My private movement journey was a life-changing experience for me. We did it when I had just begun doing movement classes in a group, also with Valeryia as a teacher. I had had a small taste of the joy of movement, but also the fear I had stored in my body.

In a span of twelve weeks, I got to know my body profoundly, I learned to jump, balance, coordinate, I learned to breathe through fear, and stay with discomfort, I learned to get over my own assumptions and presumptions of my capabilities and do, even when I was scared. I learned to climb, handstand, cartwheel, and I learned to look stupid and feel good doing it.

Through all of this Valeryia was a steadfast, safe, curious and kind guide. As we got to know each other through more than words, she fine-tuned the program so that I could get the most out of it, being flexible where necessary, but never letting me off easy and challenging me to confront everything that I found difficult.

This attitude has found its way into the rest of my life and I notice myself trying more things, I’m curious about learning skills like juggling, hula hooping, slacklining and nun chucks. When these fun things come my way now, I don’t feel scared of embarrassing myself anymore, but rather I am able to quickly connect to the part inside of me that has childlike curiosity and resilience, with the adult determination and joy. This attitude doesn’t limit itself to learning tricks and skills, however. I feel more interested in my environment as a whole and see opportunities for movement and exploration everywhere, like the city is one big playground.

I am very grateful for the determination and commitment with which Valeryia teaches herself and others to keep exploring and moving in a non-dogmatic way, having an awareness of the layers of skills and tailoring the program to the needs of a specific body, all the while clearly articulating the use of this.

I am very grateful to Valeryia for her wisdom and her quietness when I needed to be understood in a different way than conversation. So as I said, the movement program was a lifechanging experience, not only am I able to cartwheel my way through a park now, I am able to see and know, the endless opportunities and knowledge of my body.

I have multiple years of experience in movement practice and having followed different embodied workshops, so my personal guidance with Valeryia started with a more technical question: how can I improve my movement efficiency by working on physical imbalances?

From a physical perspective we worked with a lot of materials, which were nonetheless always related to each other. We started from joint articulation and how that can be integrated into acrobatic skills and complex moves and proceeded to using these moves in expression and improvisation. In other words, we explored what my joints are physically capable of and how this influences my ways of moving and shows up when I express myself in an improvisation or a game setting.

The efforts Valeryia puts in personalizing the journey expanded my development process outside the physical sessions. Her asking contemplative questions as preparation and sending recaps with symbolic meaning led me to starting reflecting more in my daily life and noticing relations between mental, emotional state and how I move.

We used different locations and environmental elements and each session felt like a little experience. Valeryia has a great ability to apply different learning methods and she finds the approach which fits you the most. She is not only helping you improve your physical capacity, but also educating you on the approaches she uses, so you can understand them deeper and independently apply them later.

Completing this journey made me a better mover but also gave me a lot of information and understanding about myself on emotional, mental and physical level. A big set of tools and frameworks I received allowed me to implement and develop the materials inside of my own practice.