inhabit
I believe life is a collection of experiences. The quality of your experiences is the quality of your life. And I don’t mean an influencer-worthy picture perfect ‘quality’. I’m referring to how we inhabit our experiences, how we inhabit our life. The quality of an experience is dependent on how we are inhabiting it. The more completely we are ‘in’ the experience, the richer the quality.
We are many-faceted beings. physical, chemical, emotional, mental, spiritual. I see it as a tree, being made of roots, trunk, bark, branches and leaves. One being composed of many different parts. Each part as important as the other, each having a role to play. What if the tree thought it was only the roots, and only inhabited the deep earth, forgetting it was also leaves and dying from lack of sunlight. Or if the tree thought it was only the leaves, forgetting it was also roots and drying up from lack of water. This can happen to us. We get stuck inhabiting only parts of our being, parts of our experience, living in compartments separate from each other. We can get stuck in memories, desires of the ego, social-conditioning, emotions, the thinking mind. So much of our life is experienced through the eyes, through a screen! We can easily be fooled into believing thats all there is.
Through the years my teaching has evolved but its core remains unchanged. I’ve always included specific and nuanced cueing in my classes. For me, this type of cueing is one of the most delicious, rewarding, enjoyable parts of the practice. Refining the connection to the body in subtle ways that blossoms into a pose feeling lighter, or a pose happening at all. As my knowledge and understanding of the body deepens, my cueing becomes more specific but I attempt to present it as connection rather than “the right way”. I don't teach alignment for alignment's sake. I agree there are methods that support functional alignment, and using those methods creates a strong, stable body which in turn can reduce pain and improve one’s sense of well-being. However my intention is that all of the cues and specific direction bring people into a deeper connection to themselves, to the experience they are having in that moment and in the moments to come. My hope is that each practitioner will inhabit their bodies in a more profound way, and therefore have a richer experience, while also gaining the benefits of functional alignment.
I'm interested in exploring intuitive and endless combinations of movements, in creativity. Interested in discovering connections, ____ is like ___ which is also like _____. The cues I give are about the body, but its about connecting to the body, and opening the channel of body back to brain. Its a complete sensory experience. In our modern lives many of us have lost this connection. We’ve forgotten that we are also flesh and bone not just eyes and thoughts, a tree forgetting its leaves. Awakening and being in this sensory experience has been scientifically proven (many times) to decrease stress, anxiety and depression. It literally can change your brain chemistry, pumping out your body’s own natural anti-depressant. This inhabiting of our bodies can bring about profound healing. You can become your own medicine. The experience I have during my practice is not only wonderfully interesting, but healing. And its all happening inside of myself, an intimate unique experience all my own.
I think in our modern lives we are craving connection in a fierce way. Instead of growing and raising our own food we buy it at a store. For most of us the money we earn is only ever seen as a number on a computer screen. Many of our social interactions are through screens and phones. I heard a study that showed if people simply thought about a positive interaction that they had with another person it improved their mood in the same way meditation does. We crave connection because it feeds us.
Recently I was thinking of my time in Nicaragua, watching the baby sea turtles hatch and crawl their way to the ocean. We were not allowed to use flash photo when taking pictures as it could confuse the babies as to which direction to go. Deeply engrained in their intuition is to follow the light of the setting sun to the ocean. Think of all of the animals that have this kind wisdom simply in their being. What deep knowing lies within our being? MY being? What primal wisdom lives in my body, undiscovered? We are so easy distract/misled by ARTIFICIAL LIGHT. My movement practice more and more is connecting me to this primal knowing, buried under years of social-condition and modern life.
“Yes, hunches are a physical process. Intuition is a physical process. It’s a process of tuning into your body and thinking of the body as an antenna. I don’t mean to sound New Age-y, but scientifically, your fascia is a liquid crystal. It is arranged in crystalline form. So it could be considered to be a kind of antenna. If you are tuned to it, if you are inhabiting all of it, I think you will make better decisions, than if you are only inhabiting small pieces of it.
That is a part of your mind. Your mind extends all the way down to your feet, all the way down to your hands, all the way into your back. And if you’re only paying attention to your hands and your face and your eyes on the computer screen and you’re otherwise sitting most of the time, you lose access to those kinds of intuitive feelings.”
Consider dance. Humans have been dancing since the dawn of time. The primal urge to move, to inhabit every inch of your being, to feel the connection of brain to each inch and from all the inches back to brain. I had a conversation with a woman a few years ago and we talked about how all cultures had their own dances. Dances to be done with with family, grandparents and children. Dances were a way to BE with people with out talking. A way to enjoy community through movement. A way to inhabit yourself in a different way than the day to day. I think part of the draw of group yoga classes is just this, its way to be in the company of yourself and others through movement. And I think, in part, it fulfills a primal desire all humans have to move.
In the yoga world there is a lot of talk about what how much focus should be put on the body versus the spiritual philosophy. We know too much about the connection of body and emotions, of the healthy of the body to our sense of well-being to ignore it. I believe that connection to the body, connection to our physical experience massively important. In our bodies lie healing, therapy, medicine and intuition. And through the body we can discover a richer quality of living.