This Thing Called Movement

Episode 26: Preparing for the Unpredictable, featuring Annie Vo

Annie Vo is a highly accredited fitness professional and a true veteran in the field. She has taken on many leadership roles during her career, including business founder and owner, educator as Senior Instructor of RKC and Team Leader for PCC, and also services clients through her private personal training business in NYC. In addition to her work as an educator and trainer, she is also studying for a master’s degree in Experimental Psychology. I have the deepest respect for Annie; she is such a devout professional in her work and is so authentically committed to honing her craft in as many facets and possible, and I am honored that she devoted her time to record with me and share her story here.

In this episode we discussed Annie’s induction into fitness, her relationships with different fitness modalities, specifically weight lifting and kettlebells, and most uniquely a recent unexpected and unfortunate attack she suffered this past year in NYC. This gave us both a very different lens to explore and unpack her movement history, how movement has influenced her life, and got us talking about the complexities of confrontation and aggression in social situations. One of my favorite components of our conversation was Annie’s explanation of how to manage our resources of time, focus, and effort, and how these resources are always being shifted into different parts of our lives depending on the choices we make in allocating them.

To connect further with Annie and to learn more her work, you can contact her through her website or Dragon Door, both of which are listed below:

Jason Hamera is an accomplished professional in the fitness industry, holding the title of Director of Education for Procedos, a training system and tool developed to create a structure around increasing variability within movement patterns. He is highly intelligent, studiously thoughtful in all the choices he makes, and takes on his role as a leader in the fitness industry with great integrity and humility. His passion regarding the value of education and understanding how to improve the ways we share, teach, and expand knowledge is contagious, and I am thrilled to share Jason’s brilliance with you all in the conversation we created here.

We discussed the importance of honoring both sides of the spectrum of movement and exercise, understanding the relevance of both, and developing the sensitivity to shift along the scale between the two to reinforce one another. Another big point we circled around several times was the distinction between subjective experience of the professional/practitioner, versus objective observables within movement and exercise. And finally, my favorite point Jason honed in on is the difference between instruction and education, and how education is the self-sustaining model that the fitness industry is currently missing. These are just a few of the many topics covered here, and I hope you all enjoy tuning into this episode as much as I did recording it.

To connect further with Jason and to learn more his work, you can check out his Instagram or contact him directly through the email addresses listed below:

Instagram: 

@jason.procedos

Email: 

Miriam van Groen is a fascinating human being, on the leading edge of facilitating some incredible and unconventional work. She specializes in Guided Tripping, an intentional practice that uses psychedelic substances as tools for opening awareness and creating fluid integration between blocked aspects of our consciousness. She observes and guides movement on an entirely different level, looking at the movement of thoughts, feelings, memory, of our consciousness as a whole, and how that ripples into the rest of our lives as a result. Psychedelics facilitate a high level of access to our bodies and felt sense, that can create a blueprint for that connection to continue in day-to-day life. Naturally, I was incredibly drawn to Miriam and her work, especially given the foundational premise of intentionality around the substances, the space, and the experience itself.

We created an incredibly rich dialogue together, exploring the interwoven nature of consciousness, the mind, the body, and the psyche. A few of my favorite topics we covered included understanding the default mode network we operate from and how to rewire it, the importance of being able to show up in work, relationships, and in life as your whole self, and how minor shifts in framing perspective create huge changes in how you relate to your world and experiences, specifically shifting from controlling and fixing to exploring and allowing curiosity to lead. There really were so may incredible threads we touched on, and I am so grateful Miriam took the time out of her incredibly busy work and travel schedule to meet with me and share her insights.

To connect further with Miriam and learn more about her work, you can find her through her website listed below:

Ara is an incredible climbing instructor and coach. I had the pleasure of meeting him this past fall and sharing movement practices, life stories, and exchanging so many different ideas about the relevance of movement in our lives. Ara has a particularly unique relationship with movement in the sense that climbing was a modality that took him completely by surprise, and resulted in his entire life become transformed by it and becoming more entrenched in it. He is incredibly impassioned by the wide variety of life skills and principles climbing demonstrates, and how the practice of climbing itself lends to assimilating many important life lessons.

We discussed the distinction of process over product, and how the very nature and culture of climbing is all centered around the never ending opportunities for growth and challenging oneself. Another important topic was the importance of facing both fear and failure, and how encountering both of these components with regularity allows us to be more adaptable and confident in life. And finally, we got to dig into the value of movement as a vehicle of healing, on a wide variety of spectrums. This episode was so much fun and we expanded so many different topics and concepts here- I hope you all find as much enjoyment listening to this conversation as I had in creating it!

To connect further with Ara and to learn more about his work at Beta Climbing and Fitness, you can check out their Instagram page or their website listed below:

Beta Climbing and Fitness:

Timothy is a trailblazer, completely upending the way we not only see the world around us, but most importantly how we choose to live in it. His invention and development of WholeSystem Human is a unique integration of the various methodologies and practices that Tim has put to use in his life in order to find his authenticity and live within it elegantly. His various services and offerings within WholeSystem Human allow him to facilitate the same experience for every one of his clients with a sensitivity and profound understanding of human experience and feeling I have rarely seen. Not only have I had the incredible pleasure of being able to be in consistent conversation with his intuitive brilliance, but I’ve also been on the receiving end of his Mirror Sessions and other offerings and was blown away by the clarity and integration his time and focus delivered to me.

We had perhaps one of the most stimulating conversations I’ve had in my lifetime in the course of this episode. The major thread that lead us through it all was our exploration of words and their power; both as vessels of meaning that shift in context of conversation and time, and also in their ability to be containers for larger ideas and concepts, some of which by nature cannot be defined. Relationship ended up becoming a keystone topic of this conversation, and we extrapolated the many different ways relationship shows up in almost every aspect of our lives. And finally, perhaps my favorite part of this conversation was Tim’s discovery of sensitivity as the greatest gift movement has offered him. I cannot begin to lay out all the incredible wisdom and enthusiasm that permeates this whole episode, but I am thrilled that Tim and I were able to capture our excitement on all these topics and share it through this recording.  

 To connect further with Tim and to learn more his work, you can check out his website or his Facebook profile listed below:

www.wholesystemhuman.com
 

Facebook: WholeSystem Human

Jessica McCarthy is a dancer, healer, teacher, and so much more. Her work centers around holistic integration using movement, plant medicine, and reconnecting back to ourselves through ancient rituals of our ancestors. Jess and I had so many commonalities we discovered in this episode, including our mutual love of nature, tree-hugging, and dancing freely outdoors. She has such a deep sensorial and emotional connection to movement, the earth, and how these two powerful forces can create massive shifts when paired together. You can’t help but feel a grounded sense of safety and nourishment when hearing Jess speak- and that energy effortlessly flows through her work as well.

Some of the topics we unpacked included the concept of vulnerability, and how to navigate it when it comes up in our movement practices, the relevance of nature in reconnecting to our bodies and our humanity, and the power of sound. This was an exciting conversation for me to have as we uncovered new connecting threads between movement and life, and I hope you all enjoy listening to this episode as much as I did recording it!

To connect further with Jess directly, you can head over to her website and Instagram account listed below:

Jules Bakshi is a dancer, choreographer, holistic personal trainer, and a newly minted business owner. Her new movement/dance/fitness studio, GOOD MOVE, will be opening in Williamsburg Brooklyn spring 2019, where she is weaving together the movement experiences and practices that have had the greatest transformative affect in her life. She seeks to not only deliver these mediums to the public in a welcoming and nourishing manner, but also to create a supportive community that helps everyone step into the best version of themselves. 

Jules is an incredibly intelligent, talented, and intuitive woman. She lives her life with fierce conviction in service to her friends, her family, and her clientele, and I am so honored that she came onto the podcast to share her journey and experiences surrounding movement. I hope you all enjoy the conversation we created here as we unpacked our mutual love for movement together. 

To connect further with Jules directly or to visit GOOD MOVE, you can head over to the following websites and Instagram accounts listed below:

Jules Bakshi

@juiceboxshi

Gary is a functional movement specialist who devotes his work and practice to changing the relationships people have with their bodies. His perspective goes so much deeper than just the anatomy and biomechanics of what’s limiting someone in their ability to experience their full capacity for athleticism and performance; he sees the connection between all things. He asks us to investigate the reflective nature of our relationships with others and what that shows us about our relationship with ourselves, how our emotions and feelings in a given situation affect our ability to authentically be present, and much more. Given all of our common passions and interests, Gary and I were able to expand on some really exciting principles in our conversation here and I am thrilled to share it with you all!

To connect further with Gary and learn more his work, you can check out his Instagram handle or his YouTube channel listed below:

@gfunctional

Tony Testa is a standout choreographer, director, and producer in the dance industry. His deep respect and appreciation for dance as an art form is truly mesmerizing, and with that he continues to be an active observer, philosopher, and lifelong student of the medium as his work with movement expands. I am so grateful that Tony took the time to chat with me in this episode, and that through our conversation together you will have the pleasure of experiencing the intersection of movement, art, and dance, through his eyes. So much of what was shared here has inspired me in my own life, and I am thrilled to offer these kernels of wisdom to you all as well.

To connect further with Tony and learn more about his work, you can head over to his website or search his name through Youtube and Vimeo. 

 Venus Lau is an incredibly passionate and accredited Personal Trainer and based out of L.A. One of the distinguishing elements that Venus brings to the table in her movement work is her emphasis on connecting Mind, Body, and most importantly, FUN! She brings so much humor and joy into her online presence, her programs, and all the various communities she engages with, helping make fitness and exercise accessible and fun for everyone. I am so honored to be able to share our conversation with you all, and hope you enjoy listening in as we unpack Venus’ many perspectives and experiences with movement. 

To connect further with Venus and learn more about her work, you can head over to her website, her Instagram account or check out her movement program, Strength and Flow!

Chandler Stevens is an incredible movement coach whose work centers around how embodiment translates into the rest of our lives. Through his self-created practice of Ecosomatics, he helps his clients feel at home in their bodies so they can show up as the greatest version of themselves in all areas of their lives. He thinks deeply about big and small questions, and creates beautifully open environments and opportunities for people to begin to discover and integrate with their whole selves. I am so thrilled Chandler took the time to record this episode, as we share many common passions and interests and got to unpack many of them through our conversation together.  

To connect further with Chandler and learn more about his work, you can head over to his website, his Instagram account, or Facebook:

Kate Galliett is one of the most accomplished and seasoned movement coaches in the fitness industry. She wholeheartedly focuses on helping people realize the unlimited potential of their bodies as well as their overall movement capacity. Along with instilling a vibrant sense of exploration and curiosity within her coaching programs, Kate herself continues to expand her own growth through exploring new interests and curiosities as they come her way. I am so grateful I was able to speak with Kate in this episode, and I hope you all enjoy our conversation as much as I did!

To connect further with Kate and learn more about her work, you can head over to her website, or to her Facebook group, as well as her Instagram accounts: