'Our many years of schooling bring a separation of mind and body (sit still and learn). Cultural stereotypes and advertising emphasise the body as youthful sexual object. Physical training techniques and medical practices can lead to a view of the body as a machine, needing to be repaired by someone else when necessary. There is often a sense that one is either the master or the victim of one's own body... It becomes important to understand that the body has its own way of functioning, its own way of telling us what's going on inside, its own logic. Much of our task is to learn to listen.'

- Andrea Olsen, Body Stories - a guide to experiential Anatomy

Like many somatic movement practitioners, I'm on hyper alert for language and attitudes that reflect the ‘separation of mind and body’ that Olsen talks about above. The phrase mind/body is strangely adopted to reflect a kind of amalgamation of the two. I say strangely, because it seems to describe a two-fold idea whilst also trying to overcome it.

In Pilates practice we learn that the boundaries of what we’re doing remain in the ‘physical training’ category, even though we acknowledge that the mind/body are never really separate, they’re a continuum. This leads to some difficult conundrums. For example, at the start of a class I will often ask a client or group: ‘how’s the body?’. A few years back a colleague of mine questioned this phrase, suggesting ‘can’t we just ask “how are you?” instead?’. I take their point. If we’re going to challenge the mind/body duality that is so ingrained in our culture, shouldn’t we, at the very least, address our language?

But to ask ‘how are you?’ feels like the start of a very different conversation, one which, as a Pilates teacher (and someone who has always struggled with small talk), I’m not really equipped for. After all, we’re not about to launch into group therapy when we show up to a matwork class!

On the other hand, if, say, we encounter a client who seems unable to sense their own body, it can feel reductive to only talk ‘mechanics’, so to speak. For many, the lack of body awareness, what Olsen describes as an ability to ‘listen’ to the body’s feedback, really does come out of habitual ways of thinking about the body as this vehicle that transports the brain about. In which case my job is to find ways to gently challenge clients’ assumptions, and literally bring their brains down into their feet.

However, for some, the lack of embodiment is rooted in psychological issues and traumas. My post on the Polyvagal Theory makes this point. Whilst I have, on occasion, suggested psychotherapy for some of these clients, it is not always possible to open this pandora's box. Sticking to the ‘mechanics’ feels appropriate, even if it feels like putting a plaster on a gaping deep wound.

I have to say that it was both a surprise and a relief to come across a lecture where Deb Dana, a leader in Polyvagal led therapy, talked about using the body as a way in. To her, the therapist’s role is to help their client tap into their nervous system, to work with, what she describes as, their biology. She explains that the nervous system itself is not ‘meaning making’ it is simply responding to cues of safety or danger and that it is the mind that translates those cues into stories. Dana explains that grounding clients in their body’s states, their biology, can be helpful in breaking down some of those stories. I was particularly interested to hear her explain that a starting point she uses is to ask clients to complete the sentence: ‘My body is….’

To answer this seemingly innocuous question, we have to ‘drop in’ to our sense of ourself. We’ve got to notice how we sense our body from the inside, which, in effect, forces us into our mind/body. I’ve done this little exercise myself over the last few days, and I’d encourage you to try it:

Take a moment,

sit back on your chair,

close your eyes.

Complete the phrase:

‘My body is…’

The point of the exercise isn’t really the answer you come up with. It’s the noticing. It’s doing the exercise that is the point. When you’re moving through a class and a particular movement doesn’t feel right, or causes irritation, or discomfort, that is in itself an opportunity to listen in a little, to connect with that sense and give it some air time. If you can bring it into language too, that’s even more helpful. In this way cognition increases body awareness, rather than walking all over it. The aim isn’t to stop thinking completely, it’s to ground thinking in the body’s wisdom.

As one of my favourite postmodern dancers, Barbara Dilley, puts it:

‘I’m a very strong fan of the definition of mind/body that Suzuki Roshi uses. He says, “Mind and body are not two and not one,” which I love.’ - Barbara Dilley

Indeed.

In writing this post I quoted from a number of sources:

Andrea Olsen’s Body Stories (1991) is a great resource for experiential anatomy practitioners that is regularly pulled off my shelf.

Deb Dana’s book, Polyvagal Exercises for safety and connection (2020) makes an interesting and accessible entry point for PolyVagal based practice.

Barbara Dilley’s quote comes from Kent De Spain’s Landscape of the Now, a topography of Movement Improvisation, 2014.