THE VITAL BODY
SOMATIC MOVEMENT THERAPY AND EDUCATION
The Vital Body is a trauma-informed, client and community-centered, integrated approach to movement, health and wellness. It considers physical, emotional and energetic aspects of living in and with a body as an organic, ever-changing system coping with a dynamic and often challenging environment. It incorporates movement, touch, voice, the elements of nature, and more. The Vital Body recognizes that vitality comes in part from taking a curious, playful and creative approach to life, including our healing.
As a form of somatic movement education, its aim is to empower clients and students in developing their own repertoire of movement and self-care practices. As a form of somatic movement therapy, it fosters healing through the client-practitioner relationship, and the client's developing a more intimate relationship with themselves. Group work takes an ecological approach; it engages the individual's process in the context of community, seeking to balance belonging and group support with individual needs and identity expression.
Some examples of how the work can be focused and applied are addressed below.
YOUR GUIDE TO THE VITAL BODY: MICHELE MINNICK, Phd, CMA, SME/T
Currently, all Vital Body sessions, workshops and coaching are conducted by Michele Minnick, founder of Vital Matters and The Vital Body. Michele is certified in the Laban and Bartenieff approach to movement studies, a seasoned director and trainer of actors specializing in The Performance Workshop and Rasaboxes. She is also trained in Dynamic Embodiment, Somatic Abolitionism, and has a certificate in Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy, and Somatic Social Justice from The Embody Lab. Her experiences with essential oils are based in the teachings of Tiffany Carole and her personal experience working with acupuncturist and aroma point therapist Lauren Potts. Other influences include the Halprin Life/Art Process, Somatic Integrative Family Systems Therapy, yoga, and Buddhist forms of mindfulness and meditation.
Upcoming workshop: Rasa Soma online
Coming in january 2025
Rasa Soma is a modular 12 hour course offered 2-3x/year on Zoom that you can take at your own pace. It introduces the theory of rasa and soma from Ayurveda, rasa in theatrical contexts (see rasaboxes.com), and integrates it with the somatic movement practices of Dynamic Embodiment and other sources.
The course facilitates self-awareness of affective and emotional patterns that enhance and diminish our sense of vitality and empowerment, our ability to move in flow, to keep in contact with deep source, and to stand up and speak up for what we need. As we explore 8-10 basic emotional states via body systems, developmental patterns, we will become intimate with each emotion, learning to value each, and to shift in both dramatic and subtle ways from state to state in order to balance and regulate our nervous systems. This is a playful, creative, and gently therapeutic approach that you can bring into any aspect or moment of your life.
Pairs well with and can enhance: psychotherapy and trauma work, somatic abolitionism, dance and movement practices, work as an educator or other leader or facilitator of groups, activism and movement work
Introduction: 3 hour session. Dates TBA Sliding scale: $45-$90
Sessions 2-6: 90 minute sessions. Dates TBA: $35 each, or $180 for all six (save $30)
To sign up, or if you have any questions, write me at vitalmattersbaltimore@gmail.com. Student rates and need-based discounts available on a case by case basis.
Physical Function: Movement Repatterning
Whether integrating physical therapy exercises or bodywork into whole body movement, or addressing pain or movement limitations, this work facilitates greater awareness of the use of the body. In many fitness-based approaches to movement, we focus on the musculoskeletal system. The Vital Body offers works with bones, muscles and fascia but also engages other systems (fluids, organs, glands, etc.) for support. Breath support, grounding, an awareness of Initiation and sequencing, dynamic alignment, spatial intent, imagery, body organization/developmental patterns, and dynamics of movement help to repattern habitual ways of moving for greater ease and effectiveness, whether in everyday movement or in the specialized skills of sport, dance, or other activity. Somatic movement education is not a substitute for PT, but it can greatly benefit PT patients.
Emotion, expression and communication
Trauma, habitual patterns of use, and emotional imprints can inhibit the flow of our emotional life or our ability to live in a healthy relationship to our inner life. There may be other reasons why it is difficult to communicate with others, to stand up for ourselves, or to speak our truth. Exploring the relationship between inner and outer through somatically engaged emotional release and other techniques involving movement and sound can help us to discover and integrate new meaning, and dissolve blocks to our well being and freedom of expression. Clients may engage with this work to improve their performance, or for more therapeutic purposes. Although not a substitute for pyschotherapy, The Vital Body can be productive in conjunction with psychotherapy or other forms of talk therapy. Focusing on how we embody change can allow for integration of therapeutic material, and patterns of behavior to shift.
Regulating the nervous system
In today's world it is easy for many of us to have a disregulated nervous system. This can occur as a result of trauma, or for many other reasons that have to do with our self use, and with our environment. Breath, movement, touch, sound, essential oils, guided meditations and work in nature are all part of The Vital Body's tool kit for regulating the nervous system. Ultimately, the goal is for clients to develop their own tool kit, drawing on the work we do together.
Support for the Voice
The voice is an extension of the body, and the breath. For singing and for speaking either in performance situations or in everyday life, an increased awareness of the mechanisms of and support for breathing and sound production enhance vocal production. Working in a sensation-based and playful way with specific resonators and emotional coloring gives rise to a more fully embodied, vibrant, and expressive voice. Spatial awareness and whole body engagement offer support for speaking truth and being heard. Voice work may be integrated into any of the above approaches, or may be addressed as a focus of somatic movement education.
select your mode of engagement
Below you will see some of the ways the services of The Vital Body are offered. Please write me at vitalmattersbaltimore@gmail.com with inquiries or to schedule a consultation or to book a workshop.