Two Day Experience / Workshop, 10am - 5pm

What is moving seasonally?

Adaption. Awareness of rhythm, change and ‘spirit of place’. Relationships.

Most can relate to how they eat differently according to the season; the temperature, emotional connection, how they feel and what 'should' be most relevant - what is actually available to eat at that time of year. I believe the seasons also affect how we move, whether we are aware of it or not - from one’s body language (shivering with self-embrace from the cold or open and confident from the warm sun) to how we want to train and move, which if done predominately outside will influence what is practical and relevant. The conditions from a utility perspective, but also with awareness, can feed our emotions to impulses which feed our movement.

We move to fit the environment (adaptability) and the environment MOVES us (impulse or emotionally).

Autumn is the time of year to focus on balance. Once the Autumn equinox passes, it's a time to make the most of the daylight hours. As we approach the lengthening nights, we say goodbye to the end of summer. This bittersweet fanfare is a spectacle of beautiful colors and shades as the ground is covered in flame-coloured leaves, and the trees coyly reveal their inner beautiful structures. We can smell the change in the air and know with inner joy that chilly air brings cosy winter days. We know we once enjoyed kicking through leaves and conker picking, we remember it from our childhood, and it's never really left us: we all sense the change and the promise it brings. As our energy naturally begins to fall after summer's peak, we start to gently withdraw. Like the acorn preparing to be an oak tree, what we do in the months ahead shapes the quieter, darker months ahead.

This connection to our seasonal environment is what makes us human. “Move With The Seasons” is my invitation to explore our relationships; with our bodies, habitat and tribe (community). Our primal sense of rhythm and change when moving in our habitat is best experienced when in nature, not in a year-round controlled environment such as a gym. A movement practice can benefit from this oscillation rather than flat-lining in a uni-season of disconnection. Static, for me, feels like stagnation. No change lessons the opportunities for awareness and adaptation - which lessons my engagement. I do my best to remain open to change through exposure to the dynamism of our seasons. Change to my habitat. My community. My family. My children. My ageing body. Open to the adaptability required and the opportunity for creativity that never ceases to get old.

Being outside is the best expression of our humanness, with contextual and playful movement giving us the best foundation of movement we can. What better way to explore natural movement than in context of habitat and actually being outside. Our skin grows strong only when exposed to diversity of surfaces, and that diversity of nature is nourishing. We cannot appreciate wrapping up in the warm without experiencing the contrast of nature's powerful change in season from summer.

Remember your ability to be joyful in nature - to run, jump, climb, swing, flow and roughhouse, to be swept along with the innate excitement of being outside. Feel the thrill of grasping a wet branch with the chance of slipping, inhaling lungfuls of crisp autumn air as you propel yourself forward, deep in the present with a full mind and body focus that a nutritious environment provides. What is more rewarding than succeeding at a task that is outright difficult and engaging? This connection to our seasonal environment and our challenges and triumphs is part of what makes us human.

You will experience:

• Arboreal Movement - learn how to flow in trees via the different forms of arboreal locomotion and tree climbing
• Flow - learn to flow in context on the ground and over various obstacles, whether grass, bark or leafy terrain,
• Ground interaction - ground flow and break falling, rebuild your relationship, confidence and vocabulary moving on and getting to and from the ground.
• Partner interaction - rapport/connection building games, with roughhousing / rough & tumble play and contact improvisation
• Manipulative skills / cooperative building - Unique building and crafting tasks putting lifting and carrying into context and exploring creative expression in finding harmony in adding to one's environment with the "sculpting of space"
• Mobility development tools - joint health and longevity, building flexibility with strength and control
• An introduction to strength training with gymnastic strength tools and application to natural movement.

Replenish your connection with nature within the beautiful natural environment of Cardiff's Bute Park.