In this creative/free movement class we will dance different animals by exploring through intentional (conscious) and facilitated movement prompts (it doesn’t have to look like a dance - life is a dance!) the animate, soulful and embodied life of our beautiful native wildlife, and our own inner animal. This is about you but not only about you. These classes are designed to expand our awareness, build empathic connection with the other-than-human world and reconnect us with our ‘ecological self’.

We will meet our animal guide, and connect with the physicality of the animal we’re working with, and you will be invited to consider the symbolic realm and take your embodied enquiry a little deeper. Each session is entirely facilitated, but I always hold plenty of silence and space for you to bring (and take) what you need. It is not my intention to teach, only to invite you into a conversation and relationship with yourself and the more than human world, trusting you will find what’s necessary.

These are open-for-all classes designed for anyone who is curious about the wild animal within, and are particularly well-suited to movers who are new to creative movement, or feel apprehensive about movement in groups. You do not have to flexible, fit or a particular type of body. The class follows a set structure, which makes use of cameras on (intro & close) and cameras off (during movement) to help you build confidence, whilst still benefiting from community connection. In previous workshops this has been one of the most successful aspects of running this online, where you are free to explore within your own limits of comfort and safety. This is a chance to connect with yourself and the ensouled world that lives in our own imagination, psyche and the space between what is known and unknown to us.

Just a few therapeutic reasons to come to an online, camera’s off, Animal Movement Class:

• To meet the world

• To help you begin a new conversation with your self/body – an essential in the ‘healing journey’

• To immerse yourself in the power of imagination

• To build mindful awareness of your feelings which helps you build a secure relationship with yourself (especially important if secure relationships are few and far between)

• To develop your self-expression, which is awesome for shame, anxiety, depression, trauma etc.

• To learn skills of presence to yourself

• To be playful and curious and open which are all self-skills needed in overcoming anxiety, shame etc.

• Getting yourself out of a frozen, stuck state and into flow – releasing resistance, reducing dissociation

• Moving our bodies to a rhythm develops coherence and calming

• Learn to modulate between thinking and feeling – interweaving the two for power!