ELEMENTAL BODY SOMATIC CPD TRAINING
23rd – 27th May 2024
with Gemma Mallol & Emily Katsuno
Non Residential Training on Dartmoor, Devon, UK
13th - 17th September 2024
with Gemma Mallol & Marcela Enriquez Wakeham
Non Residential Training at The Yoga Garden, West Sussex, UK
https://www.the-yoga-garden.co.uk/somatics-cpd
Training Content:
This Elemental Movement CPD offers a bridge for yoga and movement teachers / practitioners, dancers, creatives and therapists to enter the wold of Somatics; a multi-faceted CPD of embodied practices that foreground the connection to and the expression of the inner body in movement and its relation to nature and the elements.
This CPD is an empirically based somatic, therapeutic approach to movement that utilises a creative and expressive approach informed by nature to engage the body, mind, and spirit in order to transform stress and suffering and trauma.
The CPD develops the moving, sensate body as a regenerative field of contemplation, emotional intelligence and creative process that can connect us to empathy, compassion and inter-connectedness. This process is cultivated through developing a foundational somatic yoga practice that focuses on stability, grounding, clarity, structure and orientation. This stable foundation provides the bedrock from which the body can now express its inner landscape, where it can flower into its own authentic dance, its own feeling, and its own expression of and relationship to the elements.
The opening and expression of the inner body through improvised dance / movement is supported by coherent somatic therapeutic principles and techniques from Buddhist Meditation (Insight and Zen), Japanese Butoh Dance, Body Orientated Trauma Therapy (Somatic Experiencing), and Somatic Movement.
At its heart, the Elemental Body CPD fosters feeling, care, empathy, and soul. It is work that cultivates ways of seeing, being, and moving that supports us to directly experience the inter-connected nature of existence. From this perspective Elemental Body could be defined as an eco-somatic, eco-feminist process. Experiencing the inter-connected nature of existence as an embodied state is fundamentally important right now, it can provide us with a space from which to respond to and tend to the multiple social and ecological crises we face in contemporary culture which can otherwise be overwhelming and plunge us into paralysis and helplessness.
Embodying the elements can become a source of ancestral wisdom, a supportive and resourcing container, that can hold us and allow us to feel and move through some of the deep and often uncomfortable emotions that we may be facing now. Elemental Body can become a source of empathy, agency and community.
Due to my background in Somatic Experiencing therapy (body orientated trauma resolution), I have evolved Elemental Body CPD to specifically work with the physiology, cultivating nervous system regulation, inner and outer resources, internal stability, expanding nervous system capacity and resilience, agency and empowerment and unlocking creative energy.
NB. These processes are long term practices and require continuing commitment.
Where Does Elemental Body Take Place?
This training takes place on Dartmoor, Devon. Dartmoor is “a rugged and captivating region in the Southwest of England, offering a remarkably diverse and utterly magical outdoor experience. Covering 954 square kilometres, this ancient landscape is characterised by rolling hills, vast granite tors, gorgeous green valleys, and pristine rivers”. Dartmoor is a place where the elements, history, and nature converge to facilitate tangible experiences of connection to ancient lands. Embodying the elements on Dartmoor can be a deeply transformational experience that can re-invigorate, re-animate and re-wild our connection to self, nature and other. Elemental Body was born out of my own practice on Dartmoor and it now feels appropriate that students/participants can experience the site specificity of this work.
Leusdon Memorial Hall on Widdecombe on the Moor will provide us with a beautiful simple indoor space with kitchen and tea making facilities where morning practice will take place. In the afternoons, weather permitting, we will explore working outside by the river and up at one of the Tors as we develop our Elemental Body practice with nature where there is an abundance of the elements (rushing rivers, beautiful woods, huge granite boulders, spacious skies and expanses of moorland), returning to the Hall for final process and closing in the early evenings.
Somatics, Inclusivity and a Non-Hierarchical Approach:
Somatics has therapeutic, creative and performative aspects characterised by a fluid expression of form that can shape shift to embrace all ages, abilities, shapes, races, colours, genders, sexualities, disabilities, and neuro-diversities.
I specifically facilitate a non hierarchical way of exploring together, which involves invitations and suggestions of movement along with improvisation to deconstruct power dynamics and to encourage experiences of a ‘collective body’ that may be inseparable from the ‘earth body’ and that aims to generate tacit knowledge by feeling and moving in supportive community.
The CPD is a space of open enquiry, dialogue and creative process, the material is explored within community using an experiential pedagogy.
These spaces are queer spaces meaning that they are open and inclusive to people who may find themselves somehow different, marginalised or underrepresented on the grounds of sexuality, age, gender, colour, race, neurodiversity or disability. They are both safe and inclusive.
Facilitator Biographies:
Gemma Mallol is a Dance and Movement Researcher (Master’s) at The University of Plymouth, currently researching Butoh Dance and Somatics. She is a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (body orientated trauma therapy) and a Senior Yoga and Mindfulness Teacher Trainer (23 years teaching). She now works with diverse groups integrating Somatics, Butoh dance and creative processes with nature as an eco somatic response to the current multiple social and ecological crises that we collectively face. She sees her work as as a form of regenerative activism and aims to cultivate feminist, creative and embodied community spaces and networks. She identifies as queer, neuro-diverse and mixed race.
Emily Katsuno has a background in contemporary dance, she has been teaching yoga for thirteen years and has worked as a yoga therapist since 2015. She runs her own center The Soma Shala in South Devon, which is focused on hosting work from therapeutic embodiment traditions and fostering a connection to the land and nature. Being a Mum to three small kids has led Emily towards exploring somatic movement practices that regulate the nervous system and create resource. She is interested in how the field of somatics and yoga compliment each other to facilitate therapeutic, fulfilling, nourishing, self-regulating connections with ourselves and the world around.
Daily Schedule: Morning Session 9.30am - 12.30pm, Lunch 12.30pm - 2.00pm, Afternoon Session 2.00 - 5pm.
Location: Leusdon Memorial Hall, Widdecombe on the Moor, Dartmoor.
Cost: 550 GBP
Accommodation: This is a non-residential training. Please choose from a range of local Air B n B’s in Ashburton, or camping, glamping and B&Bs in and around Widdecombe on the Moor, please request details if you require help. There will be a lift every morning and afternoon to and from Ashburton to Leusdon Memorial Hall. So for those people that don’t have cars, it might be wise to stay in Ashburton.
Food: Participants are asked to eat breakfast before morning session. There are tea making facilities and kitchen at the the Hall. Please bring packed lunch or there are a few good cafes and pubs in Widdecombe that cater for lunch. A few optional group dinners will be arranged locally so we can gather socially.
Bookings & Info: Please email Gemma on stillflowing@hotmail.co.uk or Whats App 00 44 7745300237
We warmly welcome all bodies, brain types, ages, ethnicities and genders
Places are limited to 12 so please book in advance to ensure your access to accommodation