Welcome to Deep Embodiment

Laying the foundations of awareness

Welcome to the first post of the Deep Embodiment Substack.

This Substack provides subscribers with weekly posts that combine a movement lesson or guided meditation with a short written commentary.

Most of the lessons will draw on my experience as a practitioner of the Feldenkrais Method. However, some will also draw on my interests in martial arts, dance and the wider field of somatics. Whatever form the lessons take, all of them will encourage you to deepen your engagement with your lived experience.

The experiences that I hope to share with you over the coming weeks will use movement as a lens to help you deepen your understanding of self. I write and teach from the foundational principle that our bodies are the fabric of our experience. Your body is the material that defines who you are. Accordingly, through exploring and interrogating how it feels to move, you can find new ways to learn, grow and care for yourself.

Contact improvisation with Kelsey Burns

In his book The Phenomenology of Perception, the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty, noted that we perceive our bodies as both object and subject. To put this idea simply: I’m using my hands as tools to type this sentence, but they are also parts of my self that I can experience subjectively. My hands are mine, but they are also me.

This isn’t just a matter of semantics for those of us interested in deepening our understanding of movement. Merleau-Ponty’s object/subject distinction points us towards the idea that we can develop our subjective sense of self through observing our bodies as material objects (or, more accurately, material processes). For me, the distinction is useful because it helped me to understand my capacity for self-development in a concrete and simple way. As a material process, the body is constantly in a state of flux. It’s always in movement and transition. And if our body is always in transition as an object, that means that our self (body as subject) is also in transition.

This week’s lesson will offer you an opportunity to explore a simple strategy for developing awareness of the flux described above. In the audio lesson below, you will be guided through a process that encourages you to attend to your felt experience by exploring the sensory information you get when you lie down on the floor. In the Feldenkrais Method, this is called scanning.

Moshe Feldenkrais, founder of the Feldenkrais Method, noted the importance of ‘detecting small differences’ for human learning and development. The scan provides us with an opportunity to attend to what’s happening. One of Feldenkrais’ key insights was the realisation that through observing the ways in which our bodies change in response to different stimuli and experiences, we can start to make more informed choices about our actions. As Feldenkrais said, ‘If you know what you’re doing, you can do what you like.’ The process of scanning provides us with a practical means of attending to small differences.

To start the lesson, you will need a quiet space where you can lie on your back. It will take just under 20 minutes. As you follow my instructions, try not to makes changes to the way you are lying. Don’t try to correct yourself, simply observe. Give yourself time to attend to what’s happening. Notice things without trying to control them. Allow yourself to experience the process of your body without judgement.

Click the play button to begin.