176: Becoming Friends with Movement (with Nuria Bowart)

🎙 Becoming Friends with Movement (with Nuria Bowart) 📌 Save the date: early December 2026 in Boulder, Colorado — as a result of their discussion here, Til and Nuria are teaching a collaborative workshop for bodyworkers, hands-on and moving, both. Details to come at https://advanced-trainings.com Tell Nuria you’re “not really a mover” and she won’t argue. She’ll just say: maybe you’ve forgotten. Most of us learned to work on bodies that hold still. Nuria Bowart — dancer, movement artist, Certified Rolfer, and a Mestra in Capoeira — lives at the opposite pole, where the body is always moving, listening, and playing. Til sits down with her to explore a deceptively simple question: how can those of us who work with our hands become better friends with movement — not as one more thing we prescribe, but as listening, relationship, play, and a way of being more at home in ourselves? Along the way they get into Fascial Intelligence, the Axis Syllabus, Contact Improvisation, and Capoeira — and what each one teaches about touch, agency, aging, and befriending the unknown. ✨ We talk about: • Why “maybe you’ve just forgotten” is Nuria’s answer to anyone who doesn’t think of themselves as a mover • Fascia as a constellation of intelligences — and listening as the core point of access • What changes when we start with the body’s design and options, instead of fixing • What Contact Improvisation reveals about weight, gravity, and arriving together in the present moment • Capoeira as a healing art: play, risk, vulnerability, and responding creatively to danger • Aging as a “mystery school” — and movement as the micronutrient of longevity • A simple practice for the week: finding the moment you don’t know what to do, and staying there to listen ✨ Resources: • Nuria’s website: https://www.nuriabowart.com • Nuria on Instagram:   / nuriabowart   • Berkeley Capoeira Collective: https://berkeleycapoeira.com • The Field Center, Vermont • The Axis Syllabus: https://www.axissyllabus.net | US events: https://axissyllab.us • Axis Syllabus literature and texts: https://www.axissyllabusforum.org/lit... • Axis Syllabus socials:   / axissyllab.us   |   / axissyllabusresearchmeshwork   • Frey Faust, founder of the Axis Syllabus • Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen & Body-Mind Centering; Sensing, Feeling, and Action (Contact Quarterly) • Nita Little & the Institute for the Study of Somatic Communication — hear her in episode 140 of The Thinking Practitioner 🌱 Sponsor Offers: • Jane – Try it free for one month with code THINKING1MO at https://a-t.tv/jane • ABMP – Save on new membership at https://abmp.com/thinking • Books of Discovery – Save 15% with code thinking at https://booksofdiscovery.com • Advanced-Trainings – Try one month free of the A-T Subscription with code thinking at https://a-t.tv/subscriptions • Academy of Clinical Massage – Grab Whitney’s free Assessment Cheat Sheet at https://academyofclinicalmassage.com/... ✨ Watch the video / connect with us: • YouTube:    / @advancedtrainings   • Whitney Lowe – https://academyofclinicalmassage.com |   / whitneylowe   |   / whitneylowe   • Til Luchau – https://advanced-trainings.com |   / advancedtrainings   |   / til.luchau   📧 Email us: info@thethinkingpractitioner.com (mailto:info@thethinkingpractitioner.com) The Thinking Practitioner Podcast is intended for professional practitioners of manual and movement therapies — bodywork, massage therapy, structural integration, physical therapy, osteopathy, and similar professions. It is not medical or treatment advice. Rolfing® is a registered service mark of the Dr. Ida Rolf Institute®.