Moving and talking in the same time.

For the warm-up you can use one of the "BODY SCAN" exercises to give time for the participants to arrive to their bodies.

You can use the momentum of the open throat and easy talking for the next exercise. For example: "1-MINUTE COMPLAINING".

A classic trust exercise with one standing in the centre of a circle. Others must keep the person balanced and unbalanced.

Before engaging in this exercise make sure that everyone is ok with being touched around the chest area front and back.

In this exercise there are two roles, both of which are equally important. One person stands in the middle of a supportive circle made up of other people.

On the one hand the person in the middle needs to be able to keep herself straight "like a board" and on the other hand the people in the circle need to be able to support the middle person's weight and bring her back to standing. The roles and the body usage they require can be practiced individually before engaging in the group version.

Reflection questions:

This exercise can be a total disaster if people are not into it. Depending on the group, it's not necessarily an exercise to start with.

A quick round of 1min+1min presentations in front of the group.

In the beginning you can say a few words about the structure of the exercise. Give guidelines for the person listening and encourage to have a non-judgemental attitude.

Structure:

Questions for writing and for sharing circle:

It works well after the movement/voice warm up. You can use "Talking while moving" exercise for it.

Time of 1 min keeps it on safe level.

This exercise is an exploration of 3 channels of expression: moving, drawing and talking. It consists of 3 types of working: by myself, with a partner and with the whole group.

It can increase understanding of how to use these 3 channels as tools for learning and self-regulation.

This exercise will have 4 parts. I will explain them one by one, before each part.

But first - find a partner.

Decide who is person "A" and who is person "B" in your pair.

Part 1)

It can take only 3 minutes to change how you feel!

This exercise serves bringing the energy up.

It comes from the legendary Contact Improvisation teacher Nancy Stark Smith.

First explain the exercise, then do it. It doesn't work if you talk it through during the activity. Find a place in a space and stretch your arms to check you have enough room around you. The whole exercise consists of 3 actions. Each action is done for the duration of 1 minute. Set your timer for one minute (3 x 1 min if possible). Go!

Should be in the middle of a movement class or then it needs a warning that one should take care of oneself to not get hurt if not warmed up yet.

This exercise is about embodiment during an online experience in a video call.

When on a video call pay attention to these aspects:

• Pay attention to the light that you can see on each other's screens. Your own screen, and the other participants' screen.

• Spend a moment in your real space, paying attention to the lights. Move around and notice how you are changing the lighting with the shadows of your movements.

• Come back to the computer/phone and start imagining how the rooms/spaces that you see on your screen are in real life. Focus imagining smells, sensing the fabrics etc. Then imagine/remember if you know the people how they feel, smell, touch etc.

How feeling each other as a whole human being, even online.

You can practice this exercise also solo while online meeting that you have trouble to connect. Reflecting your connection and adding more real-life sensation to it can make a difference in how you participate.

4 both physical and mental positions to try out when you're in front of the challenge, decision-making or a goal.

This exercise gives the possibility to meet the challenge/goal/decision from 4 main angles and may help to cultivate the qualities of each of them.

For the common sharing:

This exercise is derived from the martial arts meeting life coaching

4 both physical and mental positions to try out when you're in front of the challenge, decision-making or a goal.

This exercise gives the possibility to meet the challenge/goal/decision from 4 main angles and may help to cultivate the qualities of each of them.

For the common sharing:

This exercise is derived from the martial arts meeting life coaching

This is not an exercise, but a short story of how it can be read from our skeleton that we humans are social beings. The story works well as a warm-up.

The story goes along these lines: imagine being a paleontologist studying fossils. Just by looking at bones you can tell a lot about the creature they belonged to: for example, by looking at the teeth and claws you can tell apart a carnivore from an herbivore, or by looking at their extremities you can tell how they probably moved.

Now, imagine looking at a human skeleton as if you had never seen one before. You might find it curious, that the species walks on two feet exposing its vulnerable belly side to the world. You could tell that using hands is very important for this creature. Using hands, manipulating objects, requires quite a lot of brainpower, so this species must be quite intelligent. It's mouth and throat enable talking, which seems to fit well together with collaborating with others. Also, the whole stature doesn't seem to be that strong, which point to the direction that this species is not a solitary one, but lives in groups and is a social one.

It's physically in our bones that we are social beings.

This is not really an exercise, but the story might influence the way we perceive ourselves. You can decide yourself, whether to reflect on the story explicitly, or to let it resonate in the participants without finding words to it.

The recommended anatomy source "Albinus on anatomy" is preferred because it has an artistic touch to it, instead of being a medical text book.

Coordination exercise jumping on the spot

The principle of the exercise is to mix two basic movement patterns.

Start with the basic jumping jack (arms stretched move up on the side at the same time as legs jump open to the sides. Then reverse: arms down and legs together), but leave the arms out. Move on to crossing the feet every time they come together, every other time the left, every other time the right.

When jumping is clear, add the arms: keep them in front of you and imagine you'd be milking a huge cow (move your arms up and down opposite to each other).

Make sure jumping is ok for the participants!

This exercise usually works as an ice-breaker.

A basic partner exercise for leading and following inspired by aikido.

For this exercise everyone needs a partner. Partner A will be giving and partner B receiving and guiding.

The starting position is "the half stance": one foot showing forward and the other somewhat further back, so that one has a stable stance (kind of if you wanted to push something). This brings automatically the hand on the same side as the front foot to the fore.

Both partners take the same leg and the same hand on to the front (right & right, or left & left) and cross the backside of their wrists. The back leg serves to transmit the power from the floor through the torso and into the arm - the idea is not to push only with the arm. Like this partner A creates some pressure towards partner B, who responds in the same way. This creates a contact between the partners: it is more than just a mere touch.

This exercise comes from Aikido and due to that can be quite restricted in terms of movement possibilities (e.g. don't push only with the arm, partner A always goes towards the partner B, try to keep a long spine).

Leading and following game, being in contact wrist to wrist.

Find a partner. Get in contact wrist to wrist with one hand each.

Agree which is going to be a Leader and which- Follower.

Switch roles.

What helps to stay in contact?

How do you feel when the contact is lost:

It is possible to do each step [1) rolling the circles, 2) rolling, pulling, pushing, 3) not agreeing on the role] only once but for deepening the experience it is warmly suggested switching the partners and try out the same step at least a couple of times more- with an experience of another person leading and following.

Walk around the space playing with the distance and space available.

Guide the attention to the space, for changing directions, being more playful or not, etc.

Arm manipulation done standing in groups of three.

Get in groups of three. Person number one stands in the middle. She or He will be passive receivers. Two and Three stand on two sides. They work separately as each elevates and manipulates an arm of person number one (e.g. person number two works with the right arm, person number three with the left arm) for a duration of one song (3-4 minutes).

Instructions for the creators of the arm dance are:

Authentic Movement is a simple form of self-directed movement done with eyes closed and attention directed inward, in the presence of at least one witness.

Working in pairs. Roles will change after full circle of moving-reflecting-sharing.

One person moves with eyes closed. The second person is a witness. The mover follows impulses from the body (from within). It is not important how a movement looks like, it comes from the internal motivation to move. Sound and stillness are welcome. The timing of the movement part may vary 7 - 15 - 20 minutes. For beginners, who are doing this kind of practice for the first time, a shorter duration would be most beneficial.

Checking in with the body to settle the mind and notice what sensations and emotions are present.

Settle into a comfortable position. Take several long, deep breaths. Begin to shift your attention from outside to the inside yourself. Closing your eyes might help you to tune in to your body sensations. If you prefer to leave your eyes open, let your gaze rest. Notice that breath creates sensations in your body. Perhaps you feel the breath moving inside the nostrils, perhaps you can feel the breath in your chest or your belly. It is not important, if you can name these sensations or not. Allow yourself to feel the sensations as they happen.

Let your focus rest on any sensations you notice. Start at the top of your head. Slowly travel down to your forehead. Continue towards your jaw, your chin, your neck, and your shoulders. Pause on each part, to notice what is there. Bring your awareness to your upper arms, and down to your fingertips. Track back up your arms and to your shoulders. Notice sensations in your throat, and then your heart.

A short body scan can be completed anytime in less than five minutes.

It can be done standing, sitting, laying down or while moving.

Movement exercise in quartets with a discussion about leadership.

It can also be used as a team building task for practising creative

thinking, presence, listening and going with each other's ideas.

If your context requires you to provide participants also with more theoretical knowledge, you might include an introduction to concepts of shared, distributed and collective leadership as alternatives to those of the industrial model where power and control are centralized into the hands of the few.

Focusing the eyes while focusing on other movements.

Can be very short or last many minutes and transition into another exercise.

Relaxation and changing state through lying on the floor.

This is a simple structure for guided relaxation. Participants can easily repeat this on their own (for self-guided experience).

Find a comfortable space in the room and lie down. Maybe place a blanket under your body, if the floor is not warm.

The length of this exercise can vary from 5 minutes to 15 or more. Working with children would usually require shorter time. Relaxing after high intensity activity will be different from lying down on the floor after talking.

A group is working together as a team to create a shape with the all bodies involved.

The class is divided into groups of approx 5. The facilitator creates lists of body parts. I.e., two hands, three feet, one head, one elbow, one knee, and one back, or two feet, two knees, three hands. One shoulder, two fingers etc.

Each group is given one list and the following instructions: You are to work as a group to create a shape. The parts on the list and ONLY the parts on the list can be contacting the floor as a group, and everybody in the group has to be connected to someone else in the group.

Not recommended for older people or people with very limited movement experience or not aware of their limitations.

With a less movement experienced group the body parts on the shopping list can be made less difficult.

Independent work in small groups. Brainstorming on the soft skills. Practicing decision-making in the group. Practicing formulating definitions by asking questions.

Divide a group into smaller units (3-4ppl). Explain the structure.

20min

Works better after a longer movement exercise.

After the brainstorm leave time to come back to the body. You can use any of 1-min short exercises for this purpose.

Arms movement synchronized with the breath to bring awareness to breath and body.

Sit or stand, feel your feet on the ground. Pay attention to your breath without the need to change anything about it. Start lifting your arms as you breathe in and lower them as you breathe out. Continue for three cycles of breath. Notice your state after.

Noticing the personal space and how it's affected by objects, people, etc.

Sit or stand as you feel comfortable and take a moment to pay attention to your personal space around you, sometimes referred to as "your bubble".

Now, describe how you perceive your personal space: what shape it is, what size it is, does it extend in every direction, how permeable it is, does it have a colour, and so on. You don't have to change anything about it, just notice how it is.

This exercise is rather a warm-up, or a check-up every now and then.

This exercise can also be given as homework: checking one's space can be done basically in every situation.

On a technical note, we all have our kinesphere. According to this source https://thespaceintherelationship.wordpress.com/kinesphere/:

This exercise will create an uncomfortable situation and help to practice getting comfortable there instead of avoiding it.

Being comfortable with discomfort might be one of the secrets of success in situations of public speaking, negotiations, or difficult

conversations. When the discomfort is building, tension rises through

your body, irritation takes hold of your mind. This tension serves no

useful purpose, so you might try to delve into those very sensations of

Good at the very 1st class - as the beginning of the whole process.

Getting to know each other, touching physically and emotionally.

Warming up part:

Walk freely in the space, go where there is more free space.

What did you learn from your own experience and from the others during the Naming task?

What helped you to step in the circle?

What helped to endure/enjoy there?

How did you help yourself to be supportive to the person inside all the time?

It's fitting for the group not much larger than 20 participants.

You can skip/replace the warming up part.

Don't underestimate the emotional charge of the Naming part - the participants usually must be supported, encouraged and empowered to step in.

Do your best to encourage each and every participant to experience stepping into the circle (for the sake of the group process).

Individual exploration through gentle self-touch movements to understand their fascia and find fluidity in the body.

Facilitator asks the participants to find a comfortable position, it could be either standing, sitting or lying down.

Participants are invited to explore and find fascia in their bodies. Depending on the group's knowledge the educator can explain more about fascia, that it is the connecting tissue between our internal organs. Connecting to fascia is through gentle self-touch movements - below skin. With one hand a participant can gently shake different parts of their body: arms, face, stomach, lower back, legs etc.

This exercise would be more suitable for people with movement background and basic understanding of experiential anatomy.

Fun exercise in groups of 7-10 that requires a lot of cooperation and allows to experience one of the main principles of creative thinking - making connections.

After the exercise and discussion you might introduce the participants to ''Making Novel Combinations'' and ''Connecting the Unconnected'' as important creative thinking strategies. Michael Michalko offers a great review of both of them in his book ''Cracking Creativity'', describing creativity as the ability to generate associations and connections between dissimilar subjects and sharing various creative thinking methods to force you to come up with different thinking patterns that would result in new, unconventional, and novel ideas.

In order to further illustrate how making connections can help us to achieve a more creative outcome, conclude the session with a writing or brainstorming exercise that would be based on the same principle, for example, give the group members a pack of old magazines and ask them to find and cut out 10 random words that attract their attention. It should be done in less than 5 minutes. Then invite them to write a short text about some topic including all of these 10 random words - it might be a brief reflection of what helps them be more creative or what can we do to create a group atmosphere that boosts creativity and imagination - choose a topic that is relevant for the professional context of the participants.

This is a coordination exercise on all fours. There are two basic patterns, to which the element of crossing the midline is being added to create some fun.

The basic position is on hand and feet (not knees!). Knees can be bent as much as necessary. Some space to the side is needed, since the idea is to take steps sideways. There are two basic patterns for this exercise to start from:

a) One side moving simultaneously (homo-lateral): the hand and foot on the same side take the step to the side, the other side follows. Continue for several steps in the same direction and then reverse back to where you started.

b) Diagonal hand and foot moving simultaneously: start with hands together and feet apart. Take a sideways step with one leg and the opposite arm (like a chameleon but sideways). Continue for several steps in the same direction to where you started.

Coordination exercise alternating opening/closing the legs and arms.

The principle of the exercise is to mix two basic movement patterns: opening and closing. The legs and arms will do the opposite thing.

Opening the legs = feet and knees point outward

+ Closing the arms = elbows point outward, palms are towards the belly

This exercise usually works as an ice-breaker

If jumping is not possible, or there is a need to simplify, you can do the exercise in sitting

The hands are dancing solo and with the group at the same time.

Let's sit / stand in the circle.

And invite our hands for a little dance!

Rest of the body is resting, not blocked, keep it relaxed.

And without thinking we dance with our hands. Like we want.

It works as a starting or closing exercise for a session.

Using the body to express certain words.

Let's meet in a circle.

We will do now an exercise called "embodied words". We will try to use our body as a communication tool to express some words.

So, I will be saying some words and at the same time all of us will try to show this word somehow, using our body. It can be really simple. But what's important is to use the WHOLE body. Not just some parts, like hands. But to change the whole body into this word.

Let me show you an example.

REFLECTION in circle, with the whole group

This is a great exercise to invite participants to the rich language of

the body. To use the body as an expression tool, in an individual and

non-judgmental way. To accept variety and all possible answers for one

question.

An online exercise to help practice leading and following.

This exercise is aimed at online learning to practice leading and following.

It can be used on online conference platforms (i.e., Zoom) where break-out rooms are possible or where people can pin someone's screen to create the impression on working in pairs.

This can be made adaptable for dance studio/classroom environment working in pairs.

If the group is not new to movement, the class can be made longer.

Another adaptation:

Exploring and learning the gaze options and how they influence us physically and emotionally.

While freely walking around the space, let’s try out different kinds of eye gazing:

Which is your favorite gaze? Which is the least favourite?

In which situations in your life do you use each way of looking?

What did you discover about the looking options and could use in your life? How?

Which of the gazes do you use often, which maybe never before?

The exercise results for the participants becoming much richer if you do the sharing after the experiencing.

There are three parts of this exercise, and they are quite free to divide and use only part of all.

First two tasks come from Andrea Olsen (andrea-olsen.com), but the last one is derived from the Alexander technique (alexandertechnique.com).

A voice led exploration from resting on the floor to moving freely with eyes closed. Introducing sensing weight and shape in stillness. Taking snap-shots with short eyes opening.

Begin resting on the floor. Let your body (bodies of your students) let go of the weight. Allow the floor to support the weight of the body. Close your eyes and do nothing for a few minutes.

Let the image of soft light slowly scan your body. Starting from feet (right and left), moving up through following body parts all the way to the head. Top of the body (knees, stomach, sternum, face) etc) and the bottom (calves, bottom, shoulder blades, back of the head). This may take from 5 to 10 minutes.

What surfaces of the body are touching the floor? How does the body weight is supported by the structure of your shape?

This exercise shows how your body has adapted to your favorite music. You can use this adaptation to support your movement training and/or other activities. Also, it gives an embodied viewpoint to your personal history.

• Make a playlist with your favourite music from your past. Altogether 30 min. Include only pieces that you have listened repeatedly. Why? Because this means that the sound, rhythm etc is deep in your memory.

• Do not use more than 10min for choosing the music. If choosing seems difficult, make it easy. This is supposed to be done intuitively. Remember, later in your life you can listen to whatever music again. This list will be used only for this exercise.

• Play your music and dance, walk or run inside or outside. Do not think - feel when your body starts resonating with the music. Let this guide you to movement. You can stay with only one piece, repeat it - or dance through the whole playlist.

• Maybe you recognise that you move exactly to the rhythm of certain music, maybe it fits to your typical tempo or invites you to change the one you want to be in. Some other music might make you happy for no obvious reason. Or give you extra self-esteem. 

Please do not analyse but use intuition both when making the playlist and when noticing its effects to your movement.

What do you sense?

How/where do you feel the movement initiation?

What are the physical effects of the music?

When working with a group you can collect pieces of music from each person.

This exercise gives you space and time to notice how you feel around other people, in general in the group, and around each specific person.

How do you feel?

How could it be easier to stay around certain people?

Putting the mind's attention to different body parts and actions, so grounding the mind and embodying the thinking.

Pay attention to the breathing and remind (to the group) about it time after time.

Start with the 1st point to do and add each next step when you feel you're ready:

Can be used as a warm up or transition from one exercise to another.

With peripheral vision you sometimes see better what is there in the middle. Discover how with "focusing a bit off" you can see better.

• Choose a spot in the room. Find a nice standing position. Change your position constantly around this nice position, a bit off center. Bring your weight to the front, to the back, to the right and to the left, to all diagonals, randomly around the central axis.

• Notice how you can find the relaxed standing position by playing around it rather than fixing immediately to the middle.

How working with "a bit off" physically affects your perceiving?

How being physically "a bit off" affects to your emotional and cognitive processes?

Can you find/accept/offer a wider perspective?

Notice how being a bit off physically affects to your perceiving in other everyday life situations, to your emotional and cognitive processes.

Can you find/accept/offer a wider/closer perspective in everyday life situations by arriving physically to "a bit off -state"?

A movement mirroring exercise in trios

Ask people to form trios. Two of the people will stand tightly side to side and the third one a couple of meters away facing them. The pair will start moving their outside arms slowly and the task of the third person is to mirror these movements with her arms. After a while, change the roles so that each person gets to mirror the movement.

For reflection afterwards:

This exercise can be adapted to an online environment, if everyone has a camera at their use. It can be conducted exactly the same if it is possible to organize the same video view for everyone, or at least have the pair's videos next to each other in order to create an illusion of one person. If this is not possible, one has to agree on a different way of knowing which two arms to follow, which will be fun, too.

If the group is small, instead of working in trios you can have one pair doing the movement and several mirroring simultaneously.

Effortless rolling on the sitting bones.

Sit on the edge of the chair. Sense your sitting bones. Roll on the sitting bones slightly to front and back. Try out how to do it with minimum effort in the belly, hips, spine, upper body, thighs. Remember to breath freely.

Helps to ground and slow down.

Speaking and listening exercise in groups of 3.

In a group of 3. Chose 1 person who will speak first, one person to listen and look in the eyes of the speaker, one person to takes notes.

Time is set for 3 - 5 minutes for each person to be a speaker.

How does it feel to say what you like to a stranger?

How does it feel to listen to someone speaking about themselves.

How does it feel to hear another person telling you what you like?

It may trigger emotions!

People come in contact either in pairs or groups, break contact and repeat.

Guide the participants' attention all the time unless you feel like having a break. Keep their mind busy so that it's easier to notice what happens in them.

Participants could be side by side instead of facing each other. This is how it works for 2+ persons. You can have a circle and have one person joining after the circle or pair is made. Observe how the atmosphere changes. It works to do this in the beginning of a class, or at the end. How does the group adapt? The group could be touching, with arms around each other.

This group score/game is about leading and following using one simple sentence.

This creative tool can be used for studying strategies for communication and leadership. Depending on the group focus and interest it can lead to a simple/fun game or to a more complex group situation.

It was created by a German choreographer Thomas Lehman.

This exercises is based on finishing the sentence "It is better to...". Each member of the group is welcome to propose an action by completing this sentence. There is no limit to creative ideas, which can be walking quietly, rolling on the floor, holding hands, giving a hug to the tallest person, singing a song backwards, reading signs from T-shirts as you run around the room, pause and take 7 deep breaths, counting ears in the room blind folded, discussing the next presidential election using blinking your eyelashes instead of language, and so on. Group action lasts until someone proposes new "it is better to...". As the duration of each activity is determined by the next proposal one can last less than a minute and another for 5 minutes. Together the group is responsible for the flow of this exercise and each participant can influence change. Nothing is discussed in other form than through the sentence "it is better to...".

This score is a self regulating mechanism and the longer the game, the more possibilities to how this structure can be used reveals.

How can you propose change? How long does one activity last? Can you allow more time for actions to develop? Is there particular rhythm of change, that you notice? Do you like it? Do you engage in activities or rather focus on proposing changes?

This is a self navigating structure. The longer you do it - the better understanding of possible strategies and ideas. If done long enough this can bring about a whole universe of group activities and forms of being together. Taken lightly, this can be a funny way to lead warm up or lift up the group energy through play time.

This is an exercise where you can turn off your thinking and turn on your expression, pleasure, flow, following the music and body.

Choose a song and dance as you like, in a way you like.

It serves as a short way to increase the energy in the class or slow down overthinking and analyzing.

Choose a dynamic song.

A song you love to dance to, which makes you forget about "how" and "why".

If you love it, it will influence the group.

A song to let go!

Options if people don't know each other or/and don't feel safe yet:

One person leads, moves in her own way. The others copy.

One person is moving, however they want.

The rest of the group is copying this one person, the leader. You do it as well and precisely as you can. If some movement is not possible for you to perform, physically, do the closest variation of it.

We will use music.

Reflection:

(Individual - on paper writing/drawing // in pairs // in the whole group)

The duration depends on the number of participants, how they engage and how long the reflection part will take.

Through leading and following in movement we can observe and reflect

ourselves in how we lead and follow in our working environment.

Pair exercise standing and moving each other's spine through hands connection.

Find a partner (the task is in couples).

One puts a hand on the other's hand (for example, left hand on the right hand). The one whose hand is on top is the Leader. The Follower closes the eyes.

The hands should be:

What helped in leading? What was hard?

What helped in following? What was hard?

How did you find a common language?

You can ask the participants to switch the partners few times more - to explore this task with different people and possibly get different experience and acknowledgements.

Suggested right after the "Leading/following - The Blinds" task.

This practice starts small by finding your lookalike in a supermarket or in another public space. It develops into a lifelong practice of body language, rapport, and the ability to collaborate with a wider variety of people. Listening to body language – our own and others – is the vital core of working life soft skills.

• Go to a relatively large supermarket.

• Look at other people without staring. Let your eyes wander around. Keep doing your groceries meanwhile.

• Find people that on some levels are your lookalikes. Do this in sections, by focusing at one thing at a time: walking style, rhythm of movements, clothing, expressions, interaction with other people, how the person connects to the surrounding.

• Reflect what is it in your behaviour and movement patterns, that makes them your lookalikes. Do you like what you see?

Can you use this information about yourself to be more familiar to others?

Does this feel pretentious or unethical?

How can you differentiate a skill and a purpose you use it for?

How can this practice improve your working life soft skills?

You can adopt this practice to any situation. It helps you to bond and to make yourself available to others.

Human beings are social animals. Social norms require certain type of behavior. There is a phenomenon called rapport in body language. Human beings investigate and bond to each other by adopting their body language. Rapport takes place especially in the beginning of the relationship. After bonding less rapport is needed since we can read each other better. Still, it affects a lot to our relationships and behaviour. We tend to categorise people to "my kind", "my type", "miss fit chemistry" etc.

Calming one's body and mind, shifting focus from the external world to internal experience, managing one's focus, and directing it into the body.

Find a place in a room where you want to spend some time now.

Sit down or lay down on the floor. Find the position which you like most at this very moment. Try out different positions if you wish. Give yourself time to find a comfortable position. 

What do you feel now?

Where is your focus?

Do you remember where your attention was at the beginning of this exercise?

Did something change or not?

This exercise can also be done in 10 minutes - without going so deep into the experience and just invite participants to direct the attention to their inner world.

It also can be longer, even till an hour, enriched by more tasks:

Using own body as an inspiration for teamwork.

Take a minute to find teamwork/ collaboration within yourself. What can you find? We are multicellular organisms!

Think biologically here: for example, think about the different systems, like the respiratory system providing the rest of the body with oxygen and getting rid of CO2. Or, the circulatory system: blood is a great transporter! What about our digestive system? Without it, we wouldn't get any energy from our food!

There are surely other ways of finding teamwork in ourselves as well.

Collaboration between eyes or hands, etc.

The exercise allows exploring how group members relate and respond to change.

Ask the group members to list all the words they associate with change. Do not let individuals think too much before giving a response. List their ideas on a flip-chart sheet. 

When the ideas are exhausted spend time reviewing the list.

This exercise may consist of 2 parts and home task in between them

Helps to raise awareness of the physicality of the emotions and their suppression. It's also about being seen and being allowed to observe.

It may vary from emotionally demanding to excitingly delighting task for the group.

Divide the participants into 2 groups. Each group makes a row and then - sits row to row in front of each other. Each participant then has a partner sitting in front.

One row is going to have a task.

The other row’s task is to observe the partner in front, keep calm and pay attention to how one is regulating the emotions that possibly appear, asking this kind of questions:

During the process ask the participants this kind of questions, mainly for the observer's row:

What do you do to not react to what you see?

What do you do with your breathing? What happens if you relax it and breathe more freely?

What do you do with your shoulders, jaw, other body parts?

The exercise may be both extended and shortened depending on the aim of the class and the timing:

Using a timer, music and movement to insert breaks in your work. Works only if you are loyal to yourself. Just obey without thinking. An easy way to motivate yourself.

• Notice that you have no motivation to continue working neither initiation to have a break.

• Set a timer for 5 min. Get music ready, either something you love or hate, not neutral.

• Stand up, stay standing for a little while. Stand on one leg and then on another one. Support balancing with your arms. Notice the level of frustration.

• Turn music on. Repeat the previous, standing on one leg, etc. Then start moving your pelvis, change the standing leg from time to time. Give in, let go, dance until the timer sets off.

Where are you?

Still writing?

Did you hear the timer?

Did you set the timer?

Short free movement energizer.

Let's take a break!

Let's take a movement espresso!

Whatever it means to you!

What kind of movement supports me?

How can I support myself through movement?

Can I use this exercise in daily life? Can I take care of my body, taking breaks in my work?

How does taking a break relate to atmosphere?

Moving body parts. First separately, later on all in the same time.

Great for the first session.

A self awareness exercise that involves drawing.

A great starter exercise for refining the connection to the body. It might reveal individual, personal and professional challenges that can be addressed in further sessions. Using body outline drawing to map emotions and sensations is also useful to develop awareness of the connection between body sensations and emotions.

This exercise is suitable as one of the first exercises in order to practice listening to the body's signals and wisdom. It might help learners to connect to their inner world and bodily life, in case they have lost this connection. As the character of the exercise is very personal, you can help to transfer this experience to the professional life of the participants by asking to describe bodily sensations that they often notice while being at work and what these sensations might suggest and mean. You can also develop a more general discussion around the importance and role of the body at work, in learning, and how noticing signals from the body and being more connected to our bodies can help us to navigate better through different professional challenges.

A series of short movement activities and reflection questions for exploring the relationship with ambiguity and change.

Minimum 1h 10min are necessary.

Explain to the group members that:

We live in a world where change is ongoing, and it becomes more and more difficult to find simple answers and solutions that would work for all.

Sometimes our ideas and expectations just don't work.

At the same time there are huge amounts of opportunities and many choices can be made which can lead to confusion, uncertainty and ambiguity.

As a tool for organizing our life, control is a useful thing, but it can also block efficient teamwork and our own growth.

One of "impossible" tasks.

Participants draw numbers on pieces of paper, starting from 1 to the number of participants.

Task for the group: create a line, ordered from 1 to X, without using words and with closed eyes.

Everyone gets a piece of paper.

The task is to draw one number between 1 and [the amount of people] without showing it to anyone.

Let's talk about this experience!

How was it?

What strategies did you find?

Did you feel frustrated? Did you have fun?

This group exercise involves physically proposing an idea in the space and recognizing it by others by joining in the image.

It comes from dance improvisation training designed by an American choreographer Nina Martin.

How can you change the composition of bodies in space? Where are you facing? Are you using your whole body? Which body parts were not in use yet? Which levels - on the floor, sitting, standing? Is your proposal visible through your body in space? Are you clear about where your body is facing? Are you clear about the shape of your body? Is your idea simple? Is your idea seen/understood by the group? Are you always/never First/Second/Third/Fourth/Fifth? Do you rather choose to initiate or to follow?

After a good amount of time playing with a still image exercise, this can be transformed into movement variation. One idea in this case can be an action, a repeating gesture or a way to travel the space. As "ideas" will show as patterns of travelling and different movements, be prepared for everything to get more complex. Enjoy it! Moving images will perhaps give more space for creativity. Decide if staying as simple as possible is still your goal. If the group finds it easy to read and embody ideas, let more complexity take place.

Sharing what creates panic at work. Practice responding to each other's panic moments in a peaceful situation.

Sometimes you just panic at work. It can be caused e.g. because of too busy schedules, strong emotions (by oneself or someone else) or too difficult task. With this exercise you can prepare for it as a team.

• Have a conversation about the reasons for panic reactions. If you feel comfortable, you can hold breath for a while and recall or even act, how it feels like physically. You can skip this part if it feels uncomfortable or ridiculous. If you prefer you can do it in imagination.

• After this, each group member can share, how they would like to be responded to, if something like this happens in real situation. E.g. someone prefers to be able to be alone for a moment. Someone else would be happy to be hugged or reminded to take a breath.

• Notice that in a real situation the reaction and the request of a response can vary from imagined situation. Practicing acting in this difficult situation beforehand, makes it easier to respond in case of a real panic. Hiding emotions, holding back and not knowing how to react takes a lot of energy. Have a talk about boundaries of professional behaviour. It is easier to balance boundaries after this exercise. Even better if you can laugh at yourself a bit. Many conflicts at work can be handled simply by offering a bite of food to a person with low blood sugar.

What can you see in other people that you do not see in yourself?

Am I able to ask/receive feedback about my panic behavior?

Is this hassle really needed?

Squeezing a paper into a ball to open the senses. Connects sound and movement.

Techniques for remaining present, adapted from mindfulness disciplines focused on sounds, breathing and physical sensations.

Set a timer for one minute. Close your eyes and try to focus on one of the following three things: sounds, breathing, or the sensations in the toes:

Practice your communication skills in everyday life, apart from work context. This task is designed as an individual task on free time.

Practice giving instructions or asking for something in your everyday life, apart from the work context. Take one minute on a daily basis to practice this. This task is designed as an individual task on free time. It can be tried out in a safe group, too. Feel free to creatively adapt it for a group task in a studio session.

• For example, go shopping, ask service politely, be clear and convincing. Let's say you want a pair of shoes that are "functional, keep your feet dry and are colourful". Say this to the shopkeeper. Then try on whatever she/he suggests to you. Do this even when you do not like the suggestion. Then say clearly a clarification of why they are/are not what you are looking for.

• Notice which words allow for successful communication. Next day, go to another place and test your speaking style with another person.

• Reflect on your behaviour. Do not judge yourself or the other, but observe and practice. Notice if you are getting emotional or have an attitude: "I hate fancy cafeterias", "nothing fits me anyway", "I have no time for this, who do they employ?"

How practicing being clear in describing what you want, can support your leadership?

How practicing can support you to trust other people professionally and to delegate tasks?

Are there situations/tasks that you avoid, because of not liking the concept, the style of communication or maybe because you think you'll do it better by yourself?

This exercise is designed as an individual task. Feel free to creatively adapt it for a group tasks in a studio session.

You can in example try out as role-play or if the group is safe enough, then also with self-made work-related topics. We recommend not to practice with real work interaction related conflicts in this context. This is supporting practice for working life communication and while practising it is good to keep on topics which are relatively light and meaningless. Emotional training can follow later, this is verbal and listening practice.

Contracting and releasing muscles synchronized with sound and breathing. Opening and closing.

The same can be done with eyes (really great for all the computer work).

Covering the eyes with the palms to relax them in the dark.

Relax your hands by shaking them. Warm them up a bit.

Cover your eyes with the palms of your hands without compressing your eyes. The idea is to let your eyes rest in the darkness for a bit. Your fingers will rest on your forehead, probably slightly crossed. Avoid excessive tension in your hands and arms as well.

Loosen up all muscles in your eyes, let all tension go. Do not close or tighten your eyes. Just let them rest in the darkness. Keep on breathing.

It's priceless for long days in front of computer or / and online lessons.

If you are interested finding out more about the role of the eyes in self-regulation, search for "palming the eyes". It was introduced to the West by the Bates Method. At least the Feldenkrais Method and Alexander Technique address the importance of the eyes as well.

Relaxing and moving shoulders in unusual positions.

Tight shoulders?

Stand and make circles with your shoulders.

I bet you stand straight and symmetrical. Right? And why?

Breaking the habitual movement patterns by changing the habitual mental pattern can release chronic muscle tension effectively.

When we do something uncommon, our nervous system might not be able to hold on to habitual patterns of tightening muscles. Release can happen, when new, "a bit off" info takes your attention.

Paying attention to one's own (and why not the other's) response to synonyms of "teamwork".

Gather synonyms of 'teamwork', such as 'alliance', 'cooperation', 'coalition', 'collaboration', 'pulling together', 'joint effort' and 'team play'. Say them aloud one after the other and ask the participants to pay attention to their own responses to these words. Have a short sharing afterwards.

Start at one wall, run across the room, turn around and come back.

The task is to start at one wall, run across the room, turn around and come back.

In the first round, everyone does this alone.

In the second round it's done in pairs.

In the third round it's done with four people (two pairs come together).

This exercise is usually fun.

A simple warm-up exercise for teamwork.

Saying 'hello' to each group members through movement, without words.

I would like to invite you to "say hello" to each other. But without words.

I will put a music on, and during one song we will take a walk through the whole space. And every time you meet, find a way to greet this person, say hello without words. It can be long, it can be short. You can search for new ways of saying hello. Let's experiment!

Reflections:

(individual - on paper writing/drawing // in pairs // in group)

This exercise supports creativity, non-verbal communication, feeling the

group and building the trust and the same time develops self-awareness and self-regulation.

Shaking different body parts and whole body. Without and with music.

Experience of softness and gentleness. Solo work.

Requires a few words of introduction on the topic by the facilitator.

Can change the atmosphere, bring a different attitude to the class.

"The living are soft and yielding;

the dead are rigid and stiff.

Living plants are flexible and tender;

the dead are brittle and dry.

Naming a soft skill and embodying it.

May be helpful in the beginning of the training program- for intro and discussion opening about each skill.

In this exercise, you receive bodywork while telling about yourself.

You mix receiving touch with speaking. It is an "impossible task" of combining activities from the far ends of the focus-release spectrum.

Depending on the size of the group split into small groups of 2-5. In turns each of you once receives bodywork / presents themselves for a duration of 5 minutes, and "gives massage" according to the number of people in the group.

Can I allow myself to let go of control?

Can I allow myself not to make sense, when I speak?

How do I feel doing an "impossible task"?

Do I find pleasure in letting go or does it stress me?

This exercise can be done also with other speaking tasks. Person who receives bodywork could be brain-storming on a given subject, answer a specific question and much more. Also talking about yourself can be interpreted in many ways - it can be about you as a person, but for some telling what you did today so far can be enough to handle while receiving touch.

Individual exploration paying attention to the 3 basic dimensions through the spine.

In a standing position:

Questions for sharing after the exercise:

Staying grounded in your body while being active mentally and emotionally in connection with the outside world.

The exercise involves non-judgemental communication as well.

Take a look in the mirror at yourself very respectfully - as on your very good friend. Imagine telling to someone about this person’s face in a descriptive, non-judgmental way - the shape of the face, cheeks, eyes’ colour, the length of the mascara, shape and thickness of the eyebrows, the different qualities of the skin, the ears.

Find a partner and describe the face of that respected person - in a descriptive, non-judgmental way.

(If it fits - you can take 5 minutes to write it down and only after to share with another person.)

Share the experience in the couple and then - in the whole group.

What helped you to stay in contact with yourself when being (telling/listening/watching) with the other?

What is the hardest in describing non-judgmental? What was easy, and how do you think - why?

What did you learn from this experience?

You may expand the exercises (and deepen the experience of them) by giving to do the same tasks with different partners.

Sharing is strongly suggested as it helps to unwind and digest the experience after each of these emotionally charged tasks.

Walking while thinking and stopping when having an answer.

Collecting information about yourself and others. Walking in the group while relating to time and space.

Moving with the music and stopping with each beat.

Prepare in advance energetic music with a strong beat.

Instruction for the participants:

You're invited to follow 4 main rules of the sMove exercise:

During the exercise:

During the sharing part:

It is about dividing the attention to many aspects and staying (or even becoming more) physical.

One of the main aims is to shift the attention from the mind to the body.