Pelvis and Sitting Bones - Freeing the Lower Back Through Mapping and Movement

🎥  VIDEO 🎥 

https://youtu.be/F5r9z22v8w0

The sitting bones are the two curved bones that make up the bottom of your pelvis. The fancy name is the ischial tuberosity (ya, that’s why we say “sitting bones.”)

We often experience discomfort after sitting for a long time if we’ve been balancing on the coccyx (tail bone) instead of these two majestic rockers. As a way to bring freedom back into the torso, we can explore the movement of the pelvis rolling around the head of the femur (thigh bone) by rocking forward and back on the sitting bones.

There are many ways into freeing your lower back from pain - this is just one exploration using some basic body mapping and gentle movement. 

🪑 Finding Freedom In Sitting

~ VIDEO ~

https://youtu.be/I-z_pEcQCtc

🪑 Here are some helpful landmarks that can offer more freedom and ease in sitting. 

🪑 Sitting bones

While seated on a firm surface (ie: not a couch - unless you have a wooden couch?), explore some movement in order to feel your sitting bones making contact with the chair.  As you rock side to side, forward and back, can you sense these two bony landmarks? 

🪑 Here’s what I want you to know:

While sitting, these rounded bones at the bottom of the pelvis are the base of support for your torso.  

So you can let go in your tail bone, release any holding in your hips and lower back, and unclench your thighs.

You can allow your heels to drop into the floor and release your calf muscles.

Can you hinge forward and back while allowing the hips, knees, and ankle joints to be free and easy?  

Can you do “vaudeville legs” while you hinge forward and back?  (In-joke from the video!)

🪑 Play around with including your head-spine joint while you rock and roll on your sitting bones.

Notice that your spine grows upward out of your pelvis.

When you hinge forward and back from the hip joints, your WHOLE TORSO PLUS HEAD comes out n the journey.

Add some 🎶 - what do you notice?

🌳 Ground Thyself 🌳

🎥 REPOST 🎥 

🌳 Ground Thyself 🌳 

https://youtu.be/dKVzDZjMzIQ

🌳 Constructive Rest helps to quiet the body, mind, and spirit. It’s like a “reset” button for your whole system. Using F.M. Alexander’s helpful Directions, we can redirect our thinking in a conscious, constructive way to improve our overall coordination. Eventually, with daily practice and awareness, this improved coordination runs in the background while we go about our daily activities. 

🌳 Bonus: get outside and lie on the ground. Touch the grass. Feel the earth. Gaze at the trees and the sky. Feel the breeze on your skin. Smell the flowers. Wake up your senses by immersing yourself in nature. Engaging the senses and giving the thinking/planning mind a rest can reset your system. After 10min of outdoor full-earth-contact Constructive Rest, notice how you’re feeling. What has changed?  What’s happening with your breath?

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🌱 I am offering weekly pay-what-you-can #CommunitySessions.  No Alexander Technique or movement experience necessary. 

🌱 You can join the Exploration Community on Facebook to find out about upcoming workshops and classes: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2512473488968237/

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#alexandertechnique #breath #calmdown #selfregulation #singing #voice #voiceteacher #movement #intention #change #selfcare #wholeness #grounding #earthing #senses #feelyourway #naturetherapy #forestbathing 

🦶 Let Your Feet Guide You

🦶 Let Your Feet Guide You

🦶 When is the last time you felt the grass between your toes?  The soil under your feet?  A tiny twig snap beneath your heel?

🦶 In this morning’s Wholeness in Motion class with Babette Lightner, we explored the springiness of our feet. The springy meeting place of bare foot and ground. 

🦶 Mushing and squishing the ground with my feet woke up every joint in my body!  I felt more connected to the ground, more solid and spacious. And I felt a springy bounciness flow up through my whole system!  I bounced and jiggled as I sang “Porgi amor.”  For the first time I truly felt that I was singing FROM and WITH my feet!  

🦶 Your bare foot receives and transmits so much information - about your environment, about your balance and gait, and more. A quick search of “barefoot walking/running” will offer you further research if you’re interested. But even if you simply kick off your shoes and feel some grass between your toes, perhaps you’ll wake up in a new way. I might just treat my neighbours to an impromptu barefoot recital this week.... 😉 

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🌱 I am offering weekly pay-what-you-can #CommunitySessions.  No Alexander Technique or movement experience necessary. 

🌱 You can join the Exploration Community on Facebook to find out about upcoming workshops and classes: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2512473488968237/

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#alexandertechnique #barefoot #foothealth #grounding #barefeet #vocalfreedom #wholeness #singing #voice #singer #voiceteacher #movement #movementteacher #voicework #bodywork

🗣 Shaking Out the Sound

🎥 NEW VIDEO 🎥 

🗣 Shaking Out the Sound

https://youtu.be/UkCxA01idjA

🗣 Inspired by Kristin Linklater’s book Freeing the Natural Voice, this shaking sequence continues to explore releasing the breath and sound on a sighing impulse, sending a message of release and un-efforting to your system. 

🗣 You can communicate an intention of release with your own hands by using gentle palpating and manual shaking at the belly and sternum. At the same time, touch can heighten your kinaesthetic awareness in these zones of the torso (areas where we often accumulate holding and effort). 

🗣 For more information on Kristin Linklater’s work, visit:

www.linklatervoice.com 

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🌱 The next weekly pay-what-you-can #CommunitySession is Wednesday, May 6th - 11:00am EDT - Voice and Movement Play with Special Guest, Maureen Batt - PWYC (suggested $20) No Alexander Technique or movement experience necessary. 

🌱 You can join the Exploration Community on Facebook to find out about upcoming workshops and classes: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2512473488968237/

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#alexandertechnique #shaking #release #breath #sigh #vocalfreedom #wholeness #singing #voice #singer #voiceteacher #movement #movementteacher #voicework #bodywork

🎈 Shake Your Sillies Out - Finding Liveliness During a Sedentary Time

🎈 Shake Your Sillies Out - Finding Liveliness During a Sedentary Time

https://youtu.be/ru9FXVizi90

🎈 This is the first in several Shake Your Sillies Out videos!  During times when I’m feeling chained to my desk/computer, I often find it difficult to get moving. I know my body will feel better once I start, but sometimes it’s hard to mobilize. These light and playful prompts can be a quick way to stimulate the body and incorporate breath flow and sound flow in just a few minutes. 

🎈Self-regulation is key.  As you explore shaking in your own practice, start with short sessions.  Take it easy.  Don’t overdo it.  Even if you don’t feel like you’re working hard, this work works YOU in a deep and transformational way.  Be gentle with yourself, and ease into your next activity after these sessions.

🎈 As with all of the breath/sound/movement explorations I offer, there is vast research and theory underpinning the benefits of shaking.  If you’re content to engage with this work and make your own meaning, I encourage you to keep doing your own personalized research, drawing on your experience and sensations to guide you.  If, however, you’re curious to infuse your exploration with some reading and digging, here are a few resources I found on the benefits of shaking:

Therapeutic Tremoring - Shake Off Stress And Trauma

ACE Blog, 2018

• This blog post discusses the benefits of shaking as a means of releasing stress, anxiety, and traumatic experiences, drawing comparisons to the animal world.  Animals will often find a quiet place to shake and tremor following a stressful encounter.

• The post also offers links to the work of Peter Levine (trauma therapist), as well as offering links to some simple shaking exercises from various disciplines and methologies.

• https://www.acesconnection.com/blog/therapeutic-tremoring-shake-off-stress-and-trauma

Tension & Trauma Release Exercises, TRE

• Developed by Dr. David Berceli, PhD, these exercises follow a progression along muscle trains started from the feet.  This is one of many approaches that incorporates shaking. 

• Video link provides anatomical information, focusing on the psoas muscle and pelvis as the “seat” of the fight or flight response.

• https://traumaprevention.com/what-is-tre/ 

Can shaking exercises improve stress and PTSD?

Sally Turner, Feb2020

• This article explains TRE in more depth, and provides links to other resources.

• https://patient.info/news-and-features/can-tension-release-exercises-improve-stress-and-ptsd

🎈There is a TON of information out there - feel free to share your research with me!  I’d love to learn from you.

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🌱 The next weekly pay-what-you-can #CommunitySession is Thursday, April 30th - 2:00pm EDT - Restorative Floor Work - PWYC (suggested $10). No Alexander Technique or movement experience necessary. 

🌱 You can join the Exploration Community on Facebook to find out about upcoming workshops and classes: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2512473488968237/

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#alexandertechnique #shakeitout #shakeitoff #shaking #selfregulation #enliven #teaching #performance #performer #singing #voice #singer #voiceteacher #wholeness #movement #movementteacher #actor #acting

🤸‍♂️Passive Stretching vs Dynamic Movement - To stretch or not to stretch? Or, what actually IS stretching?

🤸‍♂️Passive Stretching vs Dynamic Movement - To stretch or not to stretch?  Or, what actually IS stretching?

🤸‍♀️I did a Wholeness in Motion class with Babette Lightner this morning where the focus was on stretching vs dynamic movement. Despite my long history of dance, movement, yoga, running, and the Alexander Technique, I’ve always felt myself to be inflexible.  I have sustained many mild injuries by trying and forcing and contorting myself into shapes that my body wasn’t warmed up to be in, or simply isn’t built to accommodate. Usually because I was trying to achieve a form, rather than following my inner knowing. 

🤸‍♀️Babette has helped me to understand that dynamic movement (not passive stretching) is what will support my system - INCLUDING MY VOICE - to be flexible FOR THE TASKS OF DAILY LIFE. (Shouty emphasis mine.)

🤸‍♀️ Today I watched a  fascinating and enlightening (for me) video podcast about stretching.  Here are the details pasted from the TVO Podcasts episode:

“Doug Richards from the Physical Education & Health department at University of Toronto St. George on Stretching: The Truth. Richards discusses the science and the fiction of the benefits of stretching prior to exercise.”

🤸‍♀️The information Doug Richards provides is a combination of detailed anatomical offerings and accessible metaphors and functional illustrations. Highly recommend for anyone who uses their body on the daily (which is, you know, all of us). Here’s the link:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/doug-richards-on-stretching-the-truth/id336356622?i=1000339822468

🤸‍♀️And here is where you can learn more about Babette’s work: www.wim.life

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🌱 The next weekly pay-what-you-can #CommunitySession is Thursday, April 30th - 2:00pm EDT - Restorative Floor Work - PWYC (suggested $10). No Alexander Technique or movement experience necessary. 

🌱 You can join the Exploration Community on Facebook to find out about upcoming workshops and classes: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2512473488968237/

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#alexandertechnique #stretch #stretching #dynamicmovement #teaching #performance #performer #singing #voice #singer #voiceteacher #wholeness #movement #movementteacher #actor #acting

🌺 On Becoming Who You Are

🌺 On Becoming Who You Are

( 📷 by Erin Bardua, AT for Musicians Workshop, Mount Allison University)

🌺 I find inspiration on every page of Alexander Technique teacher Tommy Thompson’s book, Touching Presence. I wanted to share this entire passage with you. It’s about trusting yourself. Whether you are singing or dancing or performing or playing an instrument or parenting or teaching or leading or public speaking, trust your experience. Trust your skill and knowledge, trust that you are enough, you are exactly right for what you are called to do in this moment. 

🌺 “In the end, all of the work is about you, and who you wish to share with another. You can run around looking for things - for love, esteem, etc.  But really you just need to share who you are. You use all of what you learn in a training to discover and share who you actually are.  ...

🌺 “Trust who you as a person have become through your willingness to grow and give away what you have learned. Trust yourself. For me the work, the teaching, is about learning to trust the ever-evolving birthing of yourself, and of appreciating the fluid nature of identity.” - Tommy Thompson, Touching Presence

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🌱 The next weekly pay-what-you-can #CommunitySession is Thursday, April 30th - 2:00pm EDT - Restorative Floor Work - PWYC (suggested $10). No Alexander Technique or movement experience necessary. 

🌱 You can join the Exploration Community on Facebook to find out about upcoming workshops and classes: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2512473488968237/

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#alexandertechnique #trustyourself #youareenough #breathe #being #teaching #performance #performer #singing #voice #singer #voiceteacher #wholeness #movement #movementteacher #actor #acting

🖼 Draw It Out: Creating a Creative Moment

🖼 REPOST 🖼 

🖼 Draw it Out: Creating a Creative Moment

🖼 Sure, you’re an adult. You’re busy all day long, doing adult things. But ... when is the last time you engaged in PLAY?  Consider revisiting a favourite pastime from childhood. For me today, it’s drawing with sparkly gel pens.  Take some time today to doodle. As you are allowing yourself to be in this playful, creative state, notice how you feel in your body.  What sensations arise?  Notice your thoughts. Are they different than before you started drawing?  What has changed?  Sing something. What feels different?

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🌱 The next weekly PWYC #CommunitySession is Monday, April 20th at 12:00pm EDT - Shake Your Sillies Out (suggested $10). No Alexander Technique or movement experience necessary. 

🌱 You can join the Exploration Community on Facebook to find out about upcoming workshops and classes: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2512473488968237/

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#alexandertechnique #drawing #selfsupport #art #selfcare #creativity #inspiration #selfreflection #choice #unlearning #colouring #gelpens #nervoussystem #listentoyourbody

🤲🏻 Touch

🤲🏻 Touch

“The point of touch is where something comes back to life.” - Gianni Francesetti, Gestalt therapist

🤲🏻 Touch doesn’t always mean physical touch. We touch each other with our eyes, our words, our hearts, our presence.  

🤲🏻 When physical touch isn’t possible, presence becomes even more meaningful. We hold space for each other with gentle eyes, an open face, and patient listening. We receive each other through our own groundedness. When I can feel my own body, I can receive you. 

🤲🏻 We bring each other back to life through meaningful contact - touch. 

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🌱 The next weekly PWYC #CommunitySession is Monday, April 20th at 12:00pm EDT - Shake Your Sillies Out (suggested $10). No Alexander Technique or movement experience necessary. 

🌱 You can join the Exploration Community on Facebook to find out about upcoming workshops and classes: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2512473488968237/

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#alexandertechnique #voice #singing #touch #presence #selfcare #wholeness #singer #voiceteacher #movement #movementteacher #voicework #bodywork #movementmedicine

🧹 The Big Sweep: Getting Present While Embracing Energy and Aliveness

🎥 NEW VIDEO 🎥 

🧹 The Big Sweep: Getting Present While Embracing Energy and Aliveness

https://youtu.be/waRn3bnZCfk

🧹 Being present doesn’t always have to feel quiet or still. Sometimes we need to get present by embracing our energy, dynamism, and aliveness. 

🧹 This simple sweeping activity can give you the lively pause and physical contact you need to ground yourself for the work you need to do or the practice session or lesson you have to teach. 

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The next #CommunitySession is coming up: 

🌱 Wednesday, April 15th - 1:00pm EDT - Grounding Floor Work - PWYC (suggested $10) - REPLAY available for those who register before the session starts!

Register by email: alisonjanetaylorstudio@gmail.com 

🌱 PWYC #CommunitySessions happen weekly and are open to all who would like to recuperate and move joyfully together. 

🌱 You can join the Exploration Community on Facebook to stay connected with like-minded folks and find out about upcoming workshops and classes: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2512473488968237/

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#alexandertechnique #grounded #aliveness #move #listen #selfcare #wholeness #singing #voice #singer #voiceteacher #movement #movementteacher #voicework #bodywork

🌊 Adjust Your Sails - Alexander Technique for Uncertain Times

🌊 Adjust Your Sails - Alexander Technique for Uncertain Times 

🌊 The wind is blowing, friends. I can feel it. And I can feel you feeling it. We are feeling each other. And yet, somehow we are holding our ground together. We are adapting. We are adjusting our sails. 

🌊 Sometimes resilience doesn’t feel like resilience. Sometimes it feels like being pushed backward. Sometimes it feels like getting the wind knocked out of you.  Sometimes it feels like giving up. Surrendering. 

🌊 This is a time of loss. Of grieving and letting go and adapting and adjusting and learning and moving forward and being apart and together and connecting. This is a time of newness and not knowing. This is a time of uncharted waters and adjusting our sails.  

🌊 The Alexander Technique invites us to venture into the unknown, and offers us awareness of what is, and the opportunity to choose how to respond. I’m gently inviting you to listen to what you’re body is asking for in this moment. Where do you feel the storm in your body?  Where do you feel the wind buffeting you?  What would happen if you moved with the storm?  Dance the storm. Allow it to rage within you and move through you. For as long and as loud as you need to, let it rage and buffet. Trust your beautiful system to adjust its sails.  This might be resilience today. 

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🌱 The next online PWYC #CommunitySession is Friday, April 10th: Voice Play (physical stretching and some interactive vocal improv)

Register by e-mail: alisonjanetaylorstudio@gmail.com 

🌱 You can join the Exploration Community on Facebook to stay connected with like-minded folks and find out about upcoming workshops and classes: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2512473488968237/

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#alexandertechnique #resilience #support #dance #listen #selfcare #wholeness #singing #voice #singer #voiceteacher #movement #movementteacher #voicework #bodywork

🌳 Finding Inner Support: Alexander Technique for the Spine

🎥 NEW VIDEO 🎥 

🌳 Finding Inner Support: Alexander Technique for the Spine

https://youtu.be/lErxrjZu3UE

🌳 In times of vulnerability, sometimes we lose our sense of support. The walls may feel closer. The sky may feel overwhelming. The ground may seem elusive. 

🌳 In these times, it may seem impossible to slow down. Stillness may seem like a scary place - if I stop moving, I’ll have to think my thoughts and feel my feelings ... no thanks!

🌳 I want you to know that if you’re feeling any of these things, you’re not alone.  

🌳 This is a gentle invitation to connect to your body in a light and playful way. Or not. Follow your inner compass, as Babette Lightner says, and do what feels right for you. I’ll be here for you when the time is right. In the meantime, take good, sweet, loving care of yourself. 

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🌱 The next online PWYC #CommunitySession is Friday, April 10th: Voice Play (physical stretching and some interactive vocal improv)

Register by e-mail: alisonjanetaylorstudio@gmail.com 

🌱 You can join the Exploration Community on Facebook to stay connected with like-minded folks and find out about upcoming workshops and classes: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2512473488968237/

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#alexandertechnique #spine #support #slowdown #selfcare #wholeness #singing #voice #singer #voiceteacher #movement #movementteacher #voicework #bodywork

🌸 Expectations vs Experimentation

🌸 Expectations vs Experimentation

🌸 When I anticipate an outcome, when I want something to turn out a certain way, I’m really telling myself, “I won’t be okay if this doesn’t go the way I need it to.”  I can feel myself shrink, pull away, brace for impact. My shoulders get tight, my jaw tenses, my brow furrows. I want to splat my fears and anxiety onto others, even though it just makes the feeling worse. 

🌸 I’m surrounded by a lot of uncertainty right now. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I’m trusting that I’ll be able to find my ground no matter the outcome, and at the same time I’m aware of the discomfort I feel in not knowing.  Taking life one day at a time takes work. It’s okay to be tired. It’s okay to need a break. No one said we need to be relentlessly optimistic. In fact, it’s sort of a radical act to invite the whole gamut of feelings, isn’t it?

🌸 How can I bring an experimenter’s curiosity to my present mood?  An experiment doesn’t last forever - it’s a timed event that has a beginning, middle, and an end. And then I get to reassess, based on my experience of the experiment. 

🌸 Just for today - or ten seconds - I’m going to try an experiment: I’m going to sit in my couch, pinned down by a kitty cat in my lap, and NOT PLAN ANYTHING. (I know - it sounds terrifying to me, too!). No expectations. Just curiosity. And after ten seconds, I’m going to see how I feel. Do I want to try another ten seconds? What does my body want to do right now?  What happens if I listen?

🌸 What’s your ten-second experiment today?

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#alexandertechnique #expectation #experiment #curiosity #sensation #wholeness #singing #voice #singer #voiceteacher #movement #movementteacher #voicework #bodywork

🥔 Couch Potato - Building a Supportive Nest

🎥 NEW VIDEO 🎥 

🥔 Couch Potato - Building a Supportive Nest

https://youtu.be/9Wjyoh8fmqw 

🥔 This is a moment for you to rest. Find a soft and comfy seat.  Gather some cushions and blankets. 

🥔 Sit quietly for a moment. How are you doing today?  Notice any sensations that are present: not good or bad, just present. Notice what part of you might need a rest in this moment. Is your head tired from thinking and planning?  Are your shoulders weighed down today?  Does your back need a break from holding you up all day?  Does your whole self need a rest after constantly preparing for the next new challenge or change?  

🥔 Find a way to snuggle into your comfy seat to support your body.  Put a cushion behind your back. Feel the back of you making contact with your the pillow. Fidget and wiggle as much as you need to to really sink into your pleasurable, satisfying, supportive nest. Bring a cushion or two to the front of your torso: your chest and belly. Using your hands and arms, apply a gentle pressure with the pillow so you can really feel the contact. Bring your attention to your inner depth between your back against the cushion and the pillows against your front.  Without trying to change or fix anything, simply notice what you notice. 

🥔 Allow yourself to take in the pleasure of your supportive nest, the pleasure of resting.  You have nothing to achieve or do for the next few moments. Notice what emotions and sensations arise for you from this place. 

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#alexandertechnique #rest #nervoussystem #selfregulation #sensation #wholeness #singing #voice #singer #voiceteacher #movement #movementteacher #voicework #bodywork

🌱 #CommunitySessions ONLINE Schedule for April 2020

🌱 #CommunitySessions ONLINE Schedule for April 2020:

🌱 Wednesday, April 1st - 10:00am EDT - Grounding Floor Work - PWYC (suggested $10)

🌱 Saturday, April 4th - 11:30am EDT - Voice and Alexander Technique Workshop - PWYC (suggested $35)

🌱 Friday, April 10th - 11:30am EDT - Voice and Movement Play with Special Guest Maureen Batt - PWYC (suggested $20)

🌱 Wednesday, April 15th - 1:00pm EDT - Grounding Floor Work - PWYC (suggested $10)

🌱 Monday, April 20th - 12:00pm EDT - Shake Your Sillies Out - PWYC (suggested $10)

Register by email at alisonjanetaylorstudio@gmail.com 

~ integrating voice and body through movement ~

🌱 ONLINE WORKSHOP: Voice and Movement Play Time with special guest Maureen Batt 🌱

🌱 ONLINE WORKSHOP: Voice and Movement Play Time with special guest Maureen Batt 🌱 

Have you been sitting for hours a day recently?  (Yes, yes I have.)  Is your body a bit heavy and your voice a bit stuck?  (Yes, it’s like you’re reading my mind!)  Come and play with us!  #CommunitySessions 

In this light and playful 60min session, you will get a taste of the voice and movement integration work that Maureen and I have been co-creating over the past several years.  There will be a short physical warmup, followed by some sensory and listening explorations.  Next we will play some voice and sound-making games and create a beautiful, joyful, messy, and cacophonous ruckus together.  

What: Online Voice and Movement Play Time

Date: Friday, April 10th, 2020

Time: 11:30am - 12:30pm EDT

Location: ONLINE (you’ll receive a Zoom link once you register)

Cost: PAY-WHAT-YOU-CAN (paid in full at the time of registration) (suggested fee is CAD$20)

~ Integrating voice and body through movement ~

Register by e-mail: alisonjanetaylorstudio@gmail.com 

You can join the Exploration Community on Facebook to stay connected with like-minded folks and find out about upcoming workshops and classes: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2512473488968237/

🌎 The Wholeness of Uncertainty - Blueprints for Resilience

🌎 The Wholeness of Uncertainty - Blueprints for Resilience 

🌎 Unknown. Uncertainty. Instability. These are words that may resonate with you right now.  Notice how these words live in your body. What sensations do they invite?  What happens if you stay with those sensations a little longer, and get curious about them?  Breathe. Contact the ground. Contact these sensations. What are these sensations trying to communicate to you?

🌎 Wholeness.  Your system - body, thoughts, sensation, emotion - is a complex interconnection of both stability and instability. Very little is fused or static in us. Your thoughts are constantly changing. Your musculature is constantly recalibrating to balance you. You are constantly attending to new sensations. Your emotions ebb and flow in response to your inner experience, and the world around you. You are designed to adapt to uncertainty and instability. It’s in your nature and in your human design. 

🌎 What can you learn in this moment about your capacity for unknowing, uncertainty, and instability around you?

Life is a vast, unknowable movement of Wholeness with no one separate from it and nothing outside it.

• from The Light of Discovery by Toni Packer

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#alexandertechnique #nervoussystem #selfregulation #sensation #wholeness #singing #voice #singer #voiceteacher #movement #movementteacher #voicework #bodywork

🦄 FREE ONLINE CONSTRUCTIVE REST SESH THIS FRI-YAY

🦄 FREE ONLINE CONSTRUCTIVE REST SESH THIS FRI-YAY - #CommunitySessions

This Friday, March 27th at 11:30am EDT, I'll be hosting a FREE Constructive Rest restorative practice in my Zoom room. If you'd like to join us, throw on some comfies and bring your yoga mat for some restful floor work. Register by e-mail at alisonjanetaylorstudio@gmail.com, just so I have a head-count, and to receive the Zoom link.

Read on for some more info...

BITE-SIZED COMMUNITY-CONNECTING SESSIONS IN MY ZOOM ROOM

Now more than ever I can feel the strong sense of community amongst performers, artists, and teachers…and I want to invite YOU into this amazing, supportive community!

Each week I will be hosting a community-connecting session in my Zoom room (link below). In these short 20-45min sessions, we will explore grounding and calming activities - all behind the privacy of your “mute” button AND you can turn off your video for maximum privacy! - such as:

• Constructive Rest and floor work - i.e.: Alexander Technique floor work to calm the body and mind

• gentle guided movement practice

• intuitive, improvisational movement - i.e.: Move however you like for 4 minutes! Shake your sillies out!

• sound-making and vocalizing and singing - i.e.: Allow the vibration of your voice to resonate throughout your body and regulate your breathing and nervous system.

Currently these sessions are FREE, but may bump to pay-what-you-can in the future. I’ll keep you posted about payment methods to make it easy for you to register, pay, and drop-in when you like. I *may* also be including SPECIAL GUESTS in these sessions to offer an even wider variety of supportive and creative outlets to our community.

The first session will be this Friday, March 27th at 11:30am (EDT) - FREE, and open to all. It will be a Constructive Rest restorative practice, so bring your yoga mat and your comfy clothes! Once you register you'll receive the Zoom link to access the session. Please register by e-mail at alisonjanetaylorstudio@gmail.com

🐒 Honouring Where You’re At - Alexander Technique for Finding Stillness (When You’re Feeling the Opposite Of Still!)

🎥 NEW VIDEO 🎥 

🐒 Honouring Where You’re At - Alexander Technique for Finding Stillness (When You’re Feeling the Opposite Of Still!)

https://youtu.be/k8GYmyNuCgY 

🐒 Calm. Stillness. Grounded. Feeling your breath move in and out of your body. Sounds nice, right?  But what if you’re feeling the opposite of calm?  What if you’re bouncing off the walls or feeling stuck? Or super amped?  

🐒 I co-created this practice with a student who came into her lesson apologizing for being full of energy because this work is about “being calm and still.”  

🐒 Is it?  Or is this work about honouring where you’re at?  Right now. In THIS moment. Not where you wish you were or where you were last lesson, but where you’re at in the here and now. And making space for ALL of you. 

🐒 So if you’ve got ants in your pants, dance with them. Move your body. Let those ants jiggle and and lurch and lunge you around the room until you’ve redirected all of that wonderful energy into something new. And THEN see what (relative) stillness feels like. For you. In THIS moment. 

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