Image: Kali van der Merwe



In the world of coaching others, how is the coach's Body doing?

What attention, care and exploration, if any, does the coach's Body get in the online world?

Why does this matter?

The Coach's Body needs movement like anyone else. But the coach deals with a potent field of consciousness, transformation, human evolution and the creation of a living future. This requires a different approach to the Body because the living Body is consciousness. The human Body holds the potential of evolution in the 21st century and specifically in Pandemia. It asks for the freedom to move authentically.

The Coach's Body is a 9-week online course spanning the world of Body movement as consciousness, as ontological transformation and embodied practice.

Dates
Thursdays 15 October - 10 December 2020
Time
10h00 – 12h00 OR 17h00 – 19h00 SAST
Duration
120 minutes per session - 9 sessions in total
Venue
Zoom →
Cost
First session free. ZAR 4000 | EURO 400 | USD 400 for all sessions

Register Here


'What the body does,
the mind finds hard to forget'.
Ken Wilber

Questions for Clarity

+ How does The Coach's Body feature in my coaching practice?
Whether you are coaching online or in situ with your client, your Body features prominently in the transformation that you serve. This does not only involve how you dress, speak or behave in the coaching space but also the nature of your embodied consciousness in the relationship. This non-verbal aspect and the energy it carries affects the kind of coaching you do, and your consciousness as embodied, may determine the outcome of your client’s process. Your Body may be the evolving edge of your coaching. The Coach’s Body opens up this field of endless exploration.

+ What are the course elements of The Coach’s Body over nine weeks?
The Coach's Body is an 9-week long course, once a week, for two hours. The session will take place on Thursdays 10h00-12h00 OR 17h00-19h00 SAST. You will choose the slot that suits you. We will be in conversation as a group, and then in movement on the screen, in your room. You will have arranged a space in which it is comfortable to move. This does not have to be big. It could be in your office, living room or even bedroom. See to it that there is enough light so that I would be able to view you comfortably. You need your internet connection, Zoom link and a source such as Spotify to play music from. If you are so inclined have your journal at hand. For the two hour session you may need water or even a snack.

+ How will the course work in practice?
A different facet of coaching embedded in the training for ontological coaching, such as legitimacy, or the space of nothingness, or ongoing learning will be explored over the nine weeks. You will be given an introduction, then guidance for each session after which you will explore the theme in movement. The music is mostly ambient. The nine weeks form a unit in which you will experience each ontological aspect with greater depth of embodiment.

+ How did you develop this work?
I am a dancer, movement therapist, clinical psychologist and ontological coach. My awareness of the moving Body has evolved over my lifetime from the joy of movement, to rigorous training, to academic engagement with movement and mental health, performance studies, decades of teaching and exploring aspects of quantum physics, consciousness and human potential. As a coach I am extremely aware of my way of being in the coaching context. This became even clearer when coaching and teaching online. There appears to be a gap in the online coaching world and I wish to offer this work to my peers.

+ What is the significance of The Coach’s Body specifically for the online world of coaching?
As a coach your eyes are on your client most of the time. In the more intense online world the view of the full Body has been reduced to head-and-shoulders. This considerably limits your access to the client’s way of being. The question is how does one overcome this imposed and inevitable limitation? The Coach’s Body opens up a kind of quantum field, where you can see, feel and understand much more than what is visible. However, this ability is born from your own movement practice, your way of understanding, and 'seeing' your own Body and its way of being in the world. From here we enter the phenomenon of being a witness to another's Body.

+ What is the significance of The Coach's Body specifically for the online world of coaching?
Over years most of our upbringing has separated us from earth, soul and spirit elements inherent in our ways of being. This means that we have become quite 'hardened' and mechanical in coping with the world in a reactive way rather than feeling creative in our response to the world. Had we been witnessed with a compassionate eye, full of wisdom for all our earlier experiences we would have developed very differently. In The Coach's Body this gift of being witnessed is being restored. It is like a loving regard for how you move. It is through this experience of being witnessed for exactly the person you are, and how you embody yourself in the moment that you regain the quality of being a witness to others.

+ What would be one thing that I am sure to gain from The Coach’s Body?
You would think differently about your Body. You would most likely experience your Body as intelligent, conscious, healing, powerful and yet sensitive to your way of being. Then you would feel this potential in how you apply your coaching to the coachee’s Body. You will become those changes in a sustainable way.

+ How does The Coach's Body feature in the theory and practice of Ontological Coaching?
To be honest, when I saw the Body playing a major role in Ontological Coaching, I knew that this would be a field I wanted to study. During the training my notes and assignments were peppered with references to the Body even when it dealt with Language or Emotion. I immediately knew how my own work could further the basic notions of Ontological Coaching. While we speak about our experience of the Body we still 'language' and 'listen to' it from a ‘mental’ perspective. My own work suspends language in favour of the immersive value of movement and its transpersonal potential. This is a language on its own. One could call it the Third Order of Learning, following the Second Order of Learning in the Ontological Coaching domain.

+ How would you define Third Order Learning, following Ontological Coaching's Second Order Learning?
Somatic coaching places an emphasis on Becoming and Embodying our self-observation. This is the visible, moved, expressed, revelatory, witnessed and transpersonal world of coaching. The experience is that of the Body ‘transcending’ language and emotion. Potentially the embodied understanding of becoming is immediately embedded equally in matters molecular and universal in the client’s experience. Movement is a unifying force. Coaching this phenomena can be bewildering for a coach who works mostly through language. But consider it an extension and deepening of the Body learning and somatic coaching. The first step in familiarizing yourself as coach with this field is to experience 'becoming' your observations yourself. Your own embodied experience will immediately begin to grant you the courage to coach the Third Order of Learning.

+ Is there a specific way to speak about the Body in somatic coaching I would gain from The Coach's Body?
We have inherited unfortunate tendencies to speak the Body as if it is still lodged in the industrial age of the 18th century. When I hear coaches use strings and balloons and pulleys to get a client to focus on the Body I know that they have not had the benefit of being coached through a far more humane languaging themselves. Research on how to speak about the Body as a sacred entity rather than a machine, gifted us with progressive approaches in language, witnessing, touching and revealing ourselves as embodied beings. This is a beautiful science. Afterall, it is within the experience of the Body where soul, art, science, spirit, nature and consciousness gather together.

+ How does one navigate the Body in a complex society?
The phenomenology of the Body is a vast field to grapple with. It entails our constructions of race, class, gender, culture, age, size, ability and all the conclusions we come to when we gaze upon another. This determines how we observe, interpret and regard others. There is much power in how we create our realities here. A large part of a movement practice over years is to consciously embody yourself differently from what is habitual to you. The effect of this practice is that it widens your movement vocabulary. You become more than what you are. By the way, once embodied, this practice is quite sustainable. This means that you rarely narrow down your consciousness after having embodied a larger perspective on, for instance race. With this larger authentic movement vocabulary / consciousness your view on the world brings you a sense of belonging, and courage. This could be seen as the implicate field from which you navigate a complex world. The alternative is just being scared and incapable of fully becoming who you are.

It is in the nuances of Body movement that the psyche comes home.

+ COMMENTS

The best psychotherapy and philosophical immersion available!

I felt myself moving constantly between hard work and light work. I need another 20 years of training (at least) to get the full extent of the complex material you offer. It seemed like neural work, like my nervous system being woken up.

You have that rare gift of introducing people to new ways of doing and seeing and breaking conventional barriers in our lives.

This work belongs to the temple more than the market place.

I just love it when you demonstrate things.

Being able to move in terms of various themes was wonderful.

It is the learning process with the other members that makes the difference.

It's really hard to encapsulate the whole experience of Butoh as it is so rich and layered, and feeds into so many aspects of other things that have been unfolding in my life.

The great integrity with which you hold the space, and of the group that has assembled as a reflection of your authentic artistry, is really a privilege to be part of. To witness and be witnessed has been transformational.

A very affirming experience of self-value, hope in the moment in what is unknown.

I am so enjoying this strange art revealed to me so slowly and carefully.

The work is great and pioneering.

Today I moved in an ancient sacred space.,/p>

Through this work I know uncertainty very well. It became the truth of everything around me. Truth is easy. That's how it is.

Thank you for such depth.

In The Coach's Body we acknowledge the human Body as consciousness itself.

In fact, as an entity with many centres of consciousness, the motion of the self is unity with all else.

+ ARTICLE - The Unity of Embodied Existence

The Unity of Embodied Existence

Writing about the Body – with a capital B – indicates that it is more than the physical manifestation of a person. The nature of the Body is neither mental nor physical. Rather, we give expression to the Body and its realms of spirituality and varied states of consciousness.

Body is consciousness.

Movement practitioners highlight connections between health, psychological integration and spirituality. Transformational consciousness comes through movement and Body awareness. The spirit, psyche and Body are but the various expressions of one undivided substratum of consciousness. These are our personalities, relationships and collective intelligence. Movement also impacts our development as adults.

Change, as shifts in our behaviour, could come from a shift in our way of thinking. But embodying this thinking is a grounding principle intrinsic to movement practice. One becomes the change, the development, the integration, transcendence or insight. The reason for this is because the Body is the unconscious with the sphere of consciousness.

The full embodiment of the state of being is necessary for a psychological, somatic and even spiritual shift to take place. It is an active, embodied, witnessing consciousness. It elicits in-depth understanding of subtle energy as intentionality. It also brings the possibility of cosmic awareness in the individual psyche.

The range between the experiential Self and cosmic awareness is crucial in the mental embrace of crises in the world today. Common outcomes of the experience of this movement practice are: illuminating contextual thought, lucid imagination, archetypes, emotions, clairvoyance, structural and social healing, crossing ecological thresholds, empathic connection to community, experiences of warmth, flow of energy, openness, healing and spaciousness.

When embodiment is a reality one can experience a sense of unity, and this is possible under the most trying of circumstances.

Writing about the Body – with a capital B – indicates that it is more than the physical manifestation of a person. The nature of the Body is neither mental nor physical. Rather, we give expression to the Body and its realms of spirituality and varied states of consciousness.

Body is consciousness.

Movement practitioners highlight connections between health, psychological integration and spirituality. Transformational consciousness comes through movement and Body awareness. The spirit, psyche and Body are but the various expressions of one undivided substratum of consciousness. These are our personalities, relationships and collective intelligence. Movement also impacts our development as adults.

Change, as shifts in our behaviour, could come from a shift in our way of thinking. But embodying this thinking is a grounding principle intrinsic to movement practice. One becomes the change, the development, the integration, transcendence or insight. The reason for this is because the Body is the unconscious with the sphere of consciousness.

The full embodiment of the state of being is necessary for a psychological, somatic and even spiritual shift to take place. It is an active, embodied, witnessing consciousness. It elicits in-depth understanding of subtle energy as intentionality. It also brings the possibility of cosmic awareness in the individual psyche.

The range between the experiential Self and cosmic awareness is crucial in the mental embrace of crises in the world today. Common outcomes of the experience of this movement practice are: illuminating contextual thought, lucid imagination, archetypes, emotions, clairvoyance, structural and social healing, crossing ecological thresholds, empathic connection to community, experiences of warmth, flow of energy, openness, healing and spaciousness.

When embodiment is a reality one can experience a sense of unity, and this is possible under the most trying of circumstances.

Pandemia expresses a clear moment affecting all life on the planet. It spans beyond a virus into a different reality of the world. Humanity is at an accelerated pace to redefine itself. Words such as survival, sanity, stability, common sense, judgement, clarity and health, and a deepened humanity foreground the media and conversations. Our way of being embodied is now at stake.

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