Movement Is Medicine

A Journey Within Our Senses

Your body should feel like a home, not a battleground. It should feel like a place you are safe within, strong, confident, expressive, and calm. Yet we often times feel stress, confusion, pain, discomfort, and stiffness. This is obviously natural as we change and the world around us changes, so we experience the multitudes of life itself, and we don’t always have the answers to what is happening with us. This is alright, it is what makes us resilient. And admittedly, one can be quite nervous or absolutely terrified to try something new, such as yoga, movement, dance class, or going to the gym. It can even be a huge challenge just to introduce a meditation practice, because all of this gives us the opportunity to face ourselves in ways we haven’t before. Many things will surface, our insecurities, our doubts, our fears, but more importantly, beyond these things, we will also experience courage, positive change, letting go of certain parts of ourselves, and this is why it is important to get to know our body and make it into a home, not a battleground.

When we experience physical discomfort such as stiffness, aches, or pain, most likely we rest, use some soothing oils, put on an ice pack, or get a massage. And while all of these things might alleviate the symptoms temporarily, we usually have to return at some point because the pain or discomfort returns again and again. These modalities are mainly what’s called passive or external input, which does not necessarily translate into long lasting changes, therefore if we want to change the sensations of stiffness, aches or pain, we need to approach it with more active and internal input, hence – more movement.
Remember your first ever yoga class? How weird it all felt? Those strange names of poses and that very bendy person in the front of the room doing unimaginable yet very inspiring things? And remember how that feeling in savasana felt like, how strange, peaceful and expansive it felt? Perhaps you were sore for days afterwards, yet something within this experience kept bringing you back to the mat.

Fast forward a few weeks or months, and how much more knowledge and intelligence your body now holds from these classes. Certain poses and movements feel easier, more connected, stronger and wiser. You feel more flexible, stronger, and those aches and pains you had before feel less intense, some might even be almost gone! You might even look different in the mirror, both physically and mentally. Your self-image might be blossoming thanks to your practice. And here you are searching for another feeling, something deeper, beyond the physical, something that reminds you of that initial feeling you had from that first class, because you realize that this was never just about the body but something far more integrated and experiential.

Let’s move away from the saying “practice makes perfect” and adopt something far more inclusive and true which is “practice makes progress”. By spending time on your mat, you begin to explore the home within your body, and you open up more doors to places within that you didn’t know existed. You are getting more and more familiar with yourself in these shapes, and you find more to experience within the places you’ve spent more time in. The progress you’ve made by practicing a new habit suddenly becomes so familiar, it feels natural and you can’t remember what it was like before this feeling you live in now.

And all of a sudden, the practice you have on the mat is now affecting your daily life, perhaps it brings you more balance, it’s easier to pick things up from the floor, your posture improves, you feel stronger and more flexible, your mood gets better and your focus is more attuned. The practice created progress, and this is just the beginning.

As we consistently move our body, learning more, exploring edges, trying new things with courage, we eventually reach a plateau where it feels like nothing is changing. We might get frustrated and feel lost because of it. This is a great time to remind yourself of where you were before you started your practice, and how this new moment in time is your latest foundation which back in the day seemed unattainable, yet here you are.

This is one of the most important times to keep going, to keep moving, to keep exploring, even though it feels like nothing is changing, because you are evolving within, and when you don’t notice how it is affecting your daily life, it’s because you’ve found a new level of awareness and body intelligence, where doing things are more accessible than before, perhaps even less painful, and hopefully something within is sparking a new curiosity for more movement.

When we expand beyond the mat, be it dancing, going to the gym, running, climbing, or something else, everything affects everything, and we are not just expanding our body capacity for movement, but more importantly, we are affecting and expanding our mental and emotional state of being. The more we move, the easier it is to be still, the more energy and effort we put into our body, the easier it becomes to relax. As our physical transformation is evolving, we begin to notice our confidence rising, we learn to listen to our body in ways we couldn’t imagine, we learn to accept that things take time and that putting that time into effort is worth the work. We see the world with different eyes all of a sudden, and our priorities might change, how we want to spend our days, what we choose to eat, how we want to spend our free time, and even how we want to spend our time at work.

Movement is medicine, and the journey within is never-ending, forever expanding. When we take care of ourselves, getting to know ourselves better, finding edges and the courage to listen within, this has a huge impact on our wellbeing. And if you feel good in your body, others will inevitably notice this too and the more awareness we create within ourselves, the more awareness we begin to feel for others, and it will have a positive impact on our relations.

Here are five things that really help to be consistent with your movement and yoga practice:

Stay Curious!

Entertain the idea that each time you step on the mat, it’s for the first time. This will allow you to stay open and explorative instead of holding onto expectations. Curiosity will keep you on your toes (figuratively and literally!) and it will invite critical thinking and feeling, which in turn will take you to edges of experience rather than becoming complacent.

Be Patient!

Learning new things takes time, it won’t happen overnight, so let it be a beautiful journey in its unfolding. Your time on the mat is sacred, it is a brief moment in time where you get to tune in with yourself, and obviously we carry with us everything that has happened throughout the day, and sometimes it’s not about ‘let it go’ but ‘let it be’. If we can accept that it will be a slow journey, if we keep going, things will inevitably change. Sometimes we will make a breakthrough, other times it will sneak up on us gradually. You have time, give it to yourself.

Change It Up!

Diversity and variety is great, it will make you more versatile, playful, and explorative. Try various classes, styles, teachers, studios. Try to practice in different environments on your own, in your kitchen, your backyard, the park nearby, the beach, in the dark, during sunrise, in bed! There are oh so many options to diversify your practice, get creative.

Practice Makes Progress!

Keep track of your progress by filming it, journal about it, make attainable and sustainable goals as stepping stones for yourself. What happens on the mat is an important part, and if you can document your journey in some way, then go for it! Film yourself at home, write down goals and desires that are tangible and worth pursuing. This will change with time, which is all part of the progress. When you look back at those videos a few years from now and see where you are at today, what you thought wasn’t happening, WAS happening the entire time.

Accountability Buddy!

Find someone to go to classes with, it will be fun and motivational, it’s a win-win! With encouragement and support, this will definitely be a beautiful bonding experience as well for the both of you.

Lastly, it doesn’t matter when you embark on your yoga or movement journey, it is never ever too late to start caring more about your physical and mental health. As long as you are having fun, feeling excited about it, and remain curious about learning more, you are in a great place already. There will be times when consistency will change, and that’s alright, because life happens. Doing a little bit everyone now and then goes a long way.

So if you are just starting on your journey within, getting to know yourself more will be a huge part of this. Sometimes it will be a bit scary, but most of the time it will be a feeling of coming home. This is why we move our body, and explore our mind, to come home. If you are already on the path of movement and yoga for some time now, notice where you were when you started, and where you are right now. Most likely you have been through some ups and downs in life and somehow coming back to your practice has been an anchor to move through difficult times and a sense of strength and freedom during those exciting times. No matter where you are on your own journey, keep going. The magic within is unfolding as we speak. Let yourself feel it all.

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by The Yoga Barn, Bali (@theyogabarn)

Chris Fox
About the author
Chris Fox
Sweden
  • Vinyasa
  • Yin
  • Restorative

Chris Fox is a 500-RYT registered yoga teacher, movement alchemist and Mobility Specialist trained in Functional Range Conditioning (FRC) within the Functional Range Systems (FRS). He moved to Bali in 2016 and has been teaching yoga and movement passionately ever since.

He guides classes, workshops, immersions, retreats and teacher training with his Fox Method as a fun, functional, and challenging way with focus on simplicity and curiosity. His main focus is for you to move better and to feel better, and help you make your body smarter to be able to do all the things you love to do – every day!

Chris teaches people how to create freedom of movement, embodied self-awareness, and getting lost in the depth of your own experience. He is passionate about exploring modern movement combined with both technical and poetic cues, felt with presence, breath and connection to your whole being, and how this will enrich your yoga practice and movement awareness both on and off the mat.

He is passionate about connecting deeply through physical awareness combined with modern biomechanics, where critical thinking, free expression and simplicity of movement are met with freedom in its essence. Seeing movement as a poetic exploration, Chris guides from the heart and invites the individual expression to be set free and be shared in the collective energy we create!