Breath in Motion

 “In order to understand the dance, one must be still. And in order to truly understand stillness, one must dance.” – Rumi

Breath in Motion

This workshop is an invitation into the rhythm of stillness, a landscape of movement meditation. Stillness is the last rhythm in the Wave of the 5Rhythms® practice, in which we allow ourselves to be moved from deep within, in dialogue with the breath. Stillness is the integration and sacred alchemy of all the 5Rhythms. It teaches us to move from and with our breath into a vast ocean of awareness and presence.

Often in our lives we can lose our ground and busy ourselves into a “human doing” or “human overthinking” mode. The dance of stillness is an opportunity to cultivate a felt sense of human being and breathing. The stillness rhythm teaches us to trust in our own wisdom, in our capacity to be present for and hold with compassion our whole human experience. It is an accepting space we can enter organically, after the other rhythms have released tension, brought us into embodied presence and emptied the body, heart, and mind.

This dance calls us to turn our curiosity into the space of being, exploring the formless form of stillness. We will move with and embody the invisible or the subtle layers in us, noticing what wants to unfold, to be felt, expressed and communicated. We allow the waves of movement of our body and emotions to rise and fall into the living mystery of now.

This workshop combines the Waves and Heartbeat levels of the 5Rhythms® practice. The Waves map will give you grounding and tools for exploring the many physical gateways into and expressions of stillness. The Heartbeat map invites you into experiencing and embodying the emotional flavours of stillness, and the ways compassion gives us space and freedom to feel and be all that we are.

“Having compassion starts and ends with having compassion for all those unwanted parts of ourselves. The healing comes for letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.” – Pema Chodron

Somatomy

This weekend gathering is meant to inspire you to explore, to expand and to engage your full self to awaken. To remain present and connected to your feeling self, to bridge awareness of others and to embody the space you occupy is a path of presence. By losing connection to self, your body lacks youthful energy and your mind is racing, full of distracting fear-based thoughts. This state of dis-connect of body awareness can result in the contracting of or shifting into unconscious body shapes, in diminished breath capacity, in discomfort and in blocked life force flow which magnifies panic-based, fearful decision making and inertia.

In this workshop, I promise to share effective ways of sourcing the authority living in your body, inspired by anatomical insights. I’ll empower you to enliven and to unlock your body-mind connection; I’ll invite you to free yourself of your mind’s games to distract your attention and dance you into a state of presence. Transforming these habitual patterns enlivens your spark of creativity and refreshes the passion of enriching your zone of genius. Awakening and sensualizing yourself in your full body awareness is a practice of self-love and playful presence that liberates you from generational and cultural patterns.

We will share stories, feelings, vulnerabilities and perceptions about growing and awakening through the 5Rhythms and movement awareness. And we’ll move together and relate in many creative shapes feeling our architecture and anatomy from the inside out. You will be invited to share and collaborate with fellow participants in the nourishing practice of integrating Somatomy into your walking/dancing life.

Join me in this playground of 5Rhythms® conscious movement and deep dancing where you will:

1. Discover your functional anatomy through guided experiences.

2. Expand your body intelligence through developmental movement .

3. Learn a new set of tools for awakening your bodymind relationship.

4. Connect your attention and awareness, your breathing and your movement into one integrated being.

About the title, Somatomy:

Somatomy is a word that came to me while snowshoeing one day in the woods. I had been formulating a series of foundational workshops at the request of my producers and returning students. I knew that at the core, I would be teaching the pathway to presence within our bodies, and combining that with the practice of gently and effortlessly orchestrating our attention with ease and flow. This is the essence of a loving connection with oneself, and the key to maintaining a high level of healthy vitality, even into your senior years – all things people have seen in me, and asked to teach them how to achieve.

“How can we grow old and still revel in a multitude of magnificent moments?”

– Ohad Naharin