As the movements of a fish are learned in response to the water it swims in, the use of our bodies is patterned by the culture that surrounds us. Knowing nothing else in our youth – as a fish knows only water – we encode the assumptions of our culture as physical habits before we are old enough to question them, and we accept them as normal because everyone else does. Unlike other cultures, we live in our heads, dull the pelvic diaphragm to the breath, and feel independent from the world around us.

In this workshop, Philip Shepherd will share a series of practices that disclose such culturally enforced physical habits, enabling them to be experienced directly. A pattern that is not noticed will perpetuate indefinitely; when we bring it into the light, we gain choice. With choice comes freedom.