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Welcome
Moving Prayer is the website of Jess (Ali) Glenny,
somatic bodymind movement practitioner working
in south-east London and beyond. The specific
forms of practice that I offer are astanga vinyasa
yoga, yin yoga, Phoenix Rising yoga therapy and
authentic dance.
Somatic bodymind movement practices are ways of
putting the whole person into motion. Through
moving the body and witnessing what emerges, we
give space for subconscious material to surface
into awareness. Engaging in this process fosters
the growth of an evolving body of wisdom, enabling
us to live with increasing fulness and meaning.
This is a journey into the deep spaces of ourselves,
a practical tool for living, a mystical path.
Enjoy!
About
Jess
For
as long as I can remember, putting my body into
motion has been a fundamental way for me to know
myself and discover what it means to be alive.
My formal involvement with movement techniques
dates from 1981, when I did my first Iyengar yoga
class. At about the same time I began to train
in ballet and other contemporary dance techniques,
and did class daily for the next 18 years.
In
August 2001, I came across astanga vinyasa and became
a dedicated practitioner, finding in this intensely
physical, moving form of yoga a deep sense of spirit
immanent in the body. At the same time, I discovered
Gabrielle Roth’s 5Rhythms® dance practice
and fell in love with that too. In 2005, I made
a formal commitment to the Karma Kagyü lineage
of Tibetan Buddhism, subsequently completed the
ngöndro (a traditional series of preparatory
practices) and am now a practitioner of chöd,
the practice of offering the body.
My initial professional movement training was in
astanga vinyasa, which I first trained to teach
in 2002 with Abby Daniel (BWY); I completed a second
astanga vinyasa teacher training in 2003 with Tim
Miller (one of the first Western astanga students);
and I am registered as a Yoga Teacher with The
Yoga Register at 1000 level. In 2003, I travelled
to the Phoenix Rising
Yoga Therapy Center in the USA to train as a
Phoenix Rising yoga therapist and am now one of
a small number of certified Phoenix Rising practitioners
in the UK. Over the years, I have been fortunate
to study with many wonderful yoga teachers (both
the sung and the unsung), but my main yoga teacher
at present is my body on the mat. This autumn, I
begin studying for an MA
in Dance and Somatic Well-being at the University
of Central Lancashire.
I
teach all sorts of people with all sorts of bodies,
but I have a particular interest in working with
people with hypermobility. (My own relationship
with movement pactice has been challenged and enriched
by Ehlers Danlos – hypermobility – syndrome.)
I also work extensively with professional dancers.
For me, whatever arises in the body is an opportunity
for deepening and expansion. When we remove the
labels from our physical experience and tune into
our body on a subtle level, we begin to become aware
that our physical ‘limitations’, our injuries
and imbalances, are our greatest opportunities for
liberating our own potential. Each and every one
of our experiences comes to us as the seed of a
blessing, as the invitation to wake up to wild new
possibilities for being. Bodymind movement practices
teach us how to receive that blessing.
I feel privileged to be able to pass on the little
I have learnt of these wonderful transformative
practices and hope that you will be as blessed by
them as I continue to be.
(Jess’s
practice blog is at http://practiceblog.blogware.com/blog.)
Last
updated 20/07/2010
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