My 2024 started with a bang: a three-month Movement immersive in Puerto Escondido at Movement Mexico. I lived two blocks from a beautiful beach, lived barefoot, and dedicated many of my hours to studying and practicing “Movement” with world-class teachers and a sweet community.

Tres meses en el paraíso! What an honor and a blessing!

While I did post some blog updates during that time, the in-the-moment writings were more multi-faceted and newsletter-esque… less focused on movement specifically. This follow-up post is focused on the Movement trimester itself, as well as some of my personal journey with “Movement” in general.

May my writing serve to honor and bless the beauty of the experience I had in Puerto Escondido, as well as the global “Movement culture” and all who dedicate themselves to beauty, growth, community, and aliveness of spirit through Movement.

Moment: Mariana in Movement

Zoom in…

20 of us are in the palapa, closely listening to Mariana describe her entry to the rotational pushup then prepare to perform it.

Are you ready? Watch closely!…

Her bare feet kiss the blue floor of the palapa as she steps, articulating herself gracefully all the way down to her toes. She twists, winds her arms and torso back, and throws herself outwards into a beautiful spiraling motion towards the ground… her palms catch her weight one by one, fingers softly extending and gripping, feet sliding smoothly outwards into a wide arc.

For a bare moment she arrives in the middle of the movement, the bottom of her graceful, fully-extended “pushup” – and her spiraling momentum continues as her weight moves through her torso into the right side of her body, her bent shoulder and elbow, side of the forearm, side of the hand… finally her fingertips are leaving the ground one by one as her left leg swings in a wide arc and she spirals up, spinning on her knee, landing her back foot in a comfortable “high fisherman” position, and continuing the movement upwards into a standing spiral.

She effectively crossed the entire room, in a spiral motion, by throwing herself into the ground and back out… gracefully. Not a single jarring moment. Continuous soft contact between her feet and the floor, swishing as they slide in gorgeous wide arcs, imprint us with a pleasant footprint of sound.

Again.

She winds her arms back, arcs herself into the ground, spirals out.

The sight and sound of it is mesmerizing.

Her movement is pure beauty.

My heart stirs to emulate it.

And then, my heart guides me back to my own practice. Helps me throw myself a little farther, swing my leg a little wider. Helps me slow down my movement to soften out the edges. Here in group practice with partners, and later in the Open Gym on my own… I feel myself growing.

Moment: Movement with the Crickets

It’s Valentines Day. I get out of a salsa class and am feeling blissfully full of light and energy. My feet are suddenly guiding me back to Casa Shanti rather than towards my home – to the palapa. I imagine a solo movement session of practicing my cartwheels in the dark.

I am surprised to arrive and find three other students already there, and in their own practice… surprised but pleased. For then there are four of us, quietly practicing during an unplanned movement session, surrounded by the sound of breath and crickets. Occasionally smiling and nodding to one another, yet in our own worlds.

It feels like stolen time. And time magically slows down for me, for 40 minutes of slowly entering and exiting the cartwheel, and looking for suspension in the middle – the straddle hold of the handstand.

I have it one second. I have it two seconds. I have it four seconds.

The sound of crickets around me is both sharp and soothing. I am the feeling of my palms touching the floor. I am the articulation of my toes as I gently kick up into the straddle hold.

I am a moving meditation through many, many imperfect repetitions. I am breathing – slow and smooth. I do a slow cartwheel – I am the cartwheel. I am sweating. I am ecstatic.

What is “Movement”? A Brief Personal Story Arc

Ido Portal coined a term “Movement Culture” and a very multifaceted practice and lifestyle which embodies his philosophy. My teachers in Mexico (Jonathan and Mariana Fletcher) have been students of Ido’s for the last 10 years. My past teachers (Bren Veziroglu, Fabiana Souza, Johnny Sapinoso) have also studied with Ido and students of his.

Ido’s website and Instagram says it all better than I can, so I’ll let you explore and enjoy his content at your leisure, if you choose, for more philosophical context.

I personally did not come to this practice through the web presence of Ido Portal, as engaging as it is. I found it through Bren, who I met in the SF Ecstatic Dance scene and who invited me to check out his “community of dedicated movers”, a teaser of an introduction that enthralled and captivated me, setting me immediately on a serious love affair with this strange and miraculous local/global Movement Cult.

I started practicing with the Bay Area Movement Practice (BAMP) group in September 2022… which instantly earned the happy affections of my heart! It was the perfect space at the perfect moment for me, and I went all in.

The group had been started several years prior by Johnny Sapinoso, who had since moved on from SF to continue studying and teaching abroad. When I joined, the group had four rotating teachers. We met five days a week for 2 hours per session, starting our days together outside in public parks in the magic of the dewy San Francisco pre-dawn.

We did so many things with our bodies… so much that was new to me! From “spinal waves” in all planes of movement, to the “crumpling mechanics” of how to efficiently move ourselves into and out of the floor (slowly, and then at speed), to the fine details of forward and backwards rolls, to handstand progressions, to “locomotion” moves, to rail balancing, to coordination and footwork games… I loved the variety! I loved the depth! I loved being outside at sunrise moving with these other wild folks who felt like my tribe and shared some of my quirks like wearing barefoot-style shoes and hanging out in a deep squat position. I loved it all.

My time in that group and its derivatives officially lasted for a year and some, during which time the SF Movement community saw many changes in its structure and leadership, culminating in the official dissolution of any formal group when both of the main remaining teachers left town in September 2023. That was a devastating moment!

But at that point I was already starting to look for my way out of SF. The crippling of my Movement community was only part of the writing on the wall, for me. I knew I needed to go, and I didn’t know where that would be… but I knew there were Movement communities elsewhere in the world, and since Movement had felt like home to me, it seemed as good a target as any to guide my travels.

This is why I went to Puerto Escondido. I went there to have my first fling with another Movement community. And I loved it.

A Week In The Life at Movement Mexico

Here’s what my Movement Mexico life looked like at a glance (including a glimpse of my teacher Jonathan’s acrobatic prowess):

Not everyone showed up for all the sessions. Some people were only coming a few days a week, for example.

But there were also a few of us who were more or less “all in”. We were routinely practicing in the palapa 2-4 hours a day, plus engaging with our other hobbies and activities, which for many of us Movement freaks include or revolve around other physically active things like dance and surfing.

That’s a lot of dedicated time for movement! It was a full body-mind-spirit challenge. A multi-dimensional experience that seemed at first to be about the physical body and its movement patterns… but turned out to require philosophical and mental grappling from us as well, if we were going to be serious “students” of this Movement thing.

What did we actually work on?

In general, Movement as taught by Ido and his students is a holistic practice – we were challenged through many different kinds of exercises to develop strength, mobility, balance, coordination, responsiveness, and creativity. We trained to be able to move in varied and interesting ways, and to solve puzzles with our entire organism in a coordinated way.

There are pretty much an infinite number of topics to explore inside the practice of “Movement”, which makes it frustratingly elusive to define as a whole.

But in this trimester of study we focused specifically on…

• Spine and Arm work – waves and circles in different planes, and coordination challenges
• Acrobatics – especially cartwheels with both ipsilateral and contralateral entrance and exit patterns
• Arm balancing – especially handstands and QDRs
• Arching and Thoracic spine opening exercises
• General mobility practices to support these bigger movements and gain mobility and function in the fascia, from the fingers all the way down to the toes
• Floor work: dynamics of moving into, out of, and across the floor with coordination and softness.

Why? A Movement Philosophy

“Movement Culture” seems to me to be an evolution of the concept of “fitness”, and what it even means to develop and use our bodies well.

Generalized movement as a discipline is a path that feeds back into anything and everything in our lives that requires bodily movement.

One obvious application of it is literally any sport or physical activity. Even my teachers who live and breathe this path of study, also keep up other active hobbies including jiu jitsu and surfing. Movement practice turns us into faster physical learners with smarter micro-patterns of movement pre-installed in our bodies.

It’s also an insurance policy of sorts. By programming our bodies with better patterns of movement, we become more able to move safely in the world. We can learn how to fall without hurting ourselves, for example. That’s not about strength but about actually having good learned patterns in our body. This is one example of how “Movement” is about more than just “Fitness”.

To grow as a Mover means fighting against the forces of habit which cause stagnation and limitation. When we move in new ways, we are creating new patterns. We are healing old injuries. We gain sensitivity and attunement to our whole body and to Life itself.

Fully occupying a human form and becoming coordinated and embodied and physically skillful is a very complex task!!! When I am showing up for this practice every day, I feel we are taking the impossible and overwhelming, and turning it into bite-sized pieces of effort. We create a lifestyle of dedication to a path of growth. And what we are practicing is actually a philosophy of life and what it means to be human.

When I asked my teachers “Why Movement? Why Ido Portal? Why so dedicated? Why so much?”, one response I got was “I keep showing up to this path, and I keep growing.”

And that’s Life with a capital L. That’s what matters.

Is this Movement thing starting to sound like a religion?

Sometimes it feels like it. Maybe it is. Ido’s presence in the Movement world feels a little guru-ish to me, at least the way he’s amassed so many devoted followers. (Though I guess the modern world is full of gurus and their followers. Pick your poison.)

Personally, I spent a lot of time wrestling with whether Movement is a religious practice for me, especially in this trimester of study… and on some level that IS what I want in my own movement practice. I want my practice to be an embodiment of deeper spiritual values. That’s one thing I love about yoga, is that it can be explicit about being both a physical practice and a spiritual practice. The “Movement Culture” world, on the other hand, feels very secular and scientific to me… though it’s certainly full of devoted people, and the method taught by Ido and his students can result in deep and profound growth. I haven’t yet come to a conclusion on where Movement falls on the spectrum of hobby-cult-religion. I’ll leave that topic here for now.

Forward Looking…

I am taking an intentional pause now in my Movement practice, for various reasons. But I’m very grateful to look back on this trimester of dedicated practice with Movement Mexico. Part of me wishes I could have extended it longer. Part of me hopes I will go back and do it again.

Whether I do or not, I know I’ve gained at least a few things that will stay with me…

• A deeper, richer, embodied understanding of Ido Portal’s Movement method
• Enhanced coordination, strength, and mobility
• Greater confidence in my ability to learn and grow as a Mover
• Friendships and connections in the global Movement community
• Food for thought about where movement and physicality belongs in my life holistically

I hope this piece was informative and entertaining, and maybe even that you can feel inspired to take an interesting next step on your own Movement path, whatever that might be. We live in an amazingly rich world that is absolutely abundant with opportunities for physical embodiment and expression! May we all be blessed with playfulness and growth in our relationships with our bodies, physicality, and athleticism… and find sustainable and healthy ways to build that into our lives.