Jenny Ammilon
Teacher - Student - Creator
YogaSomatics has helped me to trust my feeling sense and also to re-appreciate my rational, analytical mind and the dance between the different aspects of human-ness
My favourite thing to do when I was little was to build houses. Tree houses. Houses from sticks, from blankets, from pillows. Turning the attic into a Spy head office. Making doll houses out of cardboard boxes. On it goes.
When I moved to a small countryside village on the west coast of Sweden, me and my man got to build on a full size little house where I now live and love.
I also built a consulting company, a yoga studio, a yoga festival, and then...
… I got tired.
I had put my heart into building spaces where I could relax, restore and play. Where I would feel safe and happy and free to be myself. But no matter how creative the solutions, how nice the designs, or how cozy the ambience – I just never felt quite at HOME!
Lo and behold – you know what I’m going to say – That place I wanted to create I found inside me!!!
WHERE HAS YOUR YOGA PRACTICE LED YOU?
For some years now, my attention has in many ways shifted. From outer to inner. From doing to listening. And to the process of learning to allow my inner environment to be as roomy, beautiful and joyous as I possibly can.
My yoga and somatics practice has taken me on a journey within my own tissue, my mind and my nervous system. I’ve fallen in love with the experience of expansion through softness. As I’m discovering new layers of embodied awareness within, again and again I wonder at the resonance of this new-found inner spaciousness in my outer life.
The voyage from doingness to beingness isn’t all blissful though. Not for me.
The well-grounded identity of doer/achiever/builder is crumbling. I miss her. Releasing muscular tension allows hidden mental stuff to be seen and felt. Patterns of behavior (that I kind of like) get outdated, and the growth I know is possible challenges my patience.
Yet I sense, in my bones, that the freer version of true expression I’m longing for is opening its fresh petals, slowly but surely. No rush, I tell myself. Listen, feel, allow. Ungrip.
WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT yogaSOMATICS?
The YogaSomatics of Ateeka is a resting place for me. I love, love, love the free organic movement, the psychological metaphors, the inspiration for inquiry, and the deep connection to femininity. The practice is the perfect complement to my more disciplined practice of YogaMonks - another body intelligence modality that also works with gravity, soft body fluidity, and natural connection through ungripping.
YogaSomatics has helped me to trust my feeling sense and also to re-appreciate my rational, analytical mind and the dance between the different aspects of human-ness. The work is resting so solidly in non-judgemental that it blows my mind. Pun intended.
On an energetic level my inner universe of dark, wet, and tangled get to hang out with the brightness of light and clarity. Through YogaSomatics and my YogaMonks practice, I am now having a felt sense of yin and yang in my own system. It is SO cool!
I was initially drawn to Ateeka's sensuality, humor, honesty, and openness. Over the years of studying with her, I am more and more intrigued by the magical way she can shapeshift time and energy in a room. Under Ateekas guidance I can go deeper into my inner realms and I feel safe all the way. I am ever grateful for all the inspiration and support - in my personal as well as my teaching development - she provides so generously.
HOW DO YOU SHARE yogaSOMATICS NOW?
I share what I’ve learned so far within somatics and yoga in private sessions and courses, through my own company “Himmel och Jord”. I am dedicated to helping people who are ready to let go of some old blockages find ease and mobility.
I mostly work with people over a longer period of time, finding joy and meaning in supporting individuals to build a personal practice of movement, breathwork and meditation. Furthermore, I enjoy creating workshops around special themes and offering these workshops in a variety of settings. I also work with Clinical Somatics, a form of somatic education that builds on the work of Thomas Hanna and Moshe Feldenkrais that I find is very accessible and helpful for people in our times. And I am inspired by dancing and contact work, particularly as a means of exploring relation.
The different schools of movement and awareness I have immersed myself in complement each other beautifully in my own practice. With my private students I go mostly on intuition, drawing out whatever practices and nuggets of wisdom I sense are useful for a person in that moment. In a workshop or course teaching situation, one method would be the conductor, and the others behave like improvisational rascals that I allow in now and then to spice up the original composition.
Teaching what I’m studying means the offerings and ways of transmission change quite a bit from time to time. Meditation is an important part of my own practice and that too influences the whats and whys of my teaching.
WHAT OTHER THINGS DO YOU LOVE 💗 OUTSIDE OF YOUR YOGA LIFE?
My personal life is a lot about appreciation of food, music, nature, family and philosophy. I love to dance, watch movies, write, cook, and just be around the house with my man, daughter, our two cats and a young dog.
In my dreams I get to be in larger community, travel into the wild and find new ways to express myself through movement, voice and who knows… The spiritual journey here on earth continues.
AND HOW CAN WE FIND YOU and YOUR CLASSES JENNY?
www.himmelochjord.com
Facebook: Jenny Ammilon and Himmel och Jord
Studio Space: Himmel och Jord - Varberg, Sweden