Movement exploration

• Explore in a mindful and creative way how to move with your body and the environment that surrounds you.
• Unlock your body from the constricted patterns it is shaped by and reconnect with the innate ability to move we had as children.
• Learn to trust your body more, let it lead the way and let the mind take the back seat.
• Develop movement vocabulary and expression that fits the uniqueness of your own physicality and ability. 

Explore everything that a body can do and how each body has a unique lens they move from. The focus is on ‘movement’ here and not just on dancing which means that the whole range of movement that we use every day is also included.

Unlike other practices combining mindfulness and movement like yoga, tai chi or qigong, there are no set steps or form to follow. The practice is to develop awareness of how you move in adaptation to different environments. We’re always in dialogue with the environment when we move but we’re mostly unaware of this. In this practice, we bring this to awareness. We also bring to awareness the patterns of movement we’re stuck in so that we can make different choices and find new ways of moving. 

These classes are taking place indoors so we will interact with objects and the surrounding physical environment to develop ecological awareness and to find new ways to move in the body. (If you’d like to move outdoors with me, sign up to my mailing list on my website www.movingmeditation.org.uk or my WhatsApp group https://chat.whatsapp.com/FY5s8rtvWFmFMBWjkXvDvc to find out when the next outdoor movement sessions is)

Purposefully, music is not used for this class so that we can learn to focus on how we moved without extra stimuli. You will be taught instead to develop your sensory awareness and to move with the environment and the things that are within the environment as if they were your dancing partners. Instead of music, you will discover that sounds, colours, shapes, light, movements, and many others things can guide your movement. 

Moving meditation classes offer similar benefits to sitting meditation in a much more accessible and fun way! People generally feel more relaxed and connected to their bodies afterwards. It is a great way to develop mindfulness for those who find it hard to do sitting meditation.

What people find the most powerful about this practice is how much it fosters permissiveness within a non-judgmental, safe and supportive environment. It allows them to move in ways that they’ve never experienced before. As there is no right or wrong way to move, everybody can find what suits them. 
The classes are open to all ages and abilities and no previous experience is required. The only thing that is needed for these classes is an open and curious mind and a willingness to explore the unknown.

Please note the venue is on the second floor, accessed by a staircase only and regrettably it is not wheelchair accessible.

What to expect:

• Explore new and unexpected ways to move your body 
• Respond in movement to simple movement invitations and scores
• Develop a heightened sense of awareness and presence when moving
• Move with objects in a creative and mindful way
• Become more aware of how the environment influences your movement and how you impact the environment
• Be witnessed and witness others when moving
• Self-reflect and share in pairs and in groups about your experience
• Be held in a supportive non-judgemental learning space

Facilitator bio:

Claire is a movement and visual artist, somatic practitioner and teacher. She works with improvisation, unstylised movement and eco-somatics, that is to say spontaneous nonverbal dialogue with the environment, both natural and urban. She has trained with Suprapto Suryodarmo and Sandra Reeve. Her movement art practice is strongly rooted in her relationship with non-human beings such as plants, fungi and the ecology of a landscape. She is the author of How to Be Feral: Movement Practices to Re-wild your Body, a philosophical movement book which challenges our human-centered perspective of the world and encourages us to think with our moving bodies and not just with our mind. She is also an insight herbalist, graduate from the School of Intuitive Herbalism where plants directly teach their wisdom.

To find out about Claire's movement and teaching style watch this video of her moving and inviting to move your own way

You can also watch more videos of her moving @howtobeferal