Day 1: Name Game. Enemy Protector. Shape game - make a house make a home. Axis Syllabus spine waves. Look at the design of the spine - it protects our spinal cord. The way we move and allow our weight to flow into the earth through our structure gives our spinal cord freedom to float in the cerebral spinal fluid. This helps us breath, pay attention, form emotional connection, and thus think more clearly and flexibly!! Across the floor movements. Combination facing the mirror.
Day 2: Name game. Movement inquiry, What would it feel like for your body, mind, heart, soul, feeling listened to/respected/loved/connected to at the fullest extent that it needs? Teach loose engaged listening. Check in, in groups, are you getting your needs met? Check in a big group.
Teach 5 movements across the floor. Do them coming towards each other. Then teach them in a circle: on video.
Listening: Our Limbic system looks for signals that we are being tuned into, payed attention to, connected to. Another person's body language, tone of voice, energy, and attention lets us know if we are safe to learn and grow.
Day 3. Check in. Do you feel listened to in your life? House Warm up w isolations and side bending exercise. Combination: on video.
Day 4: House Warm up w isolations and side bending phrase.
Bounce sequence in a circle moving attention (and hands) from heart to center to feet (hands open toward the center of the circle fingers toward the ground, to awareness of each other.
Reflect in smaller groups: How did that feel? What did you notice?
Learn the words and gestures: In my heart. I see you. I welcome you.
Learn the movement. bounce and lead backwards.
Welcoming dance. Using this movement and the intention of the words on a feeling level, as well as warmth in your face and body, welcome the people in to your space. Switch roles.
Focus on, as the welcomed, what it means to kinesthetically be welcomed into the physiology of the other by intentionally mirroring the body signals and movements that are coming from the person welcoming you. This is SO IMPORTANT. the process then becomes a synergy.
Reflect as a group
Day 5: Warm up.
Shape inquiry: Love Respect Fear Chaos Peace. Don’t think just do.
Make transitions
watch them with music and different spacings/ groupings. Using movement inquiry and composition to build transrationality.
We did a meditation to sense into our own inner landscape on a physical, emotional, psychological & sensory level.
Then we shared names, pronouns, and a check in about how we are in words & movement or just movement.
Then we broke into two groups of 4 and had a longer check in - 2 min each about. I let the class know we would be doing more in-depth inquiry into a feeling or experience and that this was a chance to talk about one maybe.
We then individually created about 8 counts of movement that I invited to be related or stemmed from to something we noticed about how we are.
We then got with a partner from our original group and taught the phrase to them along with the feelings and understandings that went with it, if possible. The other partner practiced deep listening with their facial expression, attention, tone, and carefully mirroring their partners movement. This practice then switched for the other partner. Then both partners combined their phrases and we held space as witnesses for each duo to share their work.
I was curious about the physiological welcoming we did day 4 through mirroring and listening, transrational cognition through movement and vocal exploration, and the use of composition as a way to collectively explore feeling as knowing.
The process and products were both so physiologically powerful. Being listened to through movement touched me deeply, helped to relax my nervous system, reset my breathing.
Learning another person’s movement was special. to be invited to feel in this embodied way along side them felt like a gift.
Combining our phrases to make a dance felt like synergy! At last - dancing together truly and deeply. Listening and being heard - but always making connection!!
Witnessing the partners dancing together, their attunement to one another, intentionally listening and going deep to share their feeling knowledge with their partner was incredible. I breathed so deep. The effect of their synergy on my nervous system was profound. I felt connection around deep individuality. I saw movement and patience. I saw/felt attention, care, vulnerability, courage, beauty, power.
The class was SO engaged with this exercise. It was incredible. They felt so much love towards each other and from one another. Many smiles, some near tears, much loving feedback, and lots of hugs!
This was a huge step and something I am very interested in continuing to research!
Day 7
We began with a check in and identified some core feelings that the group was working with: Survival and thriving.
We made up individual phrases relating to these feelings.
We performed them two at time.
After feedback from our audience we went back with our partner and worked on making a dance that connected our phrases.
Some notes: Re-making the movement that we created alone, this time with another person allowed is to change our narrative from a place of feeling and movement.
QUESTIONS
1. How have you connected to your body's knowledge (rational, non-rational, emotional, sensory, intellectual, intuitive, playful, creative, etc) through this class? Another way to say this might be: What have you learned from your body during our time together so far? Did you feel permission to be intelligent in ways that are not usually valid in academia? Give some examples or a story.
2. How have you connected to other people in this class and what did it feel like? How has your sense of feeling safe to be yourself around the people within the class changed over the semester. Did our attempt to cultivate emotionally safe, playful, and connected community work? Give some examples.
3. Share a story about something(s) that moved you or that you learned from the class or as a result of it. If you had experiences that were challenging, uncomfortable, or hard feel free to share them also and/or ways you would add to or change exercises or class structure.
4. If you care to share anything else - other videos, more stories, ideas, artwork etc. Please do so here!
