Come to a 1-hour FREE presentation Saturday, October 22, 2011, at 11 am - 12 noon
Given that the body
orchestrates its 100 trillion cells through countless, simultaneous physical,
chemical, and biological interactions every second, it is
reasonable to respect our bodies, rather than ignoring or trying to fix them.Using concepts and skills
that most people know but don't often use, you can learn to follow the
body rather than push it. In doing so, you gain access a different kind of
intelligence and experience the body in a more positive way.The practices offered here can
be done on their own or as a complement to other forms of exercise. Many people also find them helpful in learning to meditate.
What is body intelligence? Body intelligence is everything you are not thinking about that enables you to be here living
your life. It is present when the body repairs itself, and it can be felt as the body adapts to
physical challenges, like weight training or running. For the most part, we
take it for granted, ignore it, and perhaps occasionally wonder about it. We tend to hold a hierarchical concept in which all intelligence is in the mind or brain, which resides above the body and governs it for the body's best interest and ours.
How can you access your body's intelligence?
The first step is in your attention -- learning to attend to your own body and becoming curious about what you receive in
sensation, imagery, idea, and memory. This is not the same as noticing if you are hungry or tired, or having a gut feeling about something. It's attending without knowing what might be there. It's putting your attention into your physical body, sometimes in a particular place and sometimes more globally. To attend in this way requires slowing down. When you do, you get a glimpse of what it it really means to bring body and mind together.
The second step is to identify with the fluid nature of
your body.Although with regard to movement it's common to think of the body as a mechanical system, we need to understand that this is a model, not the reality of the body. Models are useful, but because humans so readily identify with what they are shown and told, a model can become a limiting framework rather than an exploratory one. Think of it: the body
is 2/3 fluid, and its fluid motions of pulsation, flow, and circulation are what give it life.A fluid model of the body helps us see and feel the very qualities that make the body interesting, adaptable and un-machinelike. When you identify with these qualities, new possibilities open up. Third, bringing together the attitude of inquisitive attending --
rather than judging, directing or controlling -- and the living
fluid dynamics present in the body, allows you to co-create with the body a inner-directed exploration in movement. Why is this important? On the physical level, you are retraining your entire system. You are distributing effort among myriad tiny muscles, which in turn are waking up new sensation in the body and neural pathways in the brain. On the level of your life, you are connecting to yourself -- your whole self. More of your whole capacity for experience is being drawn into play and therefore becoming accessible to you in other situations. On a broader level, you are changing the world. This way of working with the body is incorporating within you an
altogether different way of being and doing in the world: a way that
respects every part as essential to the whole, and that allows for unexpected
yet harmonious outcomes.
Priscilla Auchincloss earned her Ph.D. in experimental
particle physics at Columbia University. She later joined the University of
Rochester, where she developed programs to promote young women's interest in
science and engineering.While taking classes
with Deborah Raoult (co-founder of Open Sky Yoga in Rochester) Auchincloss
discovered the internal side of movement practice and realized that the
moving body was a source of knowledge as important as anything taught in modern
classrooms.Physikos Movement is
the business she started to explore body intelligence and guide people
in accessing it for health, insight, and growth.
