Home in the Body in Finland
Imagine 80 people all moving with freedom and joy in a huge gymnasium to the gentle guidance of Karen Roeper’s intuitive coaching for two hours. Somehow the language barriers didn’t intrude, inhibitions were soon laid aside, and by the end connections had been made between people of all stripes, and the awesome two-day Home in the Body Symposium had been launched, featuring Karen Roeper as keynote presenter.
Developed and hosted by a team of Finnish Essential Motion leaders spearheaded by Riitta Saarikko, Home in the Body drew attendees from Europe and the US and brought together presenters from a wide variety of somatic, health and teaching fields. Topics and workshops varied from “How a hyper-sensitive person gains from body awareness” to “Body awareness as a tool for physiotherapy.”
The Home in the Body team will again be offering a new two-day Home in the Body seminar this year, October 26-27, 2017 in Tampere, Finland.
Stay tuned for new Essential Motion somatic leadership trainings in Europe, inspired by the work of our Finnish and Swedish Essential Motion partners.
Minnesota Workshop
The Minnesota Essential Motion regulars have found the time and space to bring Karen to their state almost every year. This year was no exception. Although the workshops were planned for February, the weather, at first cold, turned almost summery, encouraging everyone who attended to shake off the winter blues and move, move move!!
The workshops covered lots of ground, literally and figuratively. From familiar warm-ups to Karen’s creative discovery and curiosity experiences to long stretches of listening to and moving with our own bodies, the days together were full and fulfilling. Minneapolis’s plethora of spacious and bright indoor movement venues and its availability of great lunch spots supported a weekend of movement, a training day for Essential Motion trailblazers, and two days of in-depth private EM coaching for those who were able to take advantage.
On tap: a winter workshop followed by a Minnesota Intensive. Fall 2017 or early 2018 anyone?
Virtual EM Leadership
Last winter Jane and I participated in a series of monthly embodied awareness workshops hosted by Jamie McHugh. For three hours once a month for three months we were gently guided through breathing and other embodied awareness exercises via web voice conferencing by the somatic guru himself. Each monthly meet-up was followed by once a month private check-in via Skype with Jamie. We were both a bit uncertain at first whether this approach would work for Essential Motion. But after completing the course we decided to offer a virtual Essential Motion Leadership Training.
A core group of eight people who have worked and played in Essential Motion over the years enthusiastically joined up. Using a newer web conferencing application, Zoom, that allows stable voice and video conferencing, we dove in. We met as a group once a month to exchange discoveries and experiences, pose questions to, and seek insight from, one another. Between virtual meetings, Karen held virtual individual private sessions with each participant. For many participants, the virtual sessions proved to be as transformational and powerful as in-person sessions. As a result, Karen is now offering private virtual one-on-one sessions via Zoom.
Although we had to troubleshoot a few technical issues initially, we’ve been meeting now for seven months and are discovering how connected we can be even though we are spread across half the US.
EM-Embodied Awareness goes to school.
Roeper City and Country School in Birmingham, Michigan, has a long established reputation for supporting creativity and expression. Still it required an additional leap of faith for the school to bring Karen Roeper and Jane Flint and the Essential Motion work into a range of classrooms from pre-K through high school during the school’s already jam-packed 75th Anniversary Gala week!
Karen and Jane moved every 45 minutes to a different classroom, each with a different age group, and shared the essentials of Essential Motion with students and teachers alike. In two days time, we had touched more than a hundred students and teachers, infecting them all with micro-movements and play that brought most to a new understanding of the miracle of listening for the messages our bodies are constantly sending us.
Who knows? Essential Motion may be just what’s needed in all schools to help kids stay in touch with their intelligent bodies as their minds and social skills bloom.
This blog post submitted by Jane Flint 04.10.17