Embody Happiness

As Minnesota was going under sheets of ice, I lost my Gyrotonic studio and all of my equipment to a bad marriage. It was the beginning of one of the longest winters of my California bones and one of the most spectacular resurrections of my life.

I tumbled hard. Losing the marriage was not nearly as hard as losing my studio. A few months into the crash, for the first time in my life, I began experiencing low back pain. I found myself often putting my hands on my abdomen when I spoke of the loss. The body is more than a metaphor: losing the studio was losing my baby. I felt it in my gut, in the root of my spine. For a day or two, I cancelled my clients and curled up in the fetal position.

But no one let me stay down for long. Clients, friends and family helped me financially, emotionally and spiritually. One client paid me a year in advance for twice-a-week sessions, enabling me to buy a Jump Stretch Board. I moved that into my condo and, for six months, that is what my students worked on. Their advances were inspiring. And not one of them left me. Some new ones joined, showing up to my home as if it were the most natural place in the world to learn Gyrotonic. I had a fire going most of the time. I was never alone. Every client met my son. My home and studio were one. Students became family.

By April, winter was still on. I’d done the training and acquired a Gyrotoner, another piece of specialized equipment, again through the generous support of family and students. Now my condominium was getting crowded. And we’d all been indoors too long. That’s when I discovered a gorgeous studio space while searching for possible locations for Embody, a name that seemed to have been there the whole time, waiting for me to hear it. The space was for sale, and I wasn’t in the market for buying. But I was smitten. I sent messages to a few people, saying, “Isn’t this beautiful? Wouldn’t it be great if we could buy this?” Then I let it go. That is until Morgan Luzier, owner of Balance Fitness, emailed me: “Susan, a little bird told me you were interested in the space on Aldrich. Guess what? I bought it! I would LOVE your studio to be there.” We got together the next day. She looked at me, reading my mind: “It really can be this easy, right?” The rest is part of the magical birth of Embody.

As of mid-May, Embody has inhabited the light, energized space at 3041 Aldrich. We are separate, complimentary businesses that include body workers, personal trainer Rich Bluma and chiropractor Chad Hendrickson. I now have a fully equipped Gyrotonic studio with two Pulley Towers from Germany, a Jump Stretch Board and a Gyrotoner. I fell hard and bounced back high. The vision for Embody had apparently been there always, hunkering down in the wings, only waiting to come into the light.

It is spring. There is room to move again. I am celebrating, grateful for all that my body can do and inspired every day by what yours can do. Gyrotonic is that celebration. See you soon!

Embody Renewal

Last night I burned some old letters. I slipped them beneath my grilling pork chops, killing two birds with one stone. Out with the old, in with dinner.

It is the end of summer, not quite the beginning of fall, but I had a sudden itch to clean out my closets. It was just about a year ago that I sold the house where I’d raised my children. Soon after downsizing to give my new marriage a chance to grow in its own soil, my husband and business partner decided to throw in the towel. Soon after he told me he’d be taking our studio and all of its Gyrotonic equipment, too.

The letters I burned were a couple of years worth of emailed love letters that fueled the fire our transcontinental relationship. I’d lovingly printed them out, thinking maybe someday, as an anniversary gift, I’d make it into a book for him. There were travel itineraries, little scrawled notes of “I love you’s” and embarrassing pet names for each other. After we split up, I kept letters for other reasons, mostly as proof that I’d not hallucinated the whole thing. Now a box of words, both ordinary and profane, was taking up precious space in my closet — space that could be used for boots or another box of memories, like my trip to Italy that I took with my daughter at the beginning of summer.

I learned some things about fire and, by association, about letting go. First of all, no matter how hot the fire, you can’t put too many pieces of paper on it at once. Those thin sheets of white paper become dense when they’re all together. Or, perhaps it’s the ink; all those words do add up to physical matter on the page. But once the pieces catch, the flame is big and hot. You have to be careful not to get burned, or to start a fire elsewhere if a little breeze picks up. And, you have to be patient. I wanted to just drop the whole box on the white-hot charcoal, but you quickly learn that letting go is a slow and steady thing, letter by letter, word by word.

I ate my dinner, the “evidence” of the relationship raging. The ease with which it all went up in flames was both stupid and stunning. I tried to picture me as that other person. I took my pork chop off the grill and ate it as the rest of the letters burned. The meat was delicious.

The hardest thing about letting go may be the realization that some of our most substantive experiences could come down to this: smoke, flame and ashes. But burning leaves ashes. Lots of them. Nothing really goes away, just transforms, changes form, and if we allow it, fuels new life. When my dad passed away two years ago, we cremated him. A year after that, my mom and I scattered his ashes throughout the hills of Berkeley, Calif. where we’re from. The ashes weighed a couple of pounds. I was afraid to touch them, but found some comfort when I dug my hand in and felt the grit of it between my fingers. We tossed them up into the wind, making arcs in the sunlight, the boney parts falling faster than the rest. When we were done there were ashes on our hands and on my clothes.

Everyday, I can hear my dad’s gravelly voice telling me how proud he is of me and my studio. As we edge toward fall, I am amazed by the way Embody Movement Studio has risen from the ashes, as though it were always there, waiting to be born. And all of you, my students, friends, colleagues were there, too, urging me forward, onward. If I could change anything, I would not change one single thing. Fires create fertile ground. And, possibly help grill a nice pork chop.

Embody Motherhood

As a Chinese medicine practitioner for Legacy Wellness, Monica has a deep appreciation for the yin and yang of things. And, as a new mother, she knows she needs more yin than yang; something restorative and reflective.

“You’re in different positions being a mom, after carrying a baby for nine months, breast feeding and then this strange animal hanging on me all the time,” she says. “Your bones are in a different place. Your sacral joints are never going to go back. I want to get comfortable in this new body.”

The Gyrotonic method instantly made sense to Monica, like coming home. Though she uses the word ‘intuition’ sparingly, the gentle, rhythmic movements of the Gyrotonic system made deep intuitive sense to her. “I don’t have to kill myself at the gym. That’s what everybody thinks they have to do — a treadmill, watching TV. [Gyrotonic] is putting me back in my own skin after nine months of carrying a baby, breast feeding and having this strange little animal hanging on me all the time. It helps my mommy posture by gently putting me back together.”

The energetic and physical aspects of Gyrotonic felt right to Monica. But as a former ballet dancer, Gyrotonic also appealed to her on an aesthetic level. “I felt like I was back in ballet, but it felt whole, not restrictive. I didn’t have a stern ballet teacher, hounding me about perfection. I got to move again without the critique. This healing movement allowed me to make movement as beautiful as ballet but in a safe, restorative way.”

The Gyrotonic method does not have an external measure of “perfection.” It takes you where you are now to help you feel and discover fluid movement for yourself. You don’t need to be a dancer or an artist to learn graceful, fluid movement. Gyrotonic movements are expressive — even poetic — as Gyrotonic Master Trainer Dominika Gaines said several years ago during my 12-day foundation training. A movement can be mechanical or a meaningful gesture, “a longing for something,” my first Gyrotonic teacher Christian Twigg once said.

As with Chinese medicine, says Monica, “Gyrotonic is an art form. The way we understand the body is poetic. It’s yin and yang. In Chinese medicine, Gyrotonic is the root essence, the deep and dark, creating health deep within the joints.”

All of us have a longing to express something poetic. And to do that in a fun, safe way is perhaps the best of all worlds. It’s like a jungle gym for adults. You get to be childlike again. It’s anti treadmill,” says Monica. “Anti-boring.”

Embody Courage

Wiry and lithe, Marcelle walked through my studio doors about 18 months ago. She will be 68 years old next month, but it was her youthful and curious spirit that filled the studio. A practitioner of yoga for many years, she was in touch with body already, but Gyrotonic practice brought her to a level of self-awareness that perhaps nothing else ever had.

“I immediately fell in love with the flowing movements — moving from the spine in all directions. I loved the spirals,” she said. “The breathing patterns and equipment enabled me to stretch where I didn’t think I could go.”

Marcelle’s energy waxed and waned, as she felt her cancer returning. The doctors had told it was likely to return after her surgery a few years ago. A scan confirmed it. A few months into our sessions, she was diagnosed with metastasis. She had long ago known that when her cancer returned, she would not treat it as the treatment in her case would cause more harm than benefit. She was undaunted, buying another package of 10 sessions and maintained absolute consistency with her practice.

“Gyrotonic became my life line, gentle yet powerful, allowing me to live life full out,” she said.

I tailored Marcelle’s sessions to match her energy and pain levels. There were days when she was exhausted. But the Gyrotonic method honors people where they are each day, each hour. No one is the same as they were or will be. As a teacher, I have learned to be flexible, switching plans to work with where the client is at that moment. The system itself is non-judgmental; it does not impose an external “shape” for the client to conform to. Instead, Gyrotonic exercise helps people find internal connection, helping them move from the inside out. As time passed, Marcelle’s body asked her to surrender more and more. Recently, we reduced her sessions to a half hour, twice a week.

I have been the fortunate witness of Marcelle’s graceful, honest way of coping with the reality that the end of her life is closer than she’d wanted. Our sessions are filled with laughter, rest and sometimes tears, as Marcelle moves with the reality of her illness. All the while, I move with her and do my best to keep her moving in the gentle, powerful ways of the Gyrotonic method.