We want to congratulate Phoenix Song, our March Member of the Month!
Phoenix has set an inspiring example of mindfulness in her physical practice. Thank you for adding your presence, enthusiasm and levity to the Four Elements Fitness community!
How did you develop your approach to your physical practice? I’m a therapist/healer with a focus on supporting queer and trans survivors of sexual violence. I’m also a writer and performer. I’ve found an enormous amount of power in doing creative healing work, but I needed a way to ground that power more deeply within my body. I needed a way to physicalize that strength and healing. Finding FEF has been transformational in that process for me. Even as a beginner to this practice, I already feel a deep trust in my body that I had never experienced before. Our power is innately there within us- we just need to find our way back to it.!
How do you determine when it’s a good training day and when to take time off? Honestly, if I’m free – it’s a good training day!
What do you love about your practice and what do you want to shift? For me this work is really about re-integrating the psychological and the physical. I love tailoring my training specifically to the idea of being a warrior. There are so many amazing goals to strive for within training, but for me this idea that I can inhabit my body as a warrior- that as a queer, femme, survivor I am already a warrior- is key. I try to center myself in that mindset within my training and make choices from there. !
Where do you get your motivation to train? I am motivated by the generations of femmes, queers, and survivors who have come before me- who have taken back their power and voice through their bodies. Training is one of many ways to do that, and for me is a way of reclaiming the space where I was taught and expected to be powerless and compliant. Through training I take my innate power back and integrate that into who I am in the world and the work that I do, for myself and for the generations who will come after.
What advice do you have for brand new people who want to begin training? Make the practice your own- let yourself really discover and be centered in why training is important for your life. You get to bring your whole self to this practice- you do not have to prove anything, you do not have to push yourself past where you are ready to go, you do not have to do anything you don’t want to. It is your body, your strength, and your aliveness- let yourself really trust your own path to claiming that.
What is your favorite exercise? I’ve got to go with two things here! My favorites by far are training with knives and kicking. I absolutely love the beautiful technique and dance of knives, and the grounded force and gut-power of kicks.