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Brian Johnson | The Aware Body

@brianmovement

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Movement, awareness & practice
Holistic Coaching through Movement
Founder of @movementstandard
Programs & coaching ⤵️
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CONSTRUCTING MOVEMENT
Fall Immersion | October 17–18

In the spring, we deconstructed movement, this Fall we’ll be moving in the other direction, with construction.

Constructing Movement is a weekend immersion at The Movement Standard exploring how movement, skill, and practice are built from the ground up. We’ll spend our time together looking at how isolated pieces become patterns, how patterns become skills, and how skill becomes what we are.

Some subjects and areas of study we’ll be working with.

Groundwork
Locomotion
Foundational patterns
Skill-building constraints
Uncommon strength
Partner and object work
Stillness and integration

The aim is to better understand how movement is organized, practiced, and developed over time, how is practice architected from the bottom up?

This immersion is for anyone who wants to deepen their relationship to practice beyond and the body, and for those who recognize that important connection on our day to day experience.

Dates: October 17–18
Location: The Movement Standard | Dallas, TX

Space is limited to preserve the quality of attention, interaction, and practice throughout the weekend.

To reserve your place, send us a message or visit the link in bio.

#movement #movementstandard #embodiedpractice #practice #movementculture taken in The Movement Standard by @brianmovement

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3 months ago

Most people think standing still is doing nothing but when you actually practice it, you realize how much is happening. The body constantly reorganizes and the mind wants constant stimulation. Attention endless gets pulled toward distraction, which is why standing can become a mirror, showing us our limitations.

Standing in this way isn’t meant to represent perfect posture or rigid stillness, but for seeing how difficult it is to simply remain present and still without needing to escape the moment, move towards distraction or engage with a bigger manipulation of the body.

In my experience there’s endless value in any attempts at physical and mental stillness, which may be impossible, but can and do point to something greater, a version of myself that is closer to how I wish to be.

This video is from a recent 30 minute standing session, sped up to show what’s really underneath, movement.

#stillness #awareness #meditation #alive presen taken in The Movement Standard by @brianmovement

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4 months ago

Change how you think and you’ll change how you move. Change how you move and you’ll change how you think.

To study dance in essence is to make ideas into the body, to embody qualities we wish to express and become. This is not to be confused with ‘just dancing’ but includes it inside of a larger umbrella of possibilities through regular practice.

What looks like dancing is built from the friction of not being capable of moving in these various ways initially, and yet eventually through regular showing up and an orientation towards process, the dance emerges.

#dance #process #practice #movementculture taken in The Movement Standard by @brianmovement

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8 months ago

Meditation is simply to abide as oneself.

These are words I take into my daily practice that often provide a reminder to sink into being. To remain as I am and allow the mind and the body to both appear and disappear.

I’ve come to find the body is a potent doorway to present being. In meditation, thinking, sensing, and perceiving is left alone and seen for what it is, objects constantly in motion. By allowing experience to flow through there’s a recognition that all things come and go.

#stillness #meditation #practice by @brianmovement

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2 days ago

Movement is about aliveness and a practice without imagination is a dead one.

While the places we move are neutral, I’ve seen a high correlation between the walking dead and traditional physical approaches. Fluorescent lit, overcrowded gyms loaded with machines leave little to the imagination or inspiration.

While these gym, and the machines in them, can be of value, the real carrier of Practice is ourselves. With the ability to turn any environment into our own investigation through the body it becomes more clear that whats needed isn’t another object or space, its education.

I’m an educator by vocation because I’ve found education to be such a powerful direction for myself. I’ve worked with countless others who’ve also realized the same.

Wherever you go, there you are, as the saying goes. Instead of investing in more outside of ourselves, make the choice to educate oneself. As the depth of understand goes you’ll have the one tool you really ever need.

#imagination #movement #education by @brianmovement

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9 days ago

A transformative shift in viewing strength is the move from growing into building.

This change in seeing begins to organize a different way of practice, leading toward the fruits of transformation.

Why?

Growing is focused on one side of the equation: more.

The same basic patterns on repeat, with incremental changes that can be quantified through sets, reps, loading, volume, and so on.

Building, on the other hand, includes a unique factor: it takes into account how the body is organized, changing with it how we move and experience ourselves.

The shift is toward developing a practice that builds into a body of work, rather than simply being active for its own sake.

This means focusing on complexity > capacity, developing new skills, expanding available options, and questioning how physicality is currently seen.

Strength, then, becomes more than something we grow, it becomes something we transforms ourselves through.

#strength #rings #movementculture #complexity #bodywork taken in The Movement Standard by @brianmovement

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18 days ago

The body is not a collection of fixed movements, but a field of possibilities.

Yet when we stop exploring that field, the options available to us begin to narrow.

One of the clearest examples is the spine. If we rarely practice the spine moving in different directions, shapes, and relationships, then our available choices gradually become more limited. What begins as a lack of exploration can eventually look like rigidity.

The issue is not simply whether the spine can flex, extend, rotate, or side bend, as many systems tend to put emphasis on, it’s whether those possibilities are available when we need them.

Practice, in this sense, is not about collecting more movements but is about expanding the number of ways the body can organize itself.

In this partner game, we start with very specific constraints to build a current picture of what is possible. From there we begin to expand into more complex asks, eventually arriving at what looks like dance, tai chi - or some other internal form.

I’ve taken students through a similar simple process and in one day, what was once only one option for how they moved, now infinite. My wife @kami__johnson leading the way, carving new possibilities.

#learning #spine #mobility #dance #partner taken in The Movement Standard by @brianmovement

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22 days ago

What differentiates a Movement practice from fitness and many other physical activities is the shift from capacity only —> to capacity + complexity.

Instead of simply adding more of the same basic patterns (reps, sets, time), the focus is equally about changes in movement complexity.

Complexity in this case is about being able to respond to changing variables and organization of the body and mind. This isn’t to be confused with novelty alone, but is about creating new levels of order through iteration of skill.

Capacity alone and the organization never shifts, novelty alone and there’s too much fragmentation and disorder.

In the case of complexity we can look to the concept of order to guide us, which brings with it shifts in movement quality.

For example, five quality chin ups might allow for enough order to test the muscle up.

Five quality pike push-ups might allow for enough order to test variations of the handstand push-up.

If you understand this basic principle of order, complexity will naturally emerge.

For wholesome transformation, putting order to more areas = more options of body and mind.

#order #complexity #novelty #handstandpushup #pushup taken in The Movement Standard by @brianmovement

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a month ago

In a typical arc of a program we learn positions, steps, sequences and corrections, breaking things down because we need to.

This way of chunking is an early phase for shifting to more complex ways of moving and learning.

Over time, the parts begin to group and the groups become larger patterns. Eventually, we stop having to consciously assemble everything, learning to reference the whole.

One way we architect this is through coaching from a process of isolation —> integration. And what we call improvisation is an emergent shift that each student has an opportunity to discover on their own.

A long period of practice may be about collecting and organizing parts and the deeper shift is when those parts begin to disappear into something wholesome.

Interested in learning how we build personalized programs for students all over the world? Email info@movementstandard.com for more details

#parts #wholes #holistic #movement #movementculture taken in The Movement Standard by @brianmovement

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a month ago

Many people assume a movement practice is about learning more movements. For me, it’s more about learning how to better relate to ourselves through the body. The body is the medium and Movement gives us a way to investigate it.

I’ve found that injury is part of that education. Ten years ago, I partially tore both meniscus. It was a wake-up call and the continuation of learning how to use movement not only for performance, but for healing.

A few principles that came from that process:

1. Investigate your pain.
Don’t completely outsource the process. Get help, ask questions, learn what you’re dealing with, and stay involved in your own recovery.

2. Move as soon as you reasonably can.
The question is often not “Should I move?” but “What movement is available to me right now?” Start there, even if it’s small.

3. Trust the process.
Healing takes time. Do the work, pay attention to feedback, and allow the body time to adapt.

And remember, there may never be a point where the work is completely finished. The body is always changing, evolving.

Practice is learning how to continually work with what’s here now.

#injury #movement #practice #process #pain taken in The Movement Standard by @brianmovement

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a month ago

We may not need more information nearly as much as we need better organizing ideas. Ideas sit at a higher order than information. Ideas organize information, shaping how we experience and how we act.

Practice itself as an idea sits above practice(s). And Movement sits above movement(s). To understand and work with these conceptually is ever more needed in our modern world.

Instead of collecting more information, try working with the experience of ideas.

The endless modes of being, represented first as ideas, channeled into movement(s), shaped through Practice. There’s enough here to fill the cup for many months ahead.

#ideas #practice #process #information movement taken in The Movement Standard by @brianmovement

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a month ago

Slowness changes what becomes available to us by increasing sensitivity.

When we move quickly, momentum can carry us through places we don’t fully understand, bypassing weakness while creating invisible compensation.

When we slow down, we begin to feel where effort rises, where coordination disappears, where attention becomes vague, or where we habitually find ways around difficulty. In that sense, slowness isn’t necessarily the goal but is a way of seeing. Once something becomes visible then the practice around it can become more specific.

Sometimes development begins by moving slowly enough to see what speed has been hiding.

#speed #slow #movement #chinup #practice taken in The Movement Standard by @brianmovement

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a month ago