Carolyn wood's story

Carolyn shares her relatable story of what happened when she found the safe space to allow out her inner longing to dance and to experience the healing that this brought. She now teaches Movement Medicine in Glasgow. 

The following is an edited extract from the Introduction to my Movement Medicine Graduation Project…

I have always loved dancing. As a little girl, I would proudly show ballet positions to my family in the garden with my pink or blue leotard and matching tutu. My ballet dancing was cut short when I was about 6 years old. We had a ballet teacher who was the typical old-school British Ballet teacher, treating us small children like we were all heading for the Royal Ballet School. She was strict and unsmiling, with a face that put the fear of God into you if you didn’t get your positions perfect. One day, she told me I was too clumsy to be a ballet dancer. At that moment, my dreams were dashed. All I knew was that I loved dancing. But my love of dancing wasn’t enough to be allowed to dance. After class that day, I told my mother I didn’t want to return to ballet. And that was that. I stopped dancing.

It wasn’t until two years ago that I spoke to my mother about this day and what she remembered. She said I had never told her about what the teacher had said, I had just said I didn’t want to go back to the class. I had taken that comment and my dashed dreams, I had stuffed them down into my body, out of sight, and tried to forget about ballet dancing. I attempted to eliminate dancing from my life and along with it my twirling joy.

32 years later when I was introduced to Movement Medicine the tagline was: Dare to Dream, Dare to Dance. It took me right back to when I was a little girl in my tutu, daring to dream and daring to dance.

My first experience of Movement Medicine was a weekend workshop in Glasgow in 2008 in Maryhill Community Halls. It was Source: The Dance of Sexual Energy with Ya’Acov Darling Khan. Almost immediately I felt at home. That was one powerful workshop! And divine timing as I had just ended my 8-year relationship with my sons' father and was reconnecting to my sexuality and my true nature. I felt restricted in my relationships with men like a blueprint set without my consent, so familiar yet emotionally suffocating. Even though I had previously had relationships with women and thought I was accepting of my queerness, my sexual self was lost and had been for a long time.  It felt like I had been in a desert desperate for any person who would save me from my loneliness. But it would only quench my thirst for so long before I would find myself exhausted and drained, from the ensuing conflicts and futility of desperately trying to mould them into what I needed.

It would be another 10 years before I would begin to face my childhood and adolescent experiences of sexual abuse and sexually harmful behaviours.

At the end of that weekend, I went up to Ya’Acov to speak to him. I so desperately wanted to make contact. Ya’Acov had immediately and rightly identified me as a ‘Clubber’. It wasn’t difficult to see this. My dancing back then was always very Yang. Rigid, fast, and often aggressive. I didn’t realise at the time, but I had a lifetime ‘backlog’ of experiences, emotions, and energy in my body. That weekend on the dance floor it was bursting out of me, and it felt uncontrollable. 

I told Ya’Acov that I wanted to be an Apprentice. I remember Ya’Acov smiling his wonderfully knowing and playful smile, saying there was no rush and to take my time. I am strong-willed and once I set my heart on something I will do what I can to get it, it is both my strength and my weakness. I immediately signed up for the 9-day Initiation workshop in Devon. There is a part of me that is an intense person who craves intense experience. This would turn out to be one of the most intense Movement Medicine experiences I have had. I only had one weekend of Movement Medicine preparation under my belt!

This experience is etched in my memory forever – to be part of a group and to be held, to be able to express myself freely, (as freely as I could back then!) and for the group not to turn on me, not to be laughed at or humiliated – to feel safe enough to express even some of the rage that was locked inside - was liberating but also disconcerting. I always had eyes in the back of my head and body aware of others. I don’t believe you can grow up in a boarding school with a huge group of children and adults you don’t trust and not be hyper-alert. We all learn different strategies to survive in the environments we grow up in.

It was after this Initiation that I completed my application to become a Movement Medicine Apprentice. I knew that I did not have enough Movement Medicine experience, but my enthusiasm was overflowing, and I instinctively knew that this was the right path for me.

I was not accepted onto that Movement Medicine Apprenticeship Programme. It would be another 8 years before I would begin my Apprenticeship Programme, but I realise as I look back that my ‘apprenticeship’ with Movement Medicine started that day on the dance floor in Maryhill in Glasgow.

I would go on to complete my Professional Training in 2018 and begin teaching alongside weaving Movement Medicine into my therapeutic practice, which included my work with those at risk of suicide.

After finishing the Professional Training in 2018, I continued my inquiry, going deeper into my history and excavating what needed to be seen and heard. This involved a couple of steady, strong therapists, a wonderful Movement Medicine mento, a dedicated Supervisor and some of the most brilliant friends. It was a rocky time, with many challenges to overcome, but that is a story for another time.

I am proud to say that this year, I graduated as a fully qualified Movement Medicine Teacher & Facilitator. This completion is vitally important to me. It marks a significant transition in my journey: I am now dancing at the centre of my own circle.

POEM: Standing Tall

These trees 
Hold me 
and 
all my stories.

Walking amongst 
them
20 fruitful years
they have seen me 
through my grief
failing affiliations
deep upsets
confusions.
They have held me 
drained away my tears
With their roots 
as I sobbed 
Clinging on to them 
in desperation.

They have rejoiced 
with me 
In my joyful innocence 
As I played with Sol 
They 
hiding him
Then me
Then him
then me
jubilantly
in our forest playground.

They have flaunted 
their famous
Spring and autumn outfits
Stunned by their splendour
Losing myself 
in
Their sumptuous colours.

They have partnered me 
In my dances
Offered me shade 
In my most 
impassioned moments
My heart exploding 
With conspiracy 
and raw sensuality.

They have blushed 
red
Watching 
my stolen kisses
With a new lover 
Sniggering playfully
Amidst 
their skirting undergrowth.

Oh 
magnificent trees
You know me better 
Than I know myself 
Gifting me rest, 
reassurance 
and restoration
within this 
busy 
concrete 
world.

Oh courageous trees
Standing tall 
I would not have made it
These 20 years 
Devoid of you,
Catching me,
Every fall.