An ongoing workshop series that applies key elements of somatic and contemporary dance practices in a way which can help anyone move with more grace and ease through everyday life situations
When we are born into this world we first encounter it physically and perceptually. The way we learn to orient to and move through the world sets the ground for all the other skills that we learn in life
We can profoundly enhance the way we act in and perceive the world we inhabit in our daily lives by giving time to ourselves as adults to improve our perceptual and movement coordination
Best of all, the work required to do this is relaxing and enjoyable. It is delivered in a way that is accessible and relevant to anyone. It fact it’s more like child’s play.
What to expect in workshops
The atmosphere that I aim to create in the classes is light and easy. I believe that for learning to happen it needs to be fun, and that approaching challenging and personal subjects – and our bodies are both – then a sense of humour and playfulness is essential. The one overriding rule in classes is “not to do anything difficult” and to do whatever we do in a comfortable way.
Working Smart Not Hard
Classes move fluidly between interactive lectures and movement exercises. The power of this work lies not in mindlessly exercising but rather in learning to pay attention to ourselves during any activity that pleases us. There is nothing to get right, the aim instead is to develop a physical dialogue with ourselves and our environment in which we are empowered to be our own experts.
The aim is to cultivate our ability to attend to this world of physical sensation just beneath our routine level of consciousness so that it can be available to us as a resource to increase our comfort in any moment. To achieve this in the workshops, you can expect some combination of guided self-exploration through movement or imagery, sharing of personal stories and anecdotes, hands-on work with a partner, movement observation tasks, and time to explore your movement freely.
Building Resources In And Out Of Class
While each course centres on a particular theme, the exact material emerges out of a dialogue with you the participants. In the classes, my starting point is to offer a combination of the Feldenkrais Method, experiential anatomy, ideokinesis and developmental movement.
Participants leave the workshops with some simple movement games to play with during idle moments in the day to facilitate this ongoing physical dialogue; things to do while sitting at the desk waiting for a file to download or standing waiting for a bus for example. They are also given access to recordings of some of the more complex 30-60 minute guided movement explorations (Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement classes) which they can then do at home together with any supporting notes.
It’s Not Just What But How
What I have to offer in this context is also my general approach to investigating myself through my physicality as much as any specific knowledge that I might pass on. In other words, it’s not so much “what” I know as “how” I came to know it that I am sharing. In choosing themes for specific workshops and courses, I’m selecting things that I think will be of interest to others and things that I’m exploring myself right now. In one sense, what I am offering is for people to join me in my research.
