Into the Body

Every moment in life we exist through the body. Body is a home. A shelter. An archive. A challenge. A compass. A map. Body is multitudes. A holobiont. In these sessions we train attentiveness. Breathing, posture, movement, the way we hold ourselves altogether, influence our presence, the way we think, act, feel and perceive the world and ourselves. The basis of these sessions is learning to pay attention to the body, subjective experiences and how they influence who we are, and thus to be actively responsible for our well-being. This process involves heightening attentiveness to the now without trying to make it be different than what it is, as a way of being honestly present, as a way into embodied and unified attention.

Training attention we expand our choices: when we become more aware of what is happening our choices move from unconscious automatisms to mindful decisions. Through choices we sculpt our lives. These sessions combine movement, awareness and other embodiment practices, as well as offer theoretical insights, to merge understanding and being. We become what we practice. Training awareness, spaciousness, expanding movement and breathing capacities, gaining an ability to shift between different qualities, we learn to embody new ways of being, because body is not a fixated being, body is a process.

“Into the body” is offered as a course with an extended curriculum of exercises, theoretical discussions and practices, that aim to raise body awareness and enable participants to become more conscious of their own perceptions and abilities, of the inner resources of strength, silence and presence, as well as encourage concentration, focus, relaxation. Such course offers a way to discover the existing connections between mind, perception, expression, emotions, behaviour and the physical body and to integrate these different parts into a more harmonious whole.

 Photos by Ivars Burtnieks, Julia Bocanet, Toms Lucans, Geoff Lehman
at MAD Summer School of Design 2017, 2018, 2019, and Bard College Berlin