BODY AWARENESS
- Nov 10, 2024
- 3 min read
Updated: Sep 15
History
Body Awareness yoga for Children started in 1998 and continued for 14+ years. The work was inspired by Somatics and the observance of awkward deportment in children, sitting, standing, moving and walking. The techniques used helped children to learn, focus, soothe and develop bodily awareness. This came from the ancient traditions of yoga, tai chi boxing (Ich Chaun) and Somatics. These techniques have been tried and tested for thousands of years.
More on the background of Somatics
Elfriede Hengstenberg a somatic therapist, was one of my inspirations. Elafride was originally a trained and experienced gymnastics teacher before she came to work with Elsa Gindler and Heinrich Jacoby at the beginning of the 1920s. She belonged to Gindler’s inner circle of friends. Elfriede devoted her life to applying the Gindler- Jacoby approach to her work with children and finding new ways of answering their needs. (from: Strub: Entfaltungen - Bilder und Schilderungen aus meiner Arbeit mit Kindern.)
Elsa Gindler was a teacher of Harmonic Gymnastics in the 1910s. Her teacher, Hedwig Kallmeyer brought the work to Germany after studying Dynamic Breathing and Harmonic Gymnastics with Genevieve Stebbins in the U.S.A. From the 1920s onwards, Gindler taught in her own name and met with Heinrich Jacoby, with whom she began a lifelong collaboration and became influential pioneers of this work. They made a huge difference to children holding trauma and shock as a consequence of war.
Somatics has taught me that growing children’s bodies shape in a particular way according to lifestyle, environment and emotional and sensory experience. This is not just theoretical but for me a lived experience also. Our unconscious habits can leave us feeling debilitated, stressed, in pain, and unable to find the joy, creativity and connection with life.
For years now, especially in Western society humans live on adrenaline and seek adrenaline through lifestyle habits and addictions in a ‘flight and fight mode’. If these modern lifestyle behaviours are coupled with repeated trauma it manifests in the body as persistent holding patterns. These patterns can be exhausting, painful and inhibit access to the life force present in breathing. If this is not addressed and the body does not recover tension builds up in the whole system.
My approach to yoga is one which adapts to individual needs rather than being mechanistic. The premise is to grow in awareness of oneself, body, mind, emotions and to reach a place of peace and calm so that one can learn to be responsive to our internal and external environment rather than reactive. In all movement there is an emphasis on listening, sensing and feeling with a view to inviting space and relaxation. The aims and intentions of the work are to make a contribution to bringing the human being back to relaxation, total unity of the body, mind and spirit. This is what yoga, Ich chaun and somatics strives to do. Yoga means to unite, bring together and connect, this can only be done with Ahimsa ( non-violence ) towards oneself and others.
Hundreds of children across London benefited from the programmes we taught as Body Awareness yoga for Children. ‘One thing I like about yoga is relaxation. It clears my mind and makes me think about extraordinary things” Funto Osifuwa aged 9
Through conscious repetition, practise and observation we can witness ourselves evolve. Trusting our bodies to lead can create an opening in the breath which gives more access to oxygen, vitality, confidence, creativity and a more content, peaceful existence. The manual will be published in due course and will be a useful tool if the techniques are incorporated as part of a healthy lifestyle.
References:
The Charlotte Silver Foundation, Elfride Hengsten berg - Her life and work
Breathing, voice, and movement therapy: Applications to breathing disorders- Imke Buchholz
Emile Conran- Life on land
GaborMate - When the body says no
Body Awareness
Comments