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Finding colleagues to explore with warms my heart
I recently developed a 4-part series entitled “Embodiment Practices for Self-Care” for a class I volunteer to teach for the NYC Health Department. I was motivated to teach Alexander Technique classes via NYC Health’s Worksite Wellness program through my work with Race to Justice, an internal reform initiative aiming to build staff skills to address racism, implement policies to lessen the impact of structural oppression, and strengthens collaborations with communities across the city.
The ability to tap into the power of the body to self-regulate, soothe and recharge is an important skill to meet the challenges of our times. It is a skill that all too often falls through the cracks in a culture driven by the American dream, marked by striving without rest, and a long history of oppression. Delving into characteristics and antidotes of “white culture", a power-over (vs. a power-with) culture may surprise you, may inspire you - yet, in the article I link to, it feels like the body is left out.
In “Embodiment-Practices for Self-Care”, I built on trauma-informed body practices from the book My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem. This book is a transformative and practical guide with a compilation of body practices that are easy to follow. Reesmaa Menakem describes settling our bodies as part of the path to healing.
As I read the book, I was drawn to how Reesma Menakem invited an awareness of the body that I have spent the last 21 years as an Alexander Technique student and teacher consciously trying to cultivate in myself and share with others. Yet, embedding awareness in a historical context, makes the possible transformation greater — Resmaa Menakem calls this Somatic Abolitionism. It makes me think of the days in the mid-90s when I sat on the floor in a crowded, borrowed conference room learning from the founder of the Center for Teaching Peace, studying the art of non-violence. Around the same time, I lost my uncle to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which was marked by a slow initial response because HIV first affected gay men. I was also asked by a classmate if I had any Black friends. I felt that my experiences were leading me to peel back layers of American culture that lead to undue suffering and work on the mind-body level has helped me in my journey.
I read My Grandmother’s Hands along with the book club/reading group of the Alexander Technique Diversity Coalition, a volunteer organization that I co-founded in 2016/2017 with a racially diverse group of colleagues. I was grateful for the opportunity to explore this book with colleagues and in community. If you’d like to interact on this topic on the Alexander Technique Diversity Coalition Discussion Group, become a member, and then click here.
This is a work in progress. When I wrote this, and as I add to this, I find myself coming to an “end” that is just a beginning: “More to come but I have to go to sleep, for now, to take care of myself! The class went well and I look forward to telling you about it — an innovating together.”
I’ll also leave you with one of my favorite blog posts about a student using the Alexander Technique as an activist.
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