Tai Chi and Natural Movement in the Park 2024

 

This 6-week intro to Tai Chi, Qi Gong, and natural movement will be held in beautiful Lindsey Gardens at 7th Ave and N Street, begins Wednesday, September 18th  6-7:15pm.

 

This introductory class will explore the rich world of Tai Chi, qi gong, and natural movement practice through the changing seasons in Lindsey Gardens, the lovely, quiet, public park at the top of N Street in the Avenues. A unique and rewarding approach to learning Tai Chi includes qi gong practices, along with Feldenkrais and natural movement explorations.

We will be working with a tai chi form, but much of the class will be dedicated to deepening the principles underneath the forms, principles that can be applied and integrated into any aspect of your movement practice and life.

 

unnamed (1)

We are living in challenging times, and for many of us, the bodily stress we are carrying has increased in the last years.

The tai chi principles and embodied practices can be so helpful in learning to release unnecessary tension, grow the somatic foundations of resilience, and deepen our embodied, relaxed, alert presence as we move through our lives.

Some of the questions we will explore are:


How do I discover, and continually return to, a vital, nourishing, living connection with the ground?

Can I deepen the support, strength, mobility, alignment and presence in my legs?

Can my spine be dynamic, powerful, supportive and free?

Can I learn to bring warmth, curiosity and friendliness to the places I hold tension?

Can I move in the world in a way that has a quality of grace, self-respect, power and integrity?

Can I maintain a connection to my own center without disconnecting from the world around me?
Can my breath be free, spontaneous, uncontrived?
Can I learn to inhabit and move from the dynamic, intelligent, vital center of the lower belly? 
Can I be less stuck in my head, and learn to inhabit my whole body?

How can I keep my movement dynamic, spontaneous, and enjoyable as I age? 

Can I grow my capacity for resilience, and how I respond to unexpected challenges?


Class will begin Wednesday, September 18th, and will continue on for 6 classes from 6-7:15 pm until October 23rd.

I set up this class in a way that you will not feel behind if you have to miss some. As the saying goes “We will go an inch wide, and a mile deep.”

  Cost: $150

Also, I have scholarship spots if you are experiencing financial challenges, just shoot me an email at carl@embodimentmatters.com

Please read our cancellation policy here

Looking forward to our time together.

-Carl

“Carl creates a friendly and sacred space where the functional, playful, natural, and sublime intersect.
He shares various potent yet accessible somatic practices with an animist lens, inviting you to study and awaken the terrain of your own body while also taking your rightful place in relationship with an alive world.
Carl’s classes assert our (as humans) innate blueprint for ease in movement. He offers a way back to this ease that’s fun, functionally responsible, stress-relieving, and community building. He then helps us remember what’s most important by addressing our embodied humanness in entirety, weaving in beautiful readings and teachings on longing, emotion, lineage, and our relationships with the wild and each other.
Carl teaches with humor, confidence, respect, and love. His mastery of many movement and spiritual traditions is evident, and yet he seems to be continually learning along with his students, curious about our findings.”
—Ruthie Fraser, Somatic Educator & Founder of Body Rewilding

 

Carl Rabke is a Somatic Naturalist, Embodiment teacher, and a tender of soul and living culture. For the last 25 years, he has practiced and taught where the streams of somatics,  soul-work, and a deep love of this living Earth meet. He is a Feldenkrais Practitioner and Rolfer, and loves to support people in returning to, and remembering our natural, inherent intelligence in movement, meditation, ritual, song, rhythm and community. Carl has studied at Bobby McFerrin’s Circlesongs School and is a Musica do Circulo practitioner. He has mentored with Jozef Frucek of Fighting Monkey, and has been on the Care Team for Bayo Akomolafe’s We Will Dance With Mountains gatherings. Carl has mentored with and taught alongside Francis Weller, and he also hosts the Embodiment Matters Podcast with his beloved wife, Erin. You can find out more about him here.