Authentic Movement

There's a process tool I like very much called Authentic Movement. It comes from the world of Dance Movement therapy, and can be considered a form of somatic meditation and maybe even art, depending how you look at it. 

Authentic movement has a beautifully simple creative restraint: set a timer, close your eyes and let your body move however it wants to, without trying to look beautiful, or do any special steps, poses or gestures. Just whatever the body wants to do.

Authentic movement is done without music, I think to help us peel down to the core without external referents. It's fine to make noise, breathe weird or just lie on the floor the whole time - whatever arises is right.

The practice, over time, builds a relationship with body and helps us tap into its intelligence, a nonverbal dimension of Being that responds well to the loving intention to tune in to see what it has to say. Authentic Movement connect us to inner sensations and images that arrive in the body channel, and literally embodies what we need to express in flesh and form.

We can use Authentic Movement in the original, agenda-less form, and I find it can also be done around a specific question or concern. For example, I might ask myself, "What's this pain in my knee about?" or "Why am I afraid of my email inbox right now?" and then see what comes out in the course of the authentic movement. 

If you aren't familiar with it, and even if you are, here’s my invitation to you: play around with this process and see how you like it.

I've made an example here. (Password is LionSong). As you will see, it is not about making something that an outsider would call visually pleasing, it is about sinking into, allowing and following an internal process. It can be vulnerable. While you won't see what I get out of it by looking at it, you will see basically what it is - free movement in a restricted timeframe, for no other purpose than self-connection.

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How it Works

I recommend giving yourself a short-ish time box, such as 3 - 20 minutes, though some practitioners will go for hours. That, of course, is completely up to you, but I'm a big believer in short time boxes until such time as we feel mega safe in that channel and want to go deep sea diving instead of snorkeling because we are just so excited to see what's down there.

To start, close your eyes (unless you prefer to have them open, that's fine too). Take some breaths to settle and then wait in stillness (allowing that to go on as long as you like) until an impulse to move arrives. 

It might be small, it might start out as a little bit of rocking and swaying. Allow that impulse to move to get bigger and finally to grow into and maybe even complete whatever action or gesture that it seems to want to do in you. Follow that, allowing it to go on until it feels done, then allow yourself to wait until the next genuine impulse arises.   

As you give your body full permission to move in whatever way feels authentic - expressing movements arising from within, not chosen or imposed, but rather allowed - observe yourself: what you do, what it feels like, if any images or sensations accompany your movement, and so on. It is ok to be still for long periods, or to do things that seem chaotic or incomplete. The only rule is that you let the body be in charge of the movement, versus you making the body dance the way you think it should. 

Witnessing

In traditional authentic movement, we pair off with a witness who serves as a mirror, helping the mover reflect on what occurred by speaking back what she saw in a neutral-to-loving way. Assuming you are trying this out by yourself and don't have such a friendly witness handy, it works just fine, I find, to do it alone and jot down inner discoveries afterwards.

However you approach your authentic movement practice, you are not doing much more than letting your body play around, the way you might let your dog out into the backyard to run around in a safe space. In the container of the time box, you track process signals, witnessing your own body as she does her thing. The more you do it, the more readily the body "speaks", as though she comes to understand this as your time to hang out together. And you listen.

Authenticity

I wouldn't get too hung up on being authentic per se - sometimes it's part of the practice to notice, "Ah there's that dance move I learned in 8th grade again", and it's not at all reasonable to expect that you won't use any stale, rehearsed, stuck movement patterns. The point is, you will hold it all in loving witness, and in general intend to just do whatever unfolds naturally. Sometimes what the body is speaking to us about or through is one of our most inauthentic movements.   

Whether you're returning to authentic movement or trying it out for the first time, I bet you'll have a juicy time exploring, if this is ringing your bells.

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Thumbnail image reverently appropriated from Ruth Heller's Animals Born Alive and Well.