Why Apprenticeship Programme?

If someone would ask me what the Movement Medicine Apprenticeship Programme is about and why is it important, I would probably be in a position where I’d like to say both everything and nothing at all.

To cover the nothing part first: AP is such a personal journey that right now I feel no matter what I say or try to explain, it brings out exactly what each one of us individually need to meet.

To be more concrete, it is a place, a time and space that goes beyond the modules, and it most definitely goes beyond the year and a half that it lasts;
it is the spark you feel when you first hear about it, it is the application form you write, the intentions you make, it is the contract you sign – the commitment you make once that you’re in, the chaos you might feel to organize your life between modules, the waiting on the airport, meeting everyone there, dancing and taking it home.

It is talking to your friends, doing your job, living your everyday life and meeting new challenges with each day that follows. It is a commitment that not only changes your everyday experience, but reaches far backwards where parts of you have been frozen and gives you a chance to meet these parts again, reclaim them and bring them home.

At this point I bear in mind, heart, body and spirit that this also gives you or any one of us with this commitment a true choice of what is there ahead of us, waiting.

It also gives us a chance to discover our own unique purpose – or it gives us the tools to go and look for it on our own. It is only us, each and every one individually that make the AP what it is – it is what you choose it to be (what I choose it to be), what you choose to see, to feel, to take with you, it is what you recognise as a challenge instead of life that does not always give you what you like and it is your attitude towards it. It is the dedication you have to build it within your everyday life and your own curiosity for the parts of you that are just waiting to be dusted and polished to be ready to shine. It is up to you whether you will choose it or not.

So, AP in my own experience has a big and deep purpose – to show direction, to give tools, love and security to find our own meaning, our own steps and our own dance.

And dance – why dance? For me, dancing is the most honest practice I know. It’s only me and my body, my own movement, the floor and a vast space around me.

Sometimes there is music and other times there is silence. But, I am the only one who knows if the dance I’m dancing is real – how it moves inside me, how my heart feels and what is the expression that wants to emerge. There can be many dancers around me, there can be teachers that guide me, but it is only me, my own love and discipline that make the difference in my own dance – me and the rhythm , whether inner or outer, that straightens the flow of life in my body.

And just like in any other part of my life – the more I give myself to it, the more I receive.

I’d like to go back to the first part of the answer – everything. Although I am a month (module) away from finishing the AP, I can tell that it makes a huge difference. Personally, it took me down for a ride through my biggest blind spots and gave me the chance to learn how to truly love both the spots and parts hidden underneath. It took me for a ride to find the beauty, fragility and tenderness of my entire being – the parts that were ready to be discovered. It took me for a ride to see my strengths from another angle, to dance my soul out over and over again and find out what else can I be.

It took me on a journey where at its near end I am exactly the same I was before, but at the same time very different. I feel rooted more deeply in my self without some of the overcoats that I no longer need and with clarity, passion and love for the ‘I’ I am right now and the ‘I’ I’d like to become. And the gap standing between those two ‘I’s’ (or gluing them together) as I now see – is only Time – Time and some good life dancing.

Surely I cannot answer for anyone other than myself why this matters so much. The only thing I can be sure of is that I got exactly what I asked for, not always in the way I would prefer nor understand, but all to one of my intentions for this AP have come to life and gave me an intense year and a half of self-discovery, deep new friendships, learning, teaching, laughing, dancing and loving.

And to answer the question why do it – my answer is why not?

It’s not like there’s somebody else’s life you need to show up for.