Exploring Meaningful Movement
March is my birth month and I like to think of a birthday as a personal new year. I don’t make any big resolutions, but I do reflect on where I’ve been, where I'm headed, and correct course as needed. Last year, I started a movement facility/business with a friend. Ultimately, it didn’t work out, but I learned a lot of big lessons - one of the biggest being a clarification of my WHY. Why do I do what I do as a yoga teacher and movement coach?
Well, first of all, I like it. Plain and simple. But, when I dug a little deeper the first insight I had is that movement has had a profound impact on my overall health. I could tell you a lengthy, boring story of my life through a movement lens, but here is the short and perhaps equally boring version. Movement, in various forms, has had a stabilizing effect on me/my life for as long as I can remember.
When I was a kid it was an outlet for my energy and a means of organizing my thoughts. When I began practicing yoga in college it gave me some very good tools for getting a handle on my anxiety and navigating life. After my son was born via c-section, strength and mobility training rehabilitated my body and built a foundation of stability that supported me through some emotionally challenging life events.
Because I have experienced how positively transformative and stabilizing movement can be, I am passionate about helping people improve their health and connect with their inner resources through meaningful movement practices. THAT is my why. But, then I had another question on my mind, "what is meaningful movement?" After more thinking (so much thinking), I determined meaningful movement is any physical movement/activity/exercise that produces the intended results and positively impacts other areas of the practitioner's life.
It’s a broad definition and, I would argue, user defined. That's most excellent, because conceivably there is meaningful movement out there for everyone. What I'm specifically thinking about is moving in ways that create a ripple of positive effects in the practitioner's life. I think that happens when the mind gets involved and movement is coupled with self-awareness, discovery, learning, and playfulness, so I aim to bring those elements into my classes, be it yoga or strength, mobility or hand balancing.
Below are updated descriptions of how I approach yoga and strength & mobility classes as mindful movement. The weekly class schedule is at the bottom. If you’re interested in personalized instruction, I do have a couple of 1:1 slots available beginning in April. In the meantime, thank you so much for reading and I hope to see you in class soon or check out my youtube channel for yoga classes.
-Jennifer