Primal Gesture and Archetypal Qigong: A Day of Moving Story
October 10, 2024
9:00 am – 5:00 pm
London-IN PERSON
$265 – $320
In this workshop, we will explore the power inherent within Myth and Archetype as a portal into our mutable inner knowing. Softening, Shapeshifting, Tracking. We’ll sense into the birthright of our animal body and into the wild fluid terrain of inner power.
Myth and movement are of our most indigenous human expressions and capacities. As such, they allow us to see, live and move beyond social constructs and to live from a kind of bone-knowing and internal power. The timeless and universal mother tongue of archetype and symbol is a language that cuts through and speaks to us at the deepest level- in flashes of insight and bone-knowing, these symbols point us toward true north, wisdom and next steps. They are maps, mirrors and medicine that we need for our inheritance of thriving, evolving and creating. The work we will engage creates real change, coherence, action, agency and forward motion in the right direction.
There is movement to our personal mythology as well as the myths that guide and are unfolding in our lives. There is a mythology to the innate gestures that rise from our tissue, and can be touched in specific archetypal flows of qigong as well as in returning to the biomorhic movement of our fluid primal body. All contain a unique and brilliant holographic intelligence that contain maps to show us where we are, where we have been and where to go next, mirrors within which to see ourselves and understand our states and conditions, and the medicine to nourish and instruct us in regards to what is really the matter and where to go from here.
Myth and Movement nourish our Soul. With the cycles of rising energy, zenith, entropy, decline and incubation and into rising energy and creation again we find rhythms vital for deepening our relationships to life.
“The longing we feel toward the wild, and the journey it sets us on requires not only deep listening but also the force of desire. A longing of the soul that moves us along. This passage is not given freely but requires that we inhabit the fullness of our Self. This is where the power of archetypal gestures comes into play. In traditional Chinese Philosophy (as I’ve learned it) longing is a Yin aspect of the heart, risk is the Yang aspect. When in an archetypal warrior form we draw a bow and arrow but do not immediately look where we are aiming, this is the iconography of risk – of aiming our hearts toward a place we cannot fully see; We cannot know how it is all going to work out or what will happen, but we do know we MUST aim and risk our hearts in the direction of our desire in order to stay truly alive. Conversely, in the Yin heart form, when we make the shape of the flame in front of our bodies and reach slightly toward the horizon and then pull back in, this is the acknowledgement and cultivation of longing toward a circumstance that has not yet arrived. Feeling it’s possibility, we stretch our heart into its potential. Our feminine reach for the wild necessitates that we must also return to a true expression of Yang” ~ Sarah Byrden
This workshop will be a potent and medicinal somatic exploration through primal and fluid movement, storytelling and archetypal qigong flows that will bring us into a rich and wise wilderness together, right in the heart of London.
YOUR INSTRUCTORS:
Liz Koch
Liz Koch is a conceptual artist exploring the deep sensory system and the wild wisdom of core Psoas. An international somatic educator and author with 45 years of experience, she is the creator of Core Awareness™ and the author of The Psoas Book; Core Awareness: Enhancing Yoga, Pilates, Exercise & Dance; Stalking Wild Psoas: Embodying Your Core Intelligence; and her upcoming book Birth Savvy. Liz focuses on kinesthetic intelligence and somatic awareness as a means for unfolding our human potential. Stalking Wild Psoas is her passion and Changing the Language of Body is her mission.
Sarah Byrden
Sarah Byrden is a somatic educator, archetypal qigong teacher, and wilderness guide. A two time TEDx presenter, Sarah has dedicated over twenty years to the deep study and apprenticeship of nature-based movement modalities. Teaching from her own life-long journey, she is the founder of The Elemental Self, which offers pathways for remembering our true self, the web in which we belong, and our innate capacity to move and be moved by a source beyond our conditioning.