Welcome to Movement Invitations
What this substack is about
I really love to move. Movement makes me feel alive, present, and deeply connected to the people I move with. Many of my childhood memories include movement: climbing trees with friends in the garden, joining my dad on long-distance running, finding community in a Track and Field club. So, movement has for always had a strong presence in my life.
But I also know what impact the absence of movement can bring. In my late teens, in transitioning from school to university, modern life had me in its strong sedentary grip. Additionally discouraged by previous only partially rehabbed injuries, movement became a rarer occasion for me, usually in rather intense bursts of the sports that I was familiar with. Maybe, I was a also trying to punish myself for and to make up for hours, days, weeks hunched over exercise sheets, lab reports, and computer screens.
After two years of studying, I suddenly decided to force myself back into Track and Field training. My training volume shot up rapidly again. Initially, it actually felt quite good — I was hooked again. But about a half a year in, the enormous stress levels caught up with me. Older injuries resurfaced and new problems and pain emerged. The unsustainability of my approach to movement became apparent to me, viscerally.
I’d wager this is a story that many people know all too well. Your birthright of joyous movement and physicality slowly fading away, and attempts to coerce your body into some previous form of “fitness” causing more harm than good. Or feeling that you’ve never had the privilege of a movement-filled childhood and youth to begin with. Never got to know the feeling of movement feeling good.
Forward to the present (the full story is one for a later post): I found my way back to movement that feels good, sustainable, and more enjoyable than ever before. I’ve become a full-on movement nerd and enjoy a wide range of activities like Dance, Parkour, Bouldering, and Running. A few years ago, I got certified as a movement teacher, and since then have led regular classes in natural movement as well as workshops on various movement topics. Presently, I co-organize an Estactic Dance-type event with some friends, where we create a space for free movement and dance - a biweekly ritual giving me a lot of joy.
While my movement practice has already deepened a lot, I’m still curious to keep exploring the seemingly infinite and fascinating world of movement and physical practices. In many ways, this still feels like a beginning. The time and this platformfeels right to share these explorations with you.
What to expect
The following topics currently spark my curiosity and will feature on this substack:
thoughts and introduction to various movement practices (dance, climbing, running, parkour, somatics)
reconnecting to the body, listening to the body (and putting those into practice to not remain abstract concepts)
personal stories about movement
movement in our modern social context
natural movement
movement games and improvisation prompts
In each post, I aim to offer an invitation for movement. Something to try with your body, and see if you resonate with it. And I’d love to hear your thoughts, so that this also becomes a community of people that want to invite movement into their lives. So please subscribe if this sounds interesting!
Invitation
The first invitation is a Dance Improvisation prompt that I’ve been enjoying a lot lately:
Imagine you’re at a social dance event. But instead of finding another human to dance with, ask yourself to dance. Become your own dance partner and enjoy the intimacy of easing into your very own rhythm and style.
How does this change your movement compared to everyday movement or other dance situations (‘regular’ dance improvisation, partner dancing, …)?