and constructive thinking.

Sometimes it is a mini-bringing-myself-back-to-the-present-moment kind of check-in of one breath, one shift of focus, one jiggle of my Upper body into my Lower.

And sometimes it is simply reminding myself that I am free to notice where I put my focus.  

Regardless of the length of time in the Check-in process, I have found that daily, hourly, sometimes moment-by-moment the practice of Checking-in to the "right now" of where and how I am has been crucial for me.  

How about you?

To support you in your process of Checking-in, I have shared below some of my writing about my practice this past week.

(I’d like to acknowledge that I learned the value of the phrase “I am free to…” in my training and conversations with Imogen Ragone, and have enfolded it into to my Embodiment practices because I have found it to be powerful in supporting change!)

I am free to notice the experience of my breath.  I am free to choose the speed and depth of my breath.

As I notice my breath I think about these more than 650 hours of quarantine and the changes I have experienced and witnessed in that time.  Crocuses and daffodils have bloomed and then waned.  Tulips and spring beauties (the small white & pink flowers that have been blanketing Stewart Park) have emerged as well as the leaves and buds of various types of trees.  (And although the frost may have done some damage, I can still see the pink explosion of the red bud trees out my window so I have hope that this week I will still be able to find and enjoy color in nature!)  I notice a loosening in my chest and gut as I choose to focus on my memory of what I have seen of spring blossoming.  I notice my breath deepens and slows.  Joy.  Peace.)  

I am free to notice the experience of my body being supported by the Earth.  I am free to accept and allow myself to be fully supported.

 I am free to orient in the environment that is outside of me right now.  I am free to notice my sense of the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, temperature and texture of my Outer environment as they come into my Inner environment.  I am free to notice the experience of my Inner environment:  my Back body and Front, my Right body and Left, my Upper body being supported by my Lower body.  

As I settle my awareness and my Weight into my feet I think about all the walking I've done this week. In those walks, with the Earth rolling its support through the heel, balls and toes of my feet, I've had the opportunity to witness so much wildlife  - seeing swans and muskrat at the Cosmos-Bethel lake; observing the sights and sounds of herons standing in stillness, ducks floating in pairs muttering to each other, geese flying and honking their air-traffic control calls, frogs hopping and several baby snakes slithering their way across the trail at the wetlands of Forum Nature Area, and hearing the multi-faceted and omnipresent calls of the tree frogs at Stewart Park, Forum Nature Area and Grasslands Trail.  Remembering these things, I recall the sense of excitement with a widening in my chest, the power of recuperative energy rising into my leg bones, and the satisfying experience of being a physical body present and supported in this moment.  Satisfaction.

I am free to notice ease.  I am free to notice where it seems a little easier right now.  Where else?  Where now? I am free…

If this felt valuable to you or piqued your curiosity about Embodiment, I invite you to check out my website. For a schedule of online movement events  visit here. To find our more about private sessions visit here.

The Monday and Tuesday Easy Movement Breaks are 30 minute seated or standing explorations of embodiment tools and easy free-style movement.

The Thursday Mindful Move Groove is a 1 hour class that can be standing or seated.  The first 30 minutes focuses on boosting immunity and soothing nerves, followed by easy choreographed movement and ending with a gentle cool-down.

The Friday On the Floor Movement Break is 30 minutes of exploration of grounded support and movement at the lowest level possible:  we are currently focusing on Constructive Rest!

In everything I offer professionally, we practice Checking In in some way: taking the time to notice, choose, finding ease and support, practice living life more fully! I believe this is all so important, and especially in these challenging times we are living in together right now. Let’s keep our combined energy recuperated and alive! Live life more fully with Embodiment!

About the Size of It

It is me, lying on the floor, my body large enough to almost fill the space of the room I am. It is me, a mere dot of a concept on a planet rotating in its orbit in a universe of movement. I am so full, the breath so large it pushes against every edge of its confines. I am too big for this limited body. I am just one small person with so many ideas. I am almost non-existent as I walk through the woods, a mere human, so minuscule within all this Nature. My presence as Human is so large it invades and affects every inch of this planet Earth. This is about the size of it.

i think it is really important to scrub at our perceptions on a regular basis, give them a good shake up and dust off. Our point of view can so easily become stale, patterned, so much a part of the background of our being that we forget that it is there. We take things for granted - which can be very helpful because consider how overwhelming it would be to have to constantly have to consider every aspect of all the things we take for granted - yet it is also important to take some time to notice, to observe, to ponder the ways our perceptions have become patterned and to seek out ways that they can grow and change.

I think it is important to consciously choose perspective palate cleansers, like the lemon water between courses of a meal, intended to give us space on our tongue and in our experience to truly enjoy each dish for its own merit, The movement form of Express Yourself that I offer is designed to be that sort of thing, an opportunity give some space in your life so that you can access more enjoyment, more flavor of the every day.

The concept we will be exploring in the next Express Yourself is the perspective of size and how we take up space. The journal entry I shared above is one way I’ve explored this concept. I will share other ways to explore when we meet on Tuesday. During this event we will have the opportunity to be creative, to play with taking up space, to move ourselves, to share our stories with other equally curious folks in movement and words. And that, my friends, That’s About the Size of It. Look forward to moving with you soon.

It's all an Experiment

“It’s all an experiment.”

To understand the significance of this phrase, you can visit this post on Facebook that I made today about being part of the nation-wide performance art piece 54 Capitals, 54 Dancers and about what it is like to be a CMA (Certified Movement Analyst) and to be in the world of other folks similarly inclined and trained.

And it is also a comment on trying out a blog post of this short size…and trying out a blog post based on and linked to something I wrote on my Facebook page.

It is all an experiment.

I would love to hear any comments.