In a time where outer beauty, sexualized appearances, eternal youth, diets, and fitness performance are in focus, it’s easy to develop a distorted relationship with one’s body. Too often, the body is reduced to how it looks or performs, rather than being valued for how it senses, gives, receives, enjoys, reacts, heals, or recovers.

At Mind the Body, we also focus on the body – but we strive to do so with the well-being of ourselves and others in mind, and on the body’s own terms. Not on the terms set by the beauty industry, the porn industry, or the pharmaceutical industry.

We will work with the body in different ways to get to know it better and become more comfortable with it. Along the way, we’ll celebrate everything the body is, feels, does, and makes possible – that we often take for granted. Hopefully, this will create moments of bodily freedom. In any case, we will gain a deeper connection with our own and others’ bodily experiences and boundaries, while also learning more about how we perceive and understand ourselves and the world around us through the body.

Activities will include sensory awareness, massage, playful wrestling, contact improvisation, groove dancing and partner dancing. We will be both indoors and outdoors, depending on the weather and the theme. Though the main emphasis is on physical practice rather than discussion, we will also reflect on what these bodily experiences set in motion for each of us, and how they can not only strengthen personal confidence but also enrich the relationships and communities we take part in with our bodies.