authentic movement is a personal-presence focused movement practice, coming out of a combination of expressive arts and dance/movement therapy. therapists use it as part of therapy practices, but it is also a recreational activity with a heavy dose of personal growth thrown in.

in the essential practice, partners take turns as mover and witness, in timed sessions where the timing is decided as part of the session plan.

the person in the role of mover aims to discover their appetites to move, and to indulge those appetites - generally moving with their eyes closed.

the person in the witness role provides a reliable observer for the mover, so the mover can attend intensely to an inner focus with the assurance that they have an observer. the witness' job is also to notice their own visceral responses to what they're witnessing, physical and emotional. they are not trying to see what's going on in the mover, but rather notice what's going on in themselves in response to the mover's activity (or inactivity, as the case may be). one of the witnesses in each round also is a time keeper, using an audible signal to indicate the start and end of the round. rounds can range from a brief introductory round at seven minutes to an intensive hour-long span, or longer. seven minutes moving with your eyes closed can seem like forever, yet an hour can pass before you know it, once you get going.

what happens? suppose you are faced with this opportunity:

• you have some set time to move however you are drawn in the moment to do so, with someone witnessing you the whole time, but withholding judgement as to what they're seeing.

the question is, what would you do with it?

could you even find movement that you would enjoy?

would it be pretty, or might ugly be preferable, in some moments?

sometimes, mightn't a bit of dozing be just the thing, or some silly demonstrations of just how stupid the practice feels - couldn't that hit the spot?

will you create some choreography, do some tricks, show how graceful you can be?

and once you've exhausted the obvious things, what remains to be discovered? given time, there's almost always something, and often something revealing.

and that's the thing. when faced with such broad opportunity, loaded with potency due to being witnessed by another living being, discoveries are often made. personal and revealing. ones having to do with who you are and whats going on inside and around you - what is currently moving to you.

one thing i've been struck by in this practice is how profoundly influential the attention of another person is (for me, and, i gather, for many others). it's along this line:

The seems to be no agent more effective than another person in bringing a world for onself alive, or, by a glance, a gesture, or a remark, shriveling up the reality in which one is lodged. -- r.d. laing, the politics of experience

the potential for "shriveling" the mover's reality is specifically why, in my view, the the mover's role is framed in terms of noticing their own responses, and not projecting those responses on the mover. this fosters getting the mover the vitalizing benefits of attention as free as possible of the distortion of external judgements, positive and negative.

it also reduces the need for the mover to explicitly reveal more than they wish, giving the liberty to show without imposing the requirement to nail down what they're showing. this can be incredibly valuable to reveal things to oneself. that process may eventually extend to explicitly sharing those discoveries with others, but it need not while still getting the benefit of benign attention.

part of the authentic movement practice, after both people in the partnership have equal time in both the mover and the witness roles, is a set amount of time (decided as part of the structure) to reflect on their experience of the session in some creative expression - writing or drawing or more deliberate moving or staring off into space, or whatever suits you. then there's a set amount of time to talk with the partner, and say whatever you wish about your experience moving and (if invited by the mover) your witnessing.

(that's the basic structure - there are all sorts of permutations like "pools" of movers and witnesses, rather than pairing off, or triads with the addition of an "active witness", and so on. but the basic dyadic structure is really the foundation of it.)

this may sound pointless, or apallingly new age-y, or something like that. it can be that way, i suppose. in my experience of it, once i came to appreciate the opportunity, i realized that it's not about affirmations or being nicey nice. rather, it's about an opportunity to discover and, in so far as you wish, and as explictly or ambiguously as you wish, reveal what's going on inside you - light and dark, favored or unwelcomed as it may be. and, about learning/practicing clear boundaries to foster safe and enlightening expression and reception of it.

i made a few of the pastels that i display on this site (at the bottom of many pages, or gathered in Pastel Explorations) during the processing phase of some authentic movement sessions. i did most of the pieces at other times, but all were informed by what i learned playing with pastels as part of authentic movement - basically, drawing with attuned feeling. i love and have taken great solace from art, during the course of my life, and have also struggled with creating any that i, myself, actually like. i feel that authentic movement helped me open that door, become able to create in a satisfying way. (eg, i like the pastels.) that's a big deal - and just a symptom of the larger impact it's had on my life.

Bright Gray Heart