Introduction to Authentic Movement

The process of being seen, understood, and accepted by an attuned, empathic other engenders a sense of genuine self-acceptance, a feeling that we are profoundly okay. We feel safe enough, strong enough, sure enough to venture courageously into the world and develop the competencies we need to deal with life’s challenges.

Linda Graham

Collaborative Somatic Practice is open to all adults
Some previous somatic / body oriented practice experience may be helpful.
Beginners to Authentic Movement are very welcome

What is Authentic Movement?

Authentic Movement is a ritual form of embodied relational practice containing the potential to compassionately meet the scope of your human experience through personal, collective and mystical dimensions.

The Ground Form of the practice involves a mover and a witness, each with the shared purpose to stay present to their own lived experience as the mover moves in the presence of the witness.

The mover listens inwardly, following impulse and weaving between will and surrender. The witness witnesses the mover, intending towards a clear presence; committing to inwardly acknowledging and containing their own projections & judgements.

Following the moving time, a ritual of speaking and listening ensues. Language serves as a bridge, inviting into consciousness that which has been explored through the body.

The mover begins, sharing the essence of their inner experience through recollection of the moving time. The witness responds without attempting to interpret or analyse the movers experience. The witness holds the intention to support the mover to come ever closer to their authentic, direct experience and develops discernment about what to share and what to contain. In this way, the voice of the mover is empowered, and the capacity of the witness to hold a clear space strengthens.

At the heart of the Discipline of Authentic Movement is the intention to cultivate the inner witness within the mover, with the support of an outer witness. Authentic Movement is a relational practice, honouring that we are relational beings. We are in this together.

Over time, the compassionate and spacious holding of the outer witness can become embodied within the inner experience of the mover. Mover and inner witness find their way to dance within your own body and capacity widens to embrace a wider spectrum of lived experience through a clear and compassionate inner presence.

Some of the key figures who have been important in the birth and evolution of Authentic Movement include Mary Starks Whitehouse, Janet Adler (Discipline of Authentic Movement) and Joan Chodorow. A third, and emerging fourth, generation of facilitators continue to share the practice to evolving generations. My mentors Fran Lavendel, Linda Hartley, Jane Bacon and Jane Okondo are amongst these third & fourth generation facilitators and all practice within the lineage of the Discipline of Authentic Movement.

Why practice Authentic Movement?

With sustained practice, it is possible to develop the capacity to trust, more fully, that which is directly known through your body: to find the wisdom and intelligence in even the most obscure and unexpected places, and to embody a greater authentic responsiveness with life outside of the practice itself.

When you can soften into the timing of your own body, learning to stay with yourself between states of inhabiting resource and exploring your capacity to behold the challenges you face, you will discover a greater agency and capacity to be with more of the stuff of your life and all it encompasses. You do not have to be anything other than you are now. And you will move forward and things will change. The Discipline of Authentic Movement invites us to embrace complexity and paradox.

Through the container of the relationship between mover and witness, an evocation toward a rooted, compassionate presence is affirmed. Whether you are a therapist, somatic practitioner, facilitator, yoga teacher, dancer, artist or a life-explorer, cultivating this compassionate presence will support you to lean into your own intuitive knowing in the presence of others, to listen deeply to what needs to be contained and what may be ripe for exploration, and to evoke a field of ever deepening trust in the mysteries of life.

Through practice and refinement, access to direct experience, energetic phenomena and unitive consciousness can emerge. Reverence deepens, alongside a trust in all that cannot be known, in all that does not (yet, perhaps) want to be seen, and in the unfolding sense of life emerging through your own body.

Symptoms become guides. Emotional pain becomes awesome oceans and wind storms. Conflict becomes ripe with potential. All that is moving through becomes ritual offering. Potency seeps through the space between will & surrender, between mover & witness, sparking new pathways that unwind in service of life. The meaning of our individual lives becomes entwined within the mysteries of the universe.

Through the practice of Authentic Movement we ‘become paradoxically both clearer in our knowing and more easeful with uncertainty.’ (Adler, 2022: 303).

Now, more than ever, we need to remember and embrace our entanglement with all of life: with Earth and cosmos; with seen and unseen; with human and other-than-human; with each other. Cultivating a rooted embodied relational presence supports a capacity toward clear and compassionate presence in times of upheaval. The Discipline of Authentic Movement supports the emergence of a clear relational presence ready to participate and collaborate more fully in service of all life.

My background in Authentic Movement:

I first met the practice of Authentic Movement in 2013. Initially appearing as a seemingly simple practice involving moving and witnessing, and a process of embodied dialogue, I have come to appreciate it in its ever deepening and evolving complexity. I will never cease to be a learner within this form, even as I share it with others.

I began working with my primary teacher in the Discipline of Authentic Movement, Fran Lavendel, in 2015 and have been weaving Authentic Movement into my offerings since 2018. The Discipline underpins much of how I hold space for both groups and individuals, as well as forming the main body of my own personal practice. As I deepen in this form, I come to appreciate the intelligence and timing of the body as microcosmic expression of nature and cosmos with an ever deepening reverence.

In 2025 I entered the Circles of Four programme, a pathway to teach the Discipline of Authentic Movement. I am ever grateful for this practice and its capacity to so compassionately meet the scope of our human experience through personal, collective and mystical dimensions.

You can read more about my background and training here.