Giovanni will be leading a yoga and meditation retreat this October at Bonnevaux in France, Learning to Move With More of Myself, inviting us to rediscover the joy of movement. With over thirty years of experience, his approach to yoga transcends traditional boundaries, focusing instead on how movement enriches our daily lives and supports contemplation, health and being with our neighbour.
The Joy of Movement
Giovannni, you've taught yoga for over thirty years and being a rolfer for over twenty five. How would you describe your approach to to yoga as a movement practice?
I think in this world where we’re so much needing to be with our phones and our computers, sometimes the elephant in the room is that people aren’t moving, so to find the joy of moving every day or a few times a week is a marvelous gift. And this can happen because you walk your dog, because you chop carrots all day long or do crochet, because you go to the gym, because you play a sport, and also because you have a movement practice – a space where you’re really exploring how to move so that parts of your body might land more or parts of your body might lengthen more or that you might find your back, or that you resolve pain.
So yoga is a very ancient and beautiful movement science that’s linked to the science and the art of meditation and its history. And I would say that I really enjoy teaching people the famous yoga poses, the standing poses, the balancing poses and the more difficult sitting yoga poses.
The richness is not in ‘can I touch my toes or not touch my toes?’ but as my hamstrings lengthen and my pelvis becomes more mobile, it’s making my walking easier, it’s helping with that sense of flow or push from my toes when I walk. So I think that’s really the rich part of yoga. Same with standing, with breathing, lots of people are worried about their breath or wondering if they can control their breath.
But really, when you have a rich movement practice, your breath starts to move and your body becomes more capable, more capacious in its in-breath and more capable of breathing out.
I think it’s also really interesting if your yoga poses, if your movement practice helps you to sit at work and also during meditation more comfortably.
So how do the yoga poses relate to everyday life? And how does moving and befriending my body help me to understand more clearly what my nervous system is doing in the everyday? Am I more a person who, through my life experiences, has learned to survive by being a bit more shut down? Or am I a person who, through my life experiences, has learned to survive by being always mobilised and on the go.
So when we practice, as with when we meditate, we start to really notice where our nervous system is set. So movements for everyday life through yoga, understanding where my nervous system is set and welcoming that, not judging and critiquing it. This is the other thing that a movement practice teaches us to welcome all the parts of ourselves.
Watch the full video interview with Giovanni here:
Discover a unique integration of movement, science, and contemplative practice at the upcoming yoga and meditation retreat with Giovanni Felicioni, October 6 to 11 at the Bonnevaux Centre for Peace.
