From the outside, it looked like something I’d done countless times in yoga: lying on my back, knees bent, legs drifting side to side like windshield wipers. Familiar. Almost automatic. The kind of move you could do half-asleep and still look convincingly yogic.
But in Peter Appel’s Movingness practice called Waves, the invitation was different. Instead of the usual “float your knees from side to side,” we began by simply letting more weight settle into one foot. Nothing dramatic—no fireworks, no Instagram-worthy contortions. Just a small, almost sneaky shift.
Then came the pause—the quiet moment of noticing. How the weight traveled up the leg. How the hip on that side wanted to lift. How the torso began to spiral, not because I told it to, but because that was the natural next thing.
And suddenly what looked simple from the outside felt entirely different inside—wave-like, fluid, delicious. What had been exercise became experience. Movement wasn’t something I was making happen. It was something revealing itself, if I slowed down enough to notice.
That was an aha moment: affirmation that yoga movement could be less about arranging the body into shapes and more about listening, waiting, allowing. Over time, those principles—listening first, letting sensation guide, trusting small shifts—have woven themselves more and more deeply into my practice, and into the way I share movement.
From Shape to Sensation
Somatic movement begins with the act of sensing. It asks us to feel before deciding, to notice before acting. The form is no longer the goal; it’s simply the trail left by the trip there. The quiet weight shift. The first stirring of breath. The spine preparing itself to follow.
This is why somatic approaches feel so at home alongside Freedom Yoga, Erich Schiffmann’s reminder that yoga is most alive when it isn’t scripted or imitated, but when it arises from inner guidance. Both point toward the same truth: practice is less about copying and more about communing.
A Different Kind of Dialogue
What struck me most in that first Waves practice was the sense of dialogue. Instead of moving my body like an object, I felt movement itself responding. It felt like another way to experience freedom yoga. Not something I was doing—it was something that was also doing me.
That can change everything. Practice is no longer performance, but participation. No longer about perfecting form, but about entering into conversation—where sensation, breath, and awareness all have a voice.
Why It Matters
In a culture that prizes speed and outer appearance, this kind of listening practice is quietly radical. It reminds us that:
Inner experience counts as much as outer shape.
Small shifts can carry deep meaning.
Pausing is not a delay, but part of the path.
Metaphors for Living?
Change often begins subtly. A shift of attention. A breath before speaking. A willingness to lean a little more into one foot than the other. What looks minor on the outside can alter everything on the inside.
The body responds to time and attention, and so do relationships, conversations, choices. A pause before reacting can soften conflict. A small change in rhythm can open new possibility. A clearer awareness of how we’re actually feeling can bring us closer to decisions that reflect who we are.
And here’s the good news: none of this requires us to overhaul our lives, move to a mountaintop, or take up chanting at sunrise (unless that’s your thing, and it is a cool thing). Sometimes wisdom shows up in the smallest adjustments—the way a door creaks open a little wider with just a nudge, or the way a conversation softens when someone remembers to breathe before blurting out the first sharp thought.
Somatic movement teaches us that listening beneath the surface has power. The spirals that rise from a simple weight shift echo through life itself: sometimes the smallest beginnings ripple out in waves we couldn’t have imagined.The next time you unroll a mat—or even the next time you simply shift in your chair—what if you waited a little longer before moving? What if you let the first whisper of sensation set the tone?
What might unfold if your yoga could listen back to you?
