Authentic Movement (training, practice, exploration)
Presentation of the Authentic Movement discipline - written by Catherine Lessard :
"During the past few years, I had the opportunity to receive teachings from Zoe Avstreih, a pioneer and founder of the discipline of Authentic Movement. Fulfilled and inspired by this profound experience, I now propose you to dive with me into the heart of this magnificent work, both simple and immensely rich.
Whether it is to feed the creative artist in you, or simply to access greater self-knowledge, I invite you to dare closing your eyes, to enter into yourself, to welcome emptiness and to listen ... suddenly something incredible happens, and it takes hold in the silence and in the body (and in the initial silence of the body).
Zoe used to say "The answer is in the body!"
This practice is rooted in the field of art therapy. It invites one to tap into their inner realm. And it frees one from their "I must ... I should ...". With eyes closed, movers welcome internal sensations and impulses, allowing them to manifest into gestures and movements, giving expression to their subconscious creative process. Without judgement, a witness pays attention to both mover(s) and his/her internal experience. He/she is moved within, from the experience of being consciously present and attentive.
As movers, without trying to absolutely make sense out of it, we invest ourselves into meeting with the inner memories, imprints, experiences, impulses, images, abstract or concrete stories, personal inhibitions and even sometimes traumas, that are all contained in our cells, our living tissues and our psyche.
As witnesses, we cultivate the extraordinary capacity for listening, patience and wonderment that we have when we observe the present moment manifesting itself into someone else's gestures, beyond our habitual projections and projects.
This unique form is an invitation for introspection, contemplation and observation of the whole, in details. It's about opening a window onto the unknown, and allowing oneself to see deep within, without gaze or words.
The form also invites us to share with words (afterwards). In the discipline of Authentic Movement, learning the language for sane and supportive sharing in an art. It takes lots of practice and acceptation. We attempt to recognize the experience since (from) the unconscious and to bring it to consciousness, without fabricating episodes on the way. In order to do that, we use words in a manner that is both detached and deeply connected to the authentic reality of what lives inside. Supported by the inheritance of conscious communication (or NVC), we learn the art of testimony and witnessing, without judgement on our inner richness.
Through practice, little by little, we integrate the "rules" allowing us to become responsible owners of our experiences. And we develop the capacity to hear and acknowledge the inner witness and the inner mover both living within us, as guardians of our psychological, physical and emotional safety.
Here are the 3 simple phases of Authentic Movement,
we could call that "the outer form" :
- Movement : a time for closing our eyes, diving into the unconsious, moving, listening, resting, launching oneself, watching, receiving, holding, ...
- Transition : a time for reflexion, noticing, finding back a followed path, awakening of a memory - an image - a consciousness, writing, drawing, recreate ...
- Exchange : a time for communicating, sharing in autonomy, hearing with generosity, taking ownership, offering oneself, witnessing, harvesting, archiving the collective experience ...
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Those are the 3 phases that allow the unknown immensity of what lives internally to be revealed in a safe container. This immensity is the "true self". It is "the inner form".
(A small piece of history:
It is Carl G. Jung who first used the term "true self". He is the founder of the concept of "active imagination".
In the 60-70s, Mary Stark-Whitehouse, an american dancer and therapist, proposed to apply Carl Jung's principle of "active imagination" to movement, into a form that she called "Movement in Depth".
Then, Janet Adler, one of Mary's students, instilled the form with its features as they are known and popularized nowadays (importance of the witness, dyad form, circle form, non-judgemental wording, etc), and she named it "Authentic Movement".
In the meantime, elsewhere in the USA, Zoe Avstreih, an analyst from the lineage of Freud and Winnicott, was developing the same approach, without giving it a name yet.
When Janet and Zoe met, they realized they've developed the same work, intuitively - at least on Zoe's end -, without having ever worked together. This story isn't only amazing and surprising, it is also very informative on the Authentic Movement form itself : it isn't a discipline that we invent, but rather a discipline that we receive, if we dare listening and observing sufficiently and for long enough.)
This training is also an invitation to be patient and kind towards oneself, because it is with time and experience that one can capture the essence and depth of this practice."
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