As a life purpose coach, I notice the choices I make between movement and stillness with my clients. My mission is about aligning actions to purpose. Traditionally, coaches in the U.S. have been known to help people become go-getters, achieve their goals, manage time, become more marketable. Although these elements can be essential in a capitalist economy and in life in general, there are other elements that might be even more critical to an individual at a certain point in life. I cannot express how many clients have come to see me who are totally exhausted from overachieving, spinning their wheels, or just treading water but overdrawing on their energy reserves. They can convey what is wrong, but admit their default approach of DOing only exhausts them further. Sometimes the approach and attitude are so out of whack they know they need an outside perspective. That’s where I come in. And believe me, it’s often more challenging to propose stillness than to propose another route of movement. Stillness is edgy–just ask anyone who has tried meditation for the first time!

In the past I’ve been really good at planting a lot of seeds and moving growth, making big things happen; but the question comes, when is stillness important? In permaculture we learn how food forests take years to develop, while garden soil turned over year after year with new seeds planted can move quite quickly toward growth. Meanwhile, every year, I’m back to the drawing board in my garden, adding nutrients and compost to the soil and planting newly bought seeds and watering and weeding. My energy investment only lasts one year. In permaculture, on the other hand, I might adjust the slope of the earth a bit to encourage rain to come toward my food forest, but once I’ve introduced plants there is not much more to do than just LET IT ALL BE, and things move at their own natural pace. My energy investment can last decades.

So the question is, When to move (and how), and when to be still? And how do we know? There are many signs. If you’ve been stagnated a long time but remain in denial, trying to wiggle your way into momentum, try going deeper into the stagnation, get to know it, give it permission to empty, and notice the core feelings behind the triggers or judgements you feel when you’re life doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. (see John Ruskan’s book Emotional Clearing for more information–I’m no therapist, but I reference his book often!). Similarly, if you feel like you’re spinning your wheels, falling down a lot, dropping, or spilling things, you could benefit from even a few moments of stillness. Falling down is the Earth’s invitation to be present with the ground, to get more grounded.

I once asked my dear friend and guide, How do I know when I can really take off? And do you know what he said? “When you feel support all around you, then you know you can take off.” To be sure, the amount of support that is felt directly determines how high you can fly, how much to move or take action.

Consider the following practice–add more stillness with what isn’t working and move with what is.

Enjoy.

Susan

If you know me, you know that chicks have been at the center of the center of my existence lately. I decided to have chickens because I love to study animal behavior, I love the idea of eating eggs from the back yard, I hate weeds and heard chicken love eating weeds, and I want to reap the rewards of their rich poop in my compost and garden. You see, I’m what you might call an urban homesteader here at what we can Funkly Manor (That’s the name of our house. I decided to name all the aspects of the house to make it more publicly accessible: Shoozane Movement Studio, the Living Laundry home office, and Hothouse Gardens all provide awareness to this homestead’s elements and characteristics.) But now, Funkly Manor needs a chicken coop.

I’m not sure what they put in the feed, but these chicken lightweights have outgrown their little chick shelter faster than the Hulk can pop his shirt buttons! Delphine (named for her Dolphinesque chirping sounds), Icara (named after this chick’s mythological attempt to fly directly into the heat lamp), Lucy, and name-yet-unknown (Icara’s tinier sister) are so ready to move, to fly, to eat up all the weeds in the yard. But here I was, a woman with a plan but with no confidence or juice to implement it alone.

In walks Drake–a handsome elder, a black man with a pencil thin mustache and a sweet grin. I met him on the wood aisle at Home Depot while collecting two-by-fours and plywood for the chicken coop. He walked right up to me and exclaimed with a slight Southern drawl, “Excuse me, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman like you on this aisle before!” As it turned out, Drake was also looking for lumber for his porch project, but managed to walk with me and carry my load all the way to the truck I’d borrowed from a dear friend. We chatted awhile about his career with the Air Force and his days growing up in Kansas. Then he confided, “You know, I’m old, and I don’t have much going on, and I would love to build your chicken coop.”

And here he is, this man who knows nothing about me, but who offered to embark on this project with me. When asked if he wanted anything in exchange he simply replied, “Just stay here and talk with me.” All I can say is, I love conversation! What an amazingly symbiotic connection. So Drake spends a few days a week at my house working on the coop, and we chat while working and hug hello and goodbye.

Meanwhile, I have bored friends who are now biking over to dig over iced espresso, friends who want to have coops of their own offering their tools in exchange to learn alongside, and friends who have big trucks to offer for hauling lumber. And in the process of these needs being met, we’re finding this to be a most joyous occasion for connection! Can you imagine what this would be like if I’d done all these things alone? Truck rentals, sore muscles, self pity, isolation, and no one around for the celebration and the eggs!

Think of a project area in which you don’t feel skilled or fully resourced. Now, look around you at who could be involved, open your heart to the possibility of this connection, and share your story and your needs with them. People love to help, especially if they get to use a skill they’re good at. Let them bring you their gifts!

In support and gratitude,

Susan

Dear One,

This morning I received a letter in the mail. I could feel a tingling sensation in my body as I pulled it from the sea of junk mail. Wow, a letter, for me? How special. Handmade paper. A recognizable wax seal. Does anyone ever get letters anymore? I turned it over and saw the familiar handwriting. I opened the letter. “My dearest Susan,” the love letter began, and words spilled out from the unfolding page into my softening eyes–words of adoration and heartfelt concerns that challenged me to see myself fully, to be responsive within this reflection in our relationship to each other. I read, weeping, acknowledging, considering what this loved one expressed. And then, I sighed. It was signed, in my own handwriting, “Love, Your inner guide”.

This was one activity I facilitated for the women at my recent Courting Your Inner Partner Retreat. It can be a very powerful tool to hear your voice and your inner witness more clearly, and to hold yourself compassionately and responsively.

How often do you listen to your inner guide, your inner lover, your inner witness? Taking time to really feel into this voice can be an amazingly telling experience. Give it a try! Here is some guidance to start a love letter to yourself:

• Start with special store-bought or homemade stationary and a nice pen. Open with an expression of love and adoration, and then state your intention for the letter. This can almost be like a State of the Union you write to yourself, so make sure you have enough paper!
• Express any concerns you might have about yourself. Remind yourself of your path, your dreams, your passions.
• Challenge yourself in the letter around a few areas of concern or support, without laying blame, and let yourself know how you’re there for YOU.
• End with a simple closing statement of your commitment to yourself, and sign it however you feel moved to call yourself (ie, Your Lover)
• Wait until the right time to mail it to yourself. It could be a few days or a few weeks. When you open it, make sure you give ample space and time to read and reflect.

And, I’d love to hear your reflections on this exercise!

Yours, Susan

Healing Through

Performance Workshop

Saturday, April 16th 2-6pm

Denver (studio location TBA)

Cost: $45

Description

Join me for an exciting journey into the unknown realms of performance. In this workshop we will explore and take hold of the healing potential of performance, with specific attention to the study of dance theater. Accessing Authentic Movement practices in this journey’s beginnings, we will explore through writing and the body the creation of personal story while accessing empathic imagery as a tool toward spontaneous composition. The voice is accessed as an abstracted truth teller, while technique and choreographed sequences are manipulated to serve narrative. The performer becomes empathic conduit, the audience becomes witness.

Courting Your Inner Partner –

A Women’s Juicy Afternoon Retreat

Saturday, April 9^th 2-6pm

This retreat is for:

• women strengthening their ability for self-care
• single women manifesting the ideal partner
• women who think (or dream) self-discipline can be sexy
• women in relationship desiring to show up fully
• women in relationship fulfilling their needs
• women getting juicy with self-adoration!

Where: Denver

Cost: Pay-what-you-want (suggested $40-75)

REGISTRATION FOR THIS EVENT IS NOW CLOSED.

____________________________________

Susan Coates playing with momentum, plus giving and receiving weight in Contact Improvisation

Delicate-Wash-Spin-Cycle: Fundamentals of Contact Improvisation

Date: Saturday, November 6th, 2010 3-6pm
Location: Packing House Center for the Arts, 835 E. 50th Avenue, Denver
Cost: $35
Registration: Contact Susan Coates at susan@livinglaundry.org to hold your spot. Checks payable to Living Laundry and mail to 3349 Elizabeth St., Denver, CO, 80205 postmarked no later than October 28th. See www.livinglaundry.org for more information about this workshop and other Living Laundry offerings.

Description
In this workshop we will explore the fundamentals of Contact Improvisation–from surrender to the point of contact, falling and rising spirals, and momentum to effortless partner lifts and ensemble movement. We will also introduce a feedback model to help you get what you want from your dances. You are invited to bring your humanity and your humor to this form! Great for non-dancers and performers wanting to expand their movement toolkit. All experience levels welcome. Kneepads provided.

“Contact Improvisation is a dance form, originated by American choreographer Steve Paxton in 1972, based on the communication between two or more moving bodies that are in physical contact and their combined relationship to the physical laws that govern their motion—gravity, momentum, inertia.

The body, in order to open to these sensations, must learn to release excess muscular tension and abandon a certain quality of willfulness to experience the natural flow of movement. Practice includes rolling, falling, being upside down, following a physical point of contact, supporting and giving weight to a partner.

Contact improvisations are spontaneous physical dialogues that range from stillness to highly energetic exchanges. Alertness is developed in order to work in an energetic state of physical disorientation, trusting in one’s basic survival instincts. It is a free play with balance, self-correcting the wrong moves and reinforcing the right ones, bringing forth a physical/emotional truth about a shared moment of movement that leaves the participants informed, centered, and enlivened.”

From Caught Falling: The Confluence of Contact Improvisation, Nancy Stark Smith, and other Moving Ideas, by Nancy Stark Smith and David Koteen, available through Contact Editions.

Women gather in The Loft at People House, 2009 Women's Retreat in the City

Take time for YOU in a safe, heartful, and resource-rich space to get what you need from a retreat. Return from chaos into balance, let go of certain elements in your life that hold you back, court your essential self, mark a passage in your life, cry & laugh (even at the same time…), bring juice and vitality to a new area in your life, rejoice in a supportive group of women from many different backgrounds.

Susan provides an amazingly soft, centered, and safe container through which you can get whatever you need from your retreat, introducing activities that will help guide you through your inner exploration with support, in addition to coaching on how to incorporate from retreat into ‘real life’. Equal parts personal and group introspection and reflection time.

WHEN: Friday, November 19th 7-10pm & Saturday, November 20th 10am-4pm

WHERE: The Loft at People House, 3035 W. 25th Avenue, Denver, CO

COST: $111 Postmarked through 10/28. $131 after 10/28. Checks payable to Living Laundry, 3349 Elizabeth St., Denver, CO 80205. Email Susan@livinglaundry.org to hold your spot. Registration deadline 11/11.

I’d love to update you all on my Summer, and share some developments around upcoming services at Living Laundry. First of all, Summer has been full of community events and arts festivals! I attended the Moab Contact Improvisation Workshop & Jam in May and was a co-teacher with Francesca Genco of a workshop called Singing the Body: Integrating Voice In Contact Improvisation at the West Coast Contact Improvisation Festival (WCCIF) in Berkeley in July–both areas of abundant skill building both as a student and as a teacher! There I realized a deepened interest in what I call healing through performance–seeing and being seen by one’s community with authentic presence and emergence. I am looking forward to deepening more in this work, and sharing it with you!

Another highlight was this year’s Apogaea–Colorado’s regional Burning Man arts festival. Contact   Improv Camp was an amazing convergence of Cuddle Campers newbees to the form of CI, and mentors who joyed in sharing the form together beneath a beautiful parachute tent. We boasted over 100 attendees at a full day of events, and made capuchinnos, bacon, and blueberry pancakes to share with the community. What a JOY!

Mentor-Mentee 'How We Do' Workshop at Contact Improv Camp, Apogaea, 2010

Lastly, I look forward to organizing another Women’s Retreat this Fall, either in Denver or in nature out of the city. Fall can be a great season for personal reflection before the new year. So, if you anticipate the need to take space for an area of attention in your life, this might be the place for you! Stay tuned!

Women's Retreat in the City, Denver, 2009

Contact improvisation dance returns to Colorado’s Regional Burning Man event Apogaea June 2010 with Contact Improvisation Camp!

Would you like to an arts festival in the mountain wilderness of Colorado where you can dance like you mean it, listen to and play live music, participate in creating community in a sustainable setting, engage in a gift economy, relax in nature, act outside the box, or go just plain crazy in fits of self-expression? Apogaea, Colorado’s regional burn with 10 years in existence, is happening again this year the weekend of June 10, and we’d love to see you there!

A group of us are organizing a Contact Improvisation Camp again this year, and we’ll have contact improvisation workshops/laboratories, jams, and performance with an opportunity for community circles, all on a billboard vinyl cushioned floor in the mountains of Colorado. Events include Creating Community through Contact Improvisation (discussion & lab), Massage & Contact Improv (workshop), Mentor/Mentee How-To (workshop), Contact Improvisation Flash Mob, and contact improvisation jams with live acoustic music. A camp community kitchen will also be available (but bring your own food, water, and propane)! Children, elders, newcomers, and different abilities welcome. Kneepads available.

Go to www.apogaea.com for information about Apogaea, see Apogaea’s event page on Facebook, or for more information about Contact Improvisation Camp at Apogaea contact Susan Coates at 303-455-0852 or email livinglaundry@gmail.com.

Apogaea is a collaborative outdoor arts and music festival held in the beautiful mountains of Colorado. Here you will find an experiential forum where our ever-expanding community practices freedom of expression in an environment of participation, sharing, and creativity.  Located at Happy Ass Ranch in Lake George, Colorado, June 10–13.

Contact Improvisation Dance is a movement form that originated in the 60′s–70′s when individuals doing performance art and modern dancers decided to try to see what would happen when two bodies collide through space. Beginning as a purely physical experiment, contact improvisation dance quickly became known as a microcosm of human/relationships to self, other, and the environment. When you trust, a beautiful dance can happen. When you fear, you might fall or lose the connection. Unlike many dance forms, contact improv dance needs community to thrive. It is highly participatory, whether you want to have a slow, massaging dance, a fast, acrobatic dance, or participate as a witness. Contact improv dance is known as a unique movement form because it changes lives—literally moves what we might think is our DNA or inherent, to an unknown and exciting space that can nourish needs and realize boundaries.