All in a Day - Post Course Reflection by Lesley Davenport

Lesley Davenport, Certified GYROTONIC®‍ and GYROKINESIS® Instructor

Owner of Spark Motion Body Studio

There have been times in my life when purpose has been crystal clear, so viscerally experienced that my whole life pivots to accommodate the new direction opening up to me. It is never without a type of painful shedding of the old ways, people, places or things that I experience growth and expansion.

I recently attended a GYROTONIC® course offered by Master Trainer Maria Holm at GYROTONIC® Soho - Movement Beyond in New York, and once again my heart and brain flooded with images and I am accepting the new ways of doing things. I hope this read inspires you to look at movement in a different perspective.The GYROTONIC® Method does that for me, unfailingly.

The Gyrotonic method was a whisper sung on the branches of the trees as a natural shift occurs. It was an intuitive choice to satisfy a hunger I have felt for years. 

As many other performing artists, I simply phased out of that life, never really having closure. I said yes to new things in my life, and those choices propelled moving away from other things I loved. I moved from performer, to teacher, to wife, to business owner to parent, all fluidly. The shifts were cracking open unaddressed needs. My nervous system was not adaptable easily; I preferred to be "ON" and hyper-focus, not multi-focus. I preferred to engage with people and things that were stimulating for my senses and not a killjoy for them. I chased adrenaline and needed it still, preferring to rest when I slept. My ambitions of parenting, studio life, and living as an athletic artist were (and still act) as challenges to my other side. My fluid, childlike, generous person who loves to swim, make art, and play games and loves helping others.

You see, the Gyrotonic method is a practice of unlocking, unblocking and rewiring. Yes, rewiring your brain — reteaching your nervous system to calibrate between high energy and low energy and all of the in-betweens. This is a component to knowing not only good survival skills but good thriving skills.

In my 20s I was drawn to take a GYROKINESIS® Method class. Its effect was fascinating. The GYROKINESIS® Method reminded me of swimming and dancing and massage — the after-effects. Deep rest in my body or brain; there’s always a softer, quieter change in myself after those activities — a sense of satisfaction of time worth spent. It is as if I have been wrung out in all directions like a sponge. Nourishing motion being poured into me gradually as the practice goes on. Deep balming ointment massaged into every internal nook and cranny of my bones. To take a GYROTONIC® class is a rather interesting experience.

I could never be satisfied. I knew how to give, how to work hard, make others happy, be purposeful in my efforts, how to follow up and follow through, be proactive. But I forgot how to prioritize.  I forgot the priority of the Being over the Doer. I was good at doing. 

I was concerned with too many external things. My nervous system was stuck in "make it or break it" mode. Never feeling like it was safe to slow down, to not work, to decline an opportunity, all of the hustle and bustle of living as a professional dancer enforced what cracks had already begun in my childhood. I was stuck in the patterns that got me through college years, clinging to them as a survivor does to a life buoy. Survival skills are called that for a reason.

About 20 years pass. My life ebbed and flowed around motion, people,mistakes, successes, loves, failures, birth, death, and on the cycles go. Blessed. Again, not complaining but explaining. I loved and lost. I could not "figure out” why my energy levels would simply not refill. I mean, I was given two beautiful children to love and raise, my husband was supportive, and I dedicated myself to building a community for teachers and clients. You would think I was on Cloud 9. I had everything I needed, but felt an empty hunger still……sounds familiar I know. I did not receive from the love offerings in my day/life because I could not see where it was coming from. 

As with all creations, in the GYROTONIC® practice you receive out of the practice what you put in. 

Here are my favorite takeaways from the practice lately. These are just a few, the list is actually endless because we are talking about something that fuels your vitality. Its applications are infinite.  

Rewiring of my Brain 

“Is it possible to rewire your brain?”, I ask. “Yes!” the teacher and class participants all agree unanimously. Our nervous systems dance between being in survival skills and thriving skills. It is not healthy for us to be over or under stimulated. We all have a degree we need to BE at our happiest. When we receive healthy enough stimulation it fuels our higher level of emotions, (happy, motivation, love, generosity). The daily fill up to process the lower level emotions (sadness, depression, anger, frustration) smoothly and level ourselves back into the higher ones. 

This system is tied to our immunity, digestion, and decision making. Did you know that if your nervous system is not able to switch out of fight and flight, it affects your digestion- literally your ability to absorb the energy from your food? Wow. So good nervous system regulation is a big skill we all need to have. 

One secret to high-performance activities (sport, business, art and life) is to relax and be in your other nervous system (the rest and digest one). The GYROTONIC® Method does this for me. It calibrates my nervous system that day, always revealing to me which side I need to pay attention to that day. As your rest and digest system grows more available to you, that internal strength allows you to address problems we encounter effectively.

 The GYROTONIC® practice works because it's never too late to rewrite your story. Change is possible if done from within.  

Inner child 

An inner child does exist in you. My inner child needs outside time, freedom and attention! My inner child was asked to bear a great deal of responsibility, accountability and made to feel bad about herself for having personal needs, or wanting to do things differently than my family's definition. My inner child was a  daydreamer, artist,explorer, worker- person, and self-less enough to give in to a fight just to stop the conflict to get it over with. My inner child forgives easily and without hesitation. The GYROTONIC® Method as a  practice brings up a chest of treasures that you forget you own. It unlocks the treasure box for you so that you rediscover these beautiful qualities you do own. 

Scraping off what fear does to your body. 

I have always loved to move, and to make things. Finding more success as a teacher than as a performer because I was able to help others with my skills more easily than I could do for myself. As is the case with many care-givers. To learn that, “ Putting on our oxygen mask each day is part of serving the work in our lives. It is how we reach thrive. Along my story, I picked up very good survival skills. Amongst them was scrutiny, doubt, fear, discernment, and discipline. 

 Fear makes us shut down and not do what is possible. Its effects can be felt in all areas of our health. Too high of a fear level throws us into shut down and it stays stored in our bodies. If we don’t address that it turns to dis-ease and somatic symptoms. Weird aches and pains we cannot explain. 

Too much time spent with fear makes getting through that wall tough work. The best version of myself I can be is to not allow fear to guide my decisions. The relationships I have with my Creator, myself and those I have been given to love.   

Fear makes us distracted. Scattered, busy running this way or that, and reactive. Stressed out. 

Love makes us connected to the source of our goodness and one another. 

Proactive people make love an action not a Feeling. Fear is false and untruths. Love makes us whole and natural healing occurs. Fear (same energy but misdirected)makes cracks in ourselves altering the alignment with natural order. 

The GYROTONIC ® Method scrapes off the effects of what Fear does to a person. 

Those very clear flashes, moments really, of unconditional love. Unify instead of divide, bond instead of isolate, express instead of depress — that type of Love is something we need and must learn to identify in its various forms and shapes. That Love is like ambrosia in the mythological world. Once you taste it, you never forget it. You become invested into growing it, cultivating a garden to support it, and helping others get their taste as well. You fall deeply in love with how it makes you feel, with what it enables for you, and the "experience" of being in that moment. The GYROTONIC® Method is something we practice because we honor the place in ourselves where the Creator, God, Light, Universe, Love (whatever you identify as the Source of Good) lives.

All I want every day is progress, not perfection. Is what my new wiring says. 

Gyrotonic practice allows me a practice to dial into what is within me- within the energy of my soul, redirect my thoughts and decipher internal language, and essentially undo patterns of motion or thought that are dragging me down like weights. 

To find the good, the healthy, the light, the free-the strong,to daily wake up and be glad to be alive. To invest in my relationship with the Creator and release the gifts that I do have within.  In the early years I thought I was practicing to open up my body. I am always fascinated that opening up my body floods my brain with new ideas. New possibilities allow grace to heal emotional cracks that I had avoided and pushed away. 

These reasons are why I am practicing the GYROTONIC® Method.  Because I know what it feels like to be unhappy, to carry the weight of things that are not mine, to be cracked open and feel incredibly vulnerable, raw even, like my insides are showing to the world. The GYROTONIC® practice simply meets me where I am that moment. And gets to work on shifting all the relationships into a healthy sequence. As my practice grows the limitations that are being removed from my body are also being removed from my mind and heart.