Leo Peppas

Embodied Relating with Self & Others with Leo Peppas Join me and Leo Pappas for a wonderful sharing on Embodied Relating with Self and Others, where we talk about embodied relationships, nature, somatic work wi...

This one hour outdoor practice is from the 'creating conscious relationships summit', enjoy and I'd love to hear your experience! :)

Outdoor practice of embodied relating inspired by nature

https://www.theembodylab.com/schedule/1-day-summit-conscious-relationships

One-Day Summit: Creating Conscious Relationships | THE EMBODY LAB A Conscious Relationship is a co-creation based on intention, self-acceptance and a commitment to learning how to explore and experience deep intimacy, understanding and safety. In this One-Day Summit we’ll explore approaches to the work of this co-creation. We’ll discover tools for individuals ...

Happy to be presenting at the conference - in the Ecology & Research channel! :)

The Embodiment Conference. Come home to your body. Embodiment Conference, 10 days of Free access to world-class teachers, practical tools for times of turmoil, and a supportive global community. We’re here to make the world’s embodied wisdom accessible to everyone with access to over 1000 embodied teachers and practitioners.

available for just 48 hours... here's my presentation for the Embodied Yoga Summit :)

EYS - Leo Peppas - Embodied Relationship: How we process and understand our experience This is "EYS - Leo Peppas - Embodied Relationship: How we process and understand our experience" by The Embody Lab on Vimeo, the home for high quality…

Check out https://www.embodiedyogasummit.com/ for all the info about the conference. For 10% discount use the promo code: LEO10

check out the album for over 100 articles and images about 'embodied anatomy'

Putting the embodiment back into anatomy is a required part of dealing with the legacy of the objectified body that we have been passed down - to make the choice ourselves as to how we experience our embodiment and not leave it only to choices made long ago and by people other than ourselves - it is after all a way that we can access a large part of our intelligence and a path to discover who we are and what our purpose is.

To see what I'm offering at the moment: https://www.linkedin.com/company/reciprocal-presence

One of the themes we will explore in the introductory workshop in Helsinki this month is; tension in the girdles and how to address it in a sustainable way. Here is a revised article that explains some of the elements at play: https://www.facebook.com/leo.peppas/photos/a.667912716557962/1116113745071188/?type=3&theater

Embodied Learning/Anatomy: Core, Limbs and Girdles (Revised)
We sometimes treat the Core as if it is a static state, but it’s not. It is a dynamic expression of our relationship with the world in each moment. Crucial to its activation is the issue of timing.

There is a very long history of our attempts to master nature and many are still deeply invested in this process; it can even be evident in the way we approach a yoga or movement practice. The idea that we can do a few exercises and then have core support, or that we can wilfully engage it with techniques, tells us more about our mindset than it does about our body. Through dumbing the body down, we affect our brain in a similar way - though it’s never too late to recover!

Fortunately research in neuroscience and the development of a multidisciplinary approach, speaks of a far more ‘poetic core’. The literalists, who perceive the core merely as a muscle, will grasp to control it - yet ironically the core does not sustain easily through control. The philosopher Nietzsche said that ‘there is more wisdom in the body than in our deepest philosophy’; our core is a beautiful expression of an inherent wisdom that a disconnected mind can only dream of. This refers to an ancient movement principle from the East, that of ‘Wu wei’ or 'non-doing'.

The Taoist expression literally means ‘without doing, causing, or making.’ But practically speaking, it means without interfering, struggling or egotistical effort. It’s not the absence of action, but the absence of trying; like the flow of water or wind. Wind is never still, but it has no fixed pattern, water always seeks its own level, but purposefully. It could express the balance point of being and doing. The Chinese character ‘Wei’ developed from the symbols for a clawing hand and a monkey, this implies without grasping; or applied here ‘without the mind grasping on the idea of doing’. Quite a challenge for a society where achievement and ‘me doing’ is so valued.

Here is a practical example that we can find many wonderful variations of in yoga and especially in transitions, as in a sun salutation:

In the image the skeleton is divided into limbs (green), girdles (red) and core (blue). Though this model is a gross simplification, as we won’t get into more specific definitions here, it’s good enough to understand a few useful timing issues. It can even be helpful to approach this model with less rigidity and include for example the jaw as a girdle, especially in today’s example.

A more traditional delineation of the skeleton is Axial (the core is of course not exactly the axial skeleton) and Appendicular (girdles and limbs) - every model can show us something, but is good to remember that its always limiting as this is the nature of all models - They are not the truth and there’s always a price for the illusion of clarity. Through the Appendicular we articulate with the outer world or the 'other', including standing upon the earth or moving through space. The Axial skeleton is also the fish body, this is the first to act, before the girdle and before the limb. This speaks of a ‘pre-movement of orientation’; our core orients in the landscape, so it is created as a response to the information we receive about where we are in relationship with the world in each moment – triggering an intrinsic activation of the spinal muscles; the small, deep muscles that provide us with the necessary stability. Yet we can lose it just as fast as we can engage it.

It’s possible to observe how this support develops in the study of developmental movement; watch a little baby reaching for the mother's breast and you will likely see a demonstration of core clearer than any you will ever see in the gym. It is intimately connected to expression, so purely biomechanical and exclusively body-focused exercise will not create a core that sustains in life without a lot of unnecessary effort – one that does not inhibit but on the contrary supports spontaneity, expressivity and fluid movement.

The Core is to a great extent built by our capacity to receive information about our relationship with the world in each moment; particularly through our Haptic senses - those that can either 'touch' or 'be touched' by the world (through our hands, feet, eyes, nose and ears), but also through the jaw and balance organ. The act of perception tells us that information does not only go one way and for that we need to take responsibility. Dwelling too long in our imagination or projecting out-of-date images on the world can create all kind of unclarity.

In dynamic movement where we need a lot of support, like in transitioning in and out of Chaturanga Dandasana, we need a direct connection from the limbs to the spine, with the girdles acting as a ‘porous frontier’, a perfect go-between. Very often we see much too much activity and too early a holding in the girdles – too much willing often expresses a fear or lack of trust, the girdles can certainly respond by gripping when we are afraid or challenged in some way. When the girdle acts first, it strangles the core, looking for support that is just not there. Watch the jaw as a good early indication of this, but if you have to relax your jaw, it’s already too late as you may wipe away the 'symptom' without necessarily addressing the cause.

This kind of transition is a fantastic opportunity to get a sign about how we normally deal with the type of challenge we meet when we have to act in the world and also shift our position - change our relationship to something. It puts into question our presence in each moment, asking for a sharp sense of orientation in a less exclusive context and whether our intention is clear enough or we are willing and able to clarify it. Then we can start to grow our presence within the relationship, developing our capacity to deal with the ever changing ‘other’ when we start to feel more challenged in the body. Simply speaking, we sometimes need to constantly ask; where am I and where am I going? - and also who am I and how can I meet the other? Staying open to receive and differentiate our embodied response.

In life that can commonly happen when we have to interact with someone, even if it's just at the basic level of shaking hands, someone who maybe intimidates us, or we are unsure of, or is trying to manipulate us in some way. Yet if, as we are shaking hands, we withdraw from contact or just impose ourselves on the other, we tend to get caught in a control game, often exhibited as shoulder tension – as our girdle is no longer porous because we have stopped receiving information about the other.

As soon as we feel something in the body and over-focus on it, we can start to identify with it - something that’s more likely to happen without the presence core support expresses. We are then caught in a game and without the invaluable support of our presence in the moment, we tend to resort to outdated control strategies and may be compulsively drawn back into the familiar grip of an old story.

In this case shoulder tension can be felt anywhere in the girdle, but classically appears in the Pectoralis minor; that I sometimes call ‘Richard Nixon’ – if you see how he sweats through his jacket at Watergate when he is caught in all the ‘under-hand’ dealings. We can feel this tension in more subtle places too, like the jaw. There will likely also be some bracing in the hips, or again more subtly in the back of the pelvic floor making a natural ‘mula bandha’ impossible. When this happens, feeling too much only the cues from our own body, it easily leads us to resort to the tendency of over identifying with mind, body and emotions. This makes it even more challenging to be willing to do our business transparently, to reclaim the power of self responsibility.

Controlling strategies are what many people will actually practice in yoga. Trying to use technique, trying to overpower with shoulder strength, focusing exclusively on the body - whenever we withdraw from relationship, an urge to control often arises – the point is not to follow this urge, but to check if we have lost contact with our support or have diminished our presence. Then we may still have the chance to manifest our vulnerability and so to remain honest and present - Our vulnerability can be our strength when it is supported.

We need to re-establish the ‘circulation’; so that there is the most direct relationship between the Core and the movement or ‘other’. When the girdle disappears, meaning when there is no unnecessary holding there, we have a direct connection from the hands and feet to the spine. Commonly we are used to thinking about Asana like ‘how to do an Asana’, or even ‘how to breathe’, but the function and core activity is already there, if we remain present.

There is a crucial point, a telling moment in the transition, where we often lose contact with the ground through the hands and can feel 'questions' posed by a lot of sensation in the shoulder: ‘Do I have the support and is my intention appropriate? How far do I really need to go?’ Too much over focused, wilful ambition can easily obscure the questions that are emerging. The meaning of this challenge is that we are asked to clarify a few things, if we fail to attend to what is presenting we commonly lose even more the clarity between ourselves and the world, becoming determined to blindly achieve specific results, no matter the cost – definitely a questionable practice. Chaturanga has also become known as the ‘shoulder shredder’! In the transition, if we lose orientation; if we lose the ‘where am I’ and ‘where am I going’, it’s easier to further confuse the ‘who I am’ and that can be quite expensive.

There are many possibilities to practice this transition in a less challenging way and to even apply it in transitory phases during real life situations. ‘Backing off’ for example can enable us to be more receptive, to listen and see more clearly what we need in each particular moment and then take the next appropriate step. First we may need to practice enough honesty, primarily with ourselves, accepting our limitations so that we can build the necessary support step by step. For that we might need to connect to a purpose we can trust, from where we can derive courage and inspiration – and if we listen, the questions that emerge can enable us to learn how to continue clarifying our purpose and our values. In order to take our yoga practice into life and become less bound by ‘sophisticated’ yet limiting control strategies, learning to listen while talking can prove a very useful practice.

Check out the 'embodied anatomy' album for lots more posts:
https://www.facebook.com/pg/leo.peppas/photos/?tab=album&album_id=667912716557962