Fernanda Muñoz-Newsome, a current IBMT student, is a choreographer, dancer, artist, facilitator and somatic researcher. Here she shares notes and reflections on her time on the Embodied Anatomy & Movement Repatterning module in 2023. This module next runs in September 2025. Details here.
There has been so much learning, adjusting, reshuffling, opening and letting go going on since starting this course! So far beginning the Embodied Anatomy Module it is facilitating a fascinating change of perspective coming into somatic movement and touch through the lens of the practicing therapist. This is different for me having had a long history in somatic dance and various practices as an artist/ choreographer/ performer.
Journeying in rest deep in there we are in process continually
speaking from this restful place…. do we feel safe?
can we let ourselves feel safe here?
speaking from sensation speaking from/ in our imaginations of our journeying where are our minds at?
which systems?
where do we want to be?
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Discovering new language, new terminology, new ways into old practices. Finding new and anatomical language is helping me discover different methods of locating and articulating my own and others bodies.
As a movement practitioner something hugely beneficial has been practicing, researching and exploring different anatomical structures in movement and in relation to each other to ground each experience within another body system. This has created new movement research curiosities, experiences and interests.
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Huge valuable shifts for me have been in a focus on working in spoken dialogue while working with hands on. This has created a space of vast potential and range of possibilities while working with touch which I did not use previously in body work. Also in bringing my voice and questions into a group space.
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I discover my “WOW” place and navigate how to be there, play there and when its too much to come back.
I have been exploring the integration of and between different body systems, instead of focusing on one at a time. It was a relief and grounding to play with more than one at once to discover friendly and generous relationships within myself I was not aware were going on all the time.
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Fascia contains multitudes of movement, momentum, possibilities, direction, thought, friction, conflict… Allowing myself to bring my whole self, my multitudes into the room – feels liberating and scary.
The mind of any structure – the mind of the ligaments – through being here we can re integrate and rediscover a secure and integrated alignment to support the whole.
Unfurling unfolding pores, opening skins of endless sensation
the dance of the gut body held inside our endless skin mouth – anus/ anus – mouth
pausing to gather inside a moment experienced and re-membering to move again differently.
So much is in the skin, bringing attention here insights remembering into the present in sensuous power.
my skin relaxes I relax I release I move with ease and sense more ease
skin
softening to bounce, softening to leap, softening to flourish
softening to sense to appreciate sensation, choice, inner space – what does this open up?!
being myself in movement and sounding/ speaking – what unfolds?
pausing to digest pausing to consolidate to unravel
pausing to choose – notice choices, resting to recalibrate, pausing to suggest, to magnify, to bring magic, to unfurl freshly, to languish in loving
lusciousness of sensuality with diversity to and at hand, all inside choice.
layers of skin dance differently
layers of skin smoosh and smash into
intelligence in the surfaces of my skins
everyone all the time spiralling and massive
tasting diving into the imaginations that unfold!
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I am discovering a depth in my movement research which was hard to always have access to before starting the course. Now I have ongoing material through the course that is feeding my practice and research, taking me to new movement articulations, curiosities and desires. Spending time with anatomical images and learning some specific names has also sparked my interest and mind to be more involved in my practice overall through realising how my curiosities take me to create my own research pathways which is endlessly fascinating.
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I danced the dance of self love today, I found my heart centre and shared it, stayed with it, moved to its rhythm and pace, decided to let it into my whole body to move in love through love for love for my own way of sensing it and staying with it …. A trans-functional space opens
Standing Still
the organs express themselves
busy from within the movements appear
in a flurry, an un monitored manner
to be expressed, let out into the world
to not judge oneself but to be inside experience
to give myself this honour
this pleasure
this challenge
to be right here
and nowhere else!
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The Bones
Our ancient most solid structure still has so much space, movement, powers for regenerating.
Our tissues infinitely fascinating. Coming home to the/ my bones – landing – landings back in… from where?… who have I been, in which environments?.. Is this where I want to be?… Where do I want to be?…. have I been happy or am I living in addictive patterning’s – well trodden and stale?!
These are things I’m becoming increasingly aware of.
Resting bones with the immediacy of gravity’s presence a treat like no other never to be belittled or forgotten treated as a delicious treat
reconnecting to centre re centring differently finding my real reach my true reach I feel flow I feel opening I can feel less compression energy is here with locating my clavicles!!
A massive discovery for me has been naming and getting specific about the axial and the appendicular skeleton and how working between each consciously facilitate such wide difference and diverse experience and possibilities or motion and expression.
Re-centring – changing multiple centres, landings, so much memory stored in the bone, different types of memories than the fascia… Bone and ancestry, Chilean Grandma Rosa, lineage, myth and mystery. Mythology, a living mythology.
Having a hyper mobile body and therefore a super sensitivity to certain stuff around touch, around pressure, around type of touch that is specific and touch that is more difficult to digest.
bones of the skull
Sacred
Ancient
Creature
tadpole
sea creature
ameba like
timeless
eternal
powerful
pulses
exploring the timelessness of touch, holding and space making
You can find out more about Fernanda’s work on instagram and a recent project here: https://www.continuousdance.com/works/inchoate-buzz-fernanda-munoz-newsome