Maps of Movement
Maps come in different shapes, sizes, content, location, and more. We might think of obvious ones: road maps, political, geological, topographical, weather, dot distribution as in indicating avian migratory routes…. And forms in which they are available to us: in an atlas, folded paper, google online, static, live, and so on. Maps also exist in various disciplines: performing artists have their own type of maps known as musical scores, choreography or labanotation, a play…for musicians, dancers, and thespians, respectively. If we expand our notion of maps even further, I would offer that counselling psychologists, spiritual directors, teachers, wise grandparents, trusted friends also provide maps, known as guidance, advice, or modelling. In all of these examples, maps act as a ‘pathway’; they are not the end in themselves. Maps lead us into experience; they cannot replace a lived expression. In fact maps are born out of experience…they provide us with possibilities of what may emerge when we allow them to guide us. When we begin to follow a map, allow and trust our own experience as it emerges, we are on the way to embodiment of the map.
As a somatic practitioner, I look to a variety of maps: texts on anatomy, physiology, and kinesiology, research in the movement field, forms as found in t’ai chi, qi gong, yoga, pilates, dance, meditation, authentic movement, developmental movement, and many more. I consider these to be treasure maps because they hold so much possibility of self-discovery on a physical level, as well as emotional, psychological, and spiritual levels. I can enter these pathways again and again and each time discover more….if I hold an openness to new experiences, be willing to alter the lens in which I encounter myself, and trust in what emerges in my embodiment.
As many of us return to ‘formal classes’ in movement, I encourage you to ‘fill the form’. Try to avoid plain repetition of or simply ‘doing’ a movement sequence. Instead, seek to ‘be’ with yourself in the movement by deepening your sensory awareness in a form/sequence. Notice how your blood flows thru your arteries, feel the bounciness of synovial fluid, sense how your organs slide in a yoga twist, compare your mental clarity before and after a class, when holding a prop try to sense the tone in your muscles (are you in too much tone or too little?)….what else can you experience? Join me for somatizations (another map into yourself) and facilitations of movement so that you may discover treasures in yourself.
