Posted by Joe Rongo on Tue, Sep 01, 2009 @ 08:17 AM
We live in exciting times. In the last 30 years, scientific
knowledge of the human body has grown tremendously. Applications in the
fields of bodywork, sports psychology and the somatic arts have
similarly blossomed. You may not know many of these new developments in
movement awareness and expression. Yet, it is worth the effort to find
out about them as personal collaboration with your body is essential
for ongoing health and well-being as you age.
Many of us are ignorant about our bodily intelligences through no fault
of our own. Physical education in most schools, for example, is
primarily sports education, using the body as an instrument to
accomplish a competitive goal. Traditional physical education has
little to do with understanding bodily intelligence or physiological
self-regulation. It’s as if our bodies are high-end cameras with many
options, yet we are taught to use them as if they were simply
disposable ones.
In spite of the achievements of allopathic medicine and the
proliferation of new wonder drugs, the majority of illnesses in our
modern world are “lifestyle diseases”. These disorders, as doctors have
pointed out, can be positively influenced by even minimal physical
activity. The current debate over healthcare reform has not begun to
address how teaching people to be more responsible, and responsive,
with their own bodies can dramatically alter the landscape of medicine.
After many years of working with the body and its expression,
especially with people challenging chronic disease, I began to
formulate the concept of “movement as medicine”. What can we do for our
health with what we have been given by nature? What technologies are
hard-wired in our system that can be easily accessed and activated? I
identified what I consider the five basic languages of bodily
intelligence: breath, vocalization, contact, stillness, and movement.
These five languages can be used for an articulate dialogue within your
body, promoting physical health, emotional well-being and creative
satisfaction.
These five languages are all forms of physical activity, so there are
multiple pathways to pursue. Your health is not dependent on only a few
standardized forms such as weightlifting, aerobics or even Yoga. Once
you learn the grammar and vocabulary of these five languages,
connection with your body is available at any moment. It is not
necessary to create another segment in an overly scheduled life to
squeeze in movement time. You are movement! Whether you take even a
few minutes sprinkled here and there throughout the day, or give
yourself a longer time frame for practice, the use of the five
languages can make the difference between living anxiously and
breathlessly, or graciously and securely.
For this training in Arizona:
Copyright 2009 Jamie McHugh – all right reserved
Jamie McHugh, RSME is a Registered Somatic Movement Educator and
a fine art photographer. He is a master teacher of somatics, and has
taught body-based work internationally for thirty years. Jamie
developed “Somatic Expression”, an innovative approach to somatic
movement education and the expressive arts. He is adjunct faculty in
the Holistic Health Department at John F Kennedy University and at
Tamalpa Institute in the San Francisco Bay Area. His teachers include
Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, Emilie Conrad, and Anna Halprin.
www.somaticexpression.com