A baby who is supported in exploring their physical movements – touching, reaching, shifting, and pulling – builds a felt, experientially-based support for “grasping” the metaphorical. A baby learns to form and act on their desires and intentions through seeing and touching something, deciding, planning, measuring, moving toward, reaching, grasping, pulling, encountering limits, evaluating, problem-solving, integrating, settling – and repeating. The ability to change, to make transitions, to adapt, and to shift perspective play out first in movement. When a baby finds their way to a new skill through their own agency, they can more fully own the skill and build upon it. A child’s process of learning a new skill is not only about getting the skill itself – it’s about learning how to learn. Progressive, experience-based education can begin at birth and support lifelong learning.

As caregivers and humans in relationships with others, how do we re-pattern what we were taught and perhaps no longer value, and find a different way to relate to the ones we care for – not only because it’s healthier for and more respectful of the other, but also because it’s better for ourselves? What's true for babies is generally true for babies of all ages. How do we best support and facilitate this ongoing cellular unfolding? How do we decolonize parenting philosophy and practices - recognizing and respecting baby’s agency? 

This workshop is based on developmental movement principles, and the ongoing work and research by Sarah and Satu as Infant Developmental Movement Educators and Body-Mind Centering Teachers.

Teachers: Satu Palokangas & Sarah Barnaby

Dates: Saturday & Sunday 11-12. February, 2023

Times: 10-17

Place: Kulttuurikeskus Sähinä, Helsinki

Cost: 240€ (incl. VAT 24%)

Early bird: 220€ if paid in full by 8. January, 2023

To sign up for this workshop, send us a message!

Going Under dominant narratives & false norms

Lecture/Workshop with Sarah Barnaby & Satu Palokangas

Sunday 21. November, 9:30-11 at Labor Gras, Berlin

Inspired by the Body-Mind Centering® principle of ‘going under’ as well as queer theory, decolonization, and the history of scientific paradigm shifts, this lecture/workshop will turn a critical lens to how the study of anatomy and physiology is incorporated within somatic modalities. Our starting point will be cells: how might appreciating the wild diversity of cellular manifestations disrupt the artificial categories of a body system approach to anatomy and free us from the arbitrary reference point of a standard cell? We want to argue for the relevance and generativity of ‘going under’ in the practice of teaching and learning, which can be an ongoing, radical exercise in questioning and dismantling dominant narratives, allowing alternate stories and new potentials to emerge.

Read more about the full event HERE.