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What is Mindful Movement?
Mindful Movement is movement that focuses on quality, rather than quantity. It is more of a feeling experience than a doing experience. It can be done individually, with a partner or in a group. It can look like meditative walking, contemplative dance or yoga. It is often slow but not necessarily slow. We often use music to facilitate movement, and we also practice silent movement. Ultimately, the goal is to ask the body how it wants to move and follow that internal direction, rather than looking for external guidance. We want to shift from trying to do "correct movements" to exploring what movements are possible, what movements are interesting, what movements elicit a greater sense of freedom.
The Benefits of Mindful Movement - "Feel Your Bones, Free Your Body"
Mindful movement is an effective way to reduce stress and its physical consequences. In addition, there are specific physical benefits associated with each of these mindful movement practices. Research shows yoga, for example, has health benefits including increased strength and flexibility, better balance and coordination, improved reaction times, better lung function, heightened cardiovascular conditioning, and weight loss. Psychological benefits of the practice include relaxation, greater equanimity, better concentration, and improved mood. Scientific studies have found yoga as a useful adjunct to the care of such conditions as asthma, arthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome, multiple sclerosis, and heart disease.
Mindful movement practices are undoubtedly physically and mentally beneficial. However, overly strenuous physical activity can lead to injury. Check with a healthcare practitioner before beginning any exercise regime. Find a qualified teacher and share any specific health issues you have. And be sure to listen to your own body and do only what feels comfortable to you.
We can change the way we feel, our attitudes and emotions, find a renewed sense of freedom, ease and joy by changing the way we move!
Mindful Movement For All - Group Classes
Mindful Movement classes facilitate this exploration, offering simple anatomical education and various techniques that participants can use to find greater freedom, ease and joy in their minds and bodies. We can then carry this awareness into our daily lives, changing habitual patterns of posture and movement, reducing pain and discomfort, improving performance, both mentally and physically.
I am currently developing a curriculum beneficial for both practitioners and the public on Mindful Movement. I will offer 2-hour seminars with a focus on one area of the body, such as the feet and ankles or the neck and shoulders and also weekend workshops covering the whole body and breath. My goal is to bring anatomy to life, incorporating and integrating anatomical knowledge with felt experience. I will teach techniques that enable free movement, movement that is child-like and exploratory. Participants will learn to follow their own body’s unique intelligence. Moving mindfully, in turn, nourishes the nervous system, giving it fresh information and bringing us deeper into the present.
Virtual Mindful Movement 1:1
In an effort to connect with my clients and friends and help them connect mindfully with their bodies during the Covid-19 shutdown beginning in Spring 2020, I started offering free Mindful Movement Facebook Live videos. I have continued this effort every Friday at 12:30p in a private Facebook Group Wholesome Healing Inc. Please join us!
While providing this service, several people have asked for individual help with chronic fatigue, headaches, neck, shoulder, and back pain from sitting at home in their “home offices.” Some have struggled with overwhelming anxiety and depression in the face of so much uncertainty and isolation. Other people with various conditions who are at high risk for Covid-19 or live too far away to see me in person have asked if I can help them virtually. Therefore, in response to this overwhelming need, I am now offering customized consultations and guidance virtually.
There are three fundamental aspects I address that make my approach to Mindful Movement highly effective and fun. My goal is to first listen carefully and understand the situation my client is in, their external physical and social environment, and their internal physical and emotional response to that environment. Then I offer a few suggestions for how they can change their physical environment and their response to it. Typically this involves educating the client on simple anatomy and ergonomics, giving them easy techniques and cues to enhance their awareness of holding patterns and habitual postures and ways to gently find freedom from those restrictive patterns. I also often give them information about breathing and how to connect with their breath, enabling them to reduce their stress and tension quickly and easily. Our bodies were designed to move in multiple ways on a daily basis, walking, climbing, crawling, not sitting, or standing in one position. Even a little variation in movement and posture and curious attention to how our bodies feel can make a big difference in our quality of life.
