This Thing Called Movement

Latest Episodes:

Moving with Meaning with Marissa Hamera May 17, 2019

Show notes

Marissa Hamera is a holistic health coach and Master Trainer for Procedos. Similarly to myself, Marissa also hails from a professional dance background and found her way into fitness through her recovery from a series of injuries sustained during her dance career. She is incredibly thoughtful in her expertise, generous in her service to others, and holds a distinctively warm and welcoming presence for everyone she interacts with.

I loved digging into some of the nuances of Marissa’s experiences in dance, specifically her connection to Graham technique, what drew her to it, and how it shaped her understanding of the world and herself. We discussed the importance of diversity of movement practices, and how cultivating that diversity of movement ultimately supports all of the movement practices you are engaging with. And finally, one of the cornerstones of our conversation here was the importance of small scale changes and movement initiatives, and expanding on how there is no such thing as insignificant effort when it comes to movement and taking care of your body. I am so grateful to Marissa for devoting her time to recording with me and sharing her experiences and insight with all of us- this was such a fun conversation to have and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did!

To connect further with Marissa and learn more about her work, you can find her through her Instagram and website listed below:

IG:

@marissahamera

Email:

Marissa.hamera@gmail.com

Lastly- be sure to share this episode with friends if you enjoyed listening, and of course please leave us a review if you liked what you heard!

Exploring the Movement of Consciousness with Miriam Van Groen May 03, 2019

Show notes

Miriam van Groen is a fascinating human being, on the leading edge of facilitating some incredible and unconventional work. She specializes in Guided Tripping, an intentional practice that uses psychedelic substances as tools for opening awareness and creating fluid integration between blocked aspects of our consciousness. She observes and guides movement on an entirely different level, looking at the movement of thoughts, feelings, memory, of our consciousness as a whole, and how that ripples into the rest of our lives as a result. Psychedelics facilitate a high level of access to our bodies and felt sense, that can create a blueprint for that connection to continue in day-to-day life. Naturally, I was incredibly drawn to Miriam and her work, especially given the foundational premise of intentionality around the substances, the space, and the experience itself.

We created an incredibly rich dialogue together, exploring the interwoven nature of consciousness, the mind, the body, and the psyche. A few of my favorite topics we covered included understanding the default mode network we operate from and how to rewire it, the importance of being able to show up in work, relationships, and in life as your whole self, and how minor shifts in framing perspective create huge changes in how you relate to your world and experiences, specifically shifting from controlling and fixing to exploring and allowing curiosity to lead. There really were so may incredible threads we touched on, and I am so grateful Miriam took the time out of her incredibly busy work and travel schedule to meet with me and share her insights.

To connect further with Miriam and learn more about her work, you can find her through her website listed below:

www.guidedtripping.com

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/guidedtripping/

Lastly- be sure to share this episode with friends if you enjoyed listening, and of course please leave us a review if you liked what you heard!

Nature & Culture of Climbing with Ara Morton Apr 26, 2019

Show notes

Ara is an incredible climbing instructor and coach. I had the pleasure of meeting him this past fall and sharing movement practices, life stories, and exchanging so many different ideas about the relevance of movement in our lives. Ara has a particularly unique relationship with movement in the sense that climbing was a modality that took him completely by surprise, and resulted in his entire life become transformed by it and becoming more entrenched in it. He is incredibly impassioned by the wide variety of life skills and principles climbing demonstrates, and how the practice of climbing itself lends to assimilating many important life lessons.

We discussed the distinction of process over product, and how the very nature and culture of climbing is all centered around the never ending opportunities for growth and challenging oneself. Another important topic was the importance of facing both fear and failure, and how encountering both of these components with regularity allows us to be more adaptable and confident in life. And finally, we got to dig into the value of movement as a vehicle of healing, on a wide variety of spectrums. This episode was so much fun and we expanded so many different topics and concepts here- I hope you all find as much enjoyment listening to this conversation as I had in creating it!

To connect further with Ara and to learn more about his work at Beta Climbing and Fitness, you can check out their Instagram page or their website listed below:

Beta Climbing and Fitness:

https://www.betarocks.com/

@betarocks

Lastly- be sure to share this episode with friends if you enjoyed listening, and of course please leave us a review if you liked what you heard!

Living Inside of Your Authenticity with Tim Brainard Apr 19, 2019

Show notes

Timothy is a trailblazer, completely upending the way we not only see the world around us, but most importantly how we choose to live in it. His invention and development of WholeSystem Human is a unique integration of the various methodologies and practices that Tim has put to use in his life in order to find his authenticity and live within it elegantly. His various services and offerings within WholeSystem Human allow him to facilitate the same experience for every one of his clients with a sensitivity and profound understanding of human experience and feeling I have rarely seen. Not only have I had the incredible pleasure of being able to be in consistent conversation with his intuitive brilliance, but I’ve also been on the receiving end of his Mirror Sessions and other offerings and was blown away by the clarity and integration his time and focus delivered to me.

We had perhaps one of the most stimulating conversations I’ve had in my lifetime in the course of this episode. The major thread that lead us through it all was our exploration of words and their power; both as vessels of meaning that shift in context of conversation and time, and also in their ability to be containers for larger ideas and concepts, some of which by nature cannot be defined. Relationship ended up becoming a keystone topic of this conversation, and we extrapolated the many different ways relationship shows up in almost every aspect of our lives. And finally, perhaps my favorite part of this conversation was Tim’s discovery of sensitivity as the greatest gift movement has offered him. I cannot begin to lay out all the incredible wisdom and enthusiasm that permeates this whole episode, but I am thrilled that Tim and I were able to capture our excitement on all these topics and share it through this recording.

To connect further with Tim and to learn more his work, you can check out his website or his Facebook profile listed below:

www.wholesystemhuman.com

Facebook: WholeSystem Human

https://www.facebook.com/wholesystemhuman/

Facebook: Timothy Brainard

https://www.facebook.com/timothyrbrainard

Lastly- be sure to share this episode with friends if you enjoyed listening, and of course please leave us a review if you liked what you heard!

Building Resilience through Variability with John Sinclair Apr 12, 2019

Show notes

John is a highly accomplished sport and health engineer, educator, and businessman, devoted to helping people maximize not only sport specific performance optimization, but also in increasing life-span and longevity through health-oriented movement practices. For John, his principle focus in all of his work is health; how to promote better health in the body, what movement practices allow for health to flourish, and the various perspective shifts we can begin to make as a society to bring ourselves back into alignment with health. He is one of the most intelligent and impassioned people I know, and I am so grateful that he took the time to share his experiences and insight with us in this episode.

Our conversation lead us into some of the glaring discrepancies between the fitness industry and what being healthy actually looks and feels like, we discussed the relevance of relationship to movement, and how important it is for us to make decisions regarding our movement practice based on what we do or don’t like, and finally, how movement is always valuable for our bodies and our health, no matter how seemingly insignificant or inconsequential we may judge it to be. This was an incredibly profound and important conversation, one that brilliantly illustrated some of the gaps between the health we believe we are achieving in practices promoted by fitness at large and highlighting what true health actually looks like. John’s expertise and advice is always highly relevant, informative, and actionable; and I hope you walk away from this episode as inspired as I was recording it.

To connect further with John and learn more his work, you can check out his Instagram or head over to the website of his company My Take Seven listed below:

@authentichealthcoach

www.mytakeseven.com

Be sure to share this episode with friends if you enjoyed listening, and of course please leave us a review if you liked what you heard!

The Journey Towards Mastery with Alisha Smith Apr 05, 2019

Show notes

Alisha Smith is a highly-esteemed fitness professional, having worked across a multitude of roles and positions during her 15 years in the field. Currently, she is co-director of Integral, an aerial arts and movement studio in Sydney Australia, while also serving as a Master Instructor for Animal Flow. I am so excited to share this episode featuring Alisha, as she is such a thoughtful individual with so much passion for her craft, always seeking to gain more understanding in how she can be of even better service to her community and the world at large. It’s rare to meet someone who takes such serious consideration of utilizing their passion to help others make significant life changes, and Alisha is one of those special people out there.

We discussed the value of the learning process, and how coming into practices as a novice and how being on the journey of developing your mastery is such a rich place to live in and experience, the importance of listening to our bodies and being willing to receive all the information that is being held there, and one of my favorite topics, the importance of tuning into your own curiosity and interests in order to help spark and fuel your movement journey. I enjoyed every moment of this conversation and am so grateful to Alisha for generously sharing her experiences, her passion, and her love for movement with us all!

To connect further with Alisha, you can head over to her business website and Instagram account, or follow her on her personal IG listed below:

www.integralaerial.com

@integralaerial

@itsalishasmith

Be sure to share this episode with friends if you enjoyed listening, and of course please leave us a review if you liked what you heard!

Embracing Vulnerability in Movement with Jessica McCarthy Mar 29, 2019

Show notes

Jessica McCarthy is a dancer, healer, teacher, and so much more. Her work centers around holistic integration using movement, plant medicine, and reconnecting back to ourselves through ancient rituals of our ancestors. Jess and I had so many commonalities we discovered in this episode, including our mutual love of nature, tree-hugging, and dancing freely outdoors. She has such a deep sensorial and emotional connection to movement, the earth, and how these two powerful forces can create massive shifts when paired together. You can’t help but feel a grounded sense of safety and nourishment when hearing Jess speak- and that energy effortlessly flows through her work as well.

Some of the topics we unpacked included the concept of vulnerability, and how to navigate it when it comes up in our movement practices, the relevance of nature in reconnecting to our bodies and our humanity, and the power of sound. This was an exciting conversation for me to have as we uncovered new connecting threads between movement and life, and I hope you all enjoy listening to this episode as much as I did recording it!

To connect further with Jess directly, you can head over to her website and Instagram account listed below:

www.luminousarchitecture.com

@luminousarchitecture

Be sure to share this episode with friends if you enjoyed listening, and of course please leave us a review if you liked what you heard!

Enhancing Cognitive Functions via Movement with Ryan Glatt Mar 22, 2019

Show notes

Ryan is a Brain Health Coach and Psychometrist working for the Pacific Brain Health Center. If you are unfamiliar with the concept of a brain health coach and don’t know what a psychometrist is, it’s because Ryan is at the forefront of an entirely new approach to training, movement, and exercise. Rather than working with movement to create change in the body, Ryan’s research and work application is centered around how to create cognitive changes in the brain as a result of how we move our bodies. In other words, the movement protocols you engage with make targeted changes to how your brain works and improve specific cognitive functions. This has big implications for how we relate to and understand movement as a practice.

We had a fascinating conversation dissecting some of the intricacies of Ryan’s work and experience, looking into what lead him into the unique and highly relevant field he is in now, the wide array of impact different movement strategies have on the many aspects of cognitive function, and how we can begin to reorganize our understanding of movement so we can use it not just for the health of our bodies, but also our brains. I loved digging into some of the science of brain health and it’s connection to movement, and Ryan brilliantly showcased the value of movement as a medium that goes far beyond expanding physical prowess. I hope you all enjoy this episode as much as I did recording it, and walk away a little more inspired and excited to get moving!

To connect further with Ryan and learn more his work, you can check out his website or his Instagram profile listed below:

www.ryanglatt.com

@glatt.somatiq

If you want to learn more about the Online Cognitive Training Course Ryan has created for health professionals, head over to the following link:

https://somatiq.co/course-landing-page/

And finally, for the Cognitive Kali referenced in the episode, you can find it here:

https://www.cognitivekali.com/

Be sure to share this episode with friends if you enjoyed listening, and of course please leave us a review if you liked what you heard!

Finding Authenticity & Joy with Matthew Tolstoy Mar 15, 2019

Show notes

Matthew holds many different titles: he is a doctor of Chinese medicine and acupuncture, a hypnotherapist, as well as a Strength Coach for the NYC Ballet. In addition to being an incredibly versatile and accomplished professional in the medical, rehabilitative, and performance realms, Matt is also a deep thinker. I am so honored that he gave his time to share his experiences and understanding of movement on this episode- we got to unpack so many fascinating connections to movement and how it creates shifts in our lives.

A few stand-out moments of our conversation included; how the voice is a vessel to gauge a person’s sense of authenticity and comfort within themselves, the relative youth of the fitness and rehabilitation industries and the difficulties that these fields navigate as a result, the importance of relational experience in movement and rehabilitative practices, and finally, allowing the freedom for joy to come through in movement and in life. I loved every moment of this conversation and hope you all enjoy listening in to our musings and banter recorded here.

To connect further with Matt and learn more his work, you can check out his website or find him on Instagram as listed below:

www.matthewtolstoy.com

@matttolstoy

Be sure to share this episode with friends if you enjoyed listening, and of course please leave us a review if you liked what you heard!

Transformational Movement Experiences Through Community with Jules Bakshi Mar 08, 2019

Show notes

Jules Bakshi is a dancer, choreographer, holistic personal trainer, and a newly minted business owner. Her new movement/dance/fitness studio, GOOD MOVE, will be opening in Williamsburg Brooklyn spring 2019, where she is weaving together the movement experiences and practices that have had the greatest transformative affect in her life. She seeks to not only deliver these mediums to the public in a welcoming and nourishing manner, but also to create a supportive community that helps everyone step into the best version of themselves.

Jules is an incredibly intelligent, talented, and intuitive woman. She lives her life with fierce conviction in service to her friends, her family, and her clientele, and I am so honored that she came onto the podcast to share her journey and experiences surrounding movement. I hope you all enjoy the conversation we created here as we unpacked our mutual love for movement together.

To connect further with Jules directly or to visit GOOD MOVE, you can head over to the following websites and Instagram accounts listed below:

Jules Bakshi

@juiceboxshi

www.bodyelectricnyc.com

www.hotbitchnyc.com

GOOD MOVE

@goodmoveny

www.goodmovenyc.com

Be sure to share this episode with friends if you enjoyed listening, and of course please leave us a review if you liked what you heard!