Meet Jo Cobbett | Movement/Conscious Dance Facilitator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jo Cobbett and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jo, what do you attribute your success to?
Consistency, Constancy, and Persistence….. Always being aware of the importance of this moment, and showing up for it.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.

Being a Conscious movement facilitator is mostly about holding space with the highest intentions. Everyone can start out as a ‘dancer,’ it’s naturally in most young children. When music plays little ones will sway, bounce, play, clap, join in if they feel welcomed. I get to find ways to include all the ages of us into being playful, curious, alive, while we discover the deeper wisdom that emerges as we meet movement with open minds.

Stepping into a room can feel like entering a hallowed space or a party, or anything in between. If you can move, anyone can dance, even in a wheelchair.
In classes to workshops, we’ve had all levels of ability, all ages all motivations and many have been transformed through discovering their inner resources. My ‘job’ is helping people get out of their own way, to trust the conversations that invite the entire body to participate and let ourselves be danced.
We get to be engaged with life in the moment, and stay curious. For me that is dancing with the Mystery, which changes all the time. I have yet to be bored, although I could fall asleep watching some dance performances, yet this is the opposite of a performance that has been planned, it’s alive right now and happening and lives are changing evolving and growing into more resiliency and expression in every moment. That’s something truly extraordinary.

I’ve worked with thousands of people in Los Angeles and in places around the world, and it’s elemental work; restoring connection to ourselves helps restore balance in our relationships, our community and our balance with nature. Restorative, energizing, authentic and engaging it opens to a more complete wellbeing. We have inculturated such separations of self, that just getting out of the patterns where our mind tries to sort everything out and choose to embrace a deeper body wisdom shifts the perspective to what is real and here and now. There’s a growing sense of support and connection. The mind can separate and isolate. Here there are invitations for inclusion that we deeply need as humans.

I love simplifying this work to it’s essence; making it more accessible and inclusive.

Everyone is a body, mostly we spend our lives telling the “body” what to do and can lose our connection to our ’embodiment’. Where we’re in a dynamic relationship with this most intimate primary self.

The invitation in my work is to be engaged in fascination with the nature of all movement and sensation in our skin, muscles, tissues, bones, breath and being. To let there be expression that we are fully participating in. Being consciously engaged in ongoing discovery. This is the way infants and small children discover the world, but we become separated from that fascination as we model ourselves on everything around us. We are disciplined to sit for long time, to conform to the shapes and patterns of family and the society outside of us, so we can survive and fit in.

This takes us out of our enlivenment. We can easily become strangers to ourselves, and often don’t know how to track our interiority or understand what nourishes and pleases our whole system.

Sessions are filled with music that inspires movement, and a welcome to include feelings, with encouragement to stay curious, playful, reverent and expressive.
This is ‘dance’ without choreography, where you can only do it right. We get small, get big, slow down, speed up, translating each new offering into vitality… You may stretch, reach, swirl, sweat, meet yourself and others in a whole new way. Healing happens as we come into relationship with aspects of ourselves we may have abandoned in our distractions through schooling, working living, yet a feeling of wholeness beckons. This is a living thriving movement journey without being told what to do, yet includes what emerges as an authentic state of being joyfully alive.

When I began this path
I was fortunate to be part of a flow of emerging energy, in a timely momen. For me it was easy to enter, I discovered and was welcomed into a practice I fell in love with. I had the time and space to be able to show up for all the prerequisite courses and for the trainings I’ve attended over the years. I have been supported following my passions and been able to make a living from them. There was a continual sense that everything was possible, if I could just keep showing up, and it seemed like my life was filled with well timed synchronicities and collaborations. Even when challenges came in I used the skills from this practice to meet them, and things continued to shift and flourish.
And there have been times of questioning what is next, of the viability of my choices, and where to get the support that I think is the way forward. Yet the path has been validated with ongoing support. There are many more teachers now, and some doors are less open than before as times continue to evolve. Yet there is a growing hunger and need for this work and there will always be people needing to find their way home.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I’ve had many opportunities for this, and Los Angeles is so vast and diverse that I can tailor the tour to fit the individual and the weather.. I love that we are a generous city, Lots of things are offered freely, especially in the summer. There are free music events all over the region! We have miles of beaches, huge parks that you can actually get lost in. There are places that feel private and some that feel so public. a lot of history here in several realms, from very present wildlife to First Peoples, the Missions to the Film Industry, you can immerse here.

I love taking people to the Hollywood Bowl for affordable world class concerts, or downtown to Grand Performances in the summer, or any one of hundreds of live music venues… I’ve been to dozens and there are many more. Musicians come to LA to get into the industry, almost everyone has played here. But it’s a celebration of nature, and depending on the day maybe take them Palos Verdes or Malibu for glorious natural beaches. Or the Hollywood Reservoir where you may see deer as you circumnavigate the brilliant blue water. Many canyons and trails = some that are endurance feats taking you straight up the hills right to peaks that overlook the city 360º, some that are comfortable year round, with streams and waterfalls, under canopies of Oak and with ocean views.

We have so many ethnically diverse populations here and their food and culture.. We have authentic cuisine from dozens of countries that can take you on adventures throughout the county. Los Angeles is more than a city, it’s mountains, ocean, lake, forests, and a thriving metropolis with Arts Districts, fabulous museums, galleries, murals, sculpture and many celebrations, LA is a Spiritual destination hub — huge temples abound you an walk around the lake shrine, or visit buddhist temples, cathedrals, meditation centers or just attend a yoga class or dance most any day of the week.

I love our libraries and cafes, from Rodeo Drive to Mulholland Dr, to Watts Towers, or City Hall it’s an accessible city from.the Natural History Museum, and Rose Gardens, or The two Getty museums, Huntington Gardens the Arboretum, to night clubs, roller rinks, pocket parks to Griffith Park.. icons like the observatory to speakeasies downtown and popup everythings.. the downtown fashion industry and the full array of all sports to thrift stores with everything and volleyball on the beach.. This is such a fabulous place to visit on almost any budget and meets some part of every friend I have had come stay.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I fell in love with embodied movement, through a pioneer in this practice, Gabrielle Roth who founded the 5Rhythms. She mapped a ‘frontier’ in our world that is as ancient as socialized humans and shaped it in an accessible format that has continued to ripple out in larger circles. I discovered the work at Esalen Institute where it was launched. Her legacy continues in many names and forms. There are now hundreds of teachers globally inviting people everywhere to reclaim their roots and reestablish community in more authentic ways. The first class I took was with Ellen Watson at Esalen, and next worked with Gabrielle in San Francisco. It was already a thriving form but has grown every year. I have worked and trained with others, each a pioneer in this experiential practice, Vinn Marti who founded Soul Motion, Kathy Altman, Lori Saltzman who founded the Open Floor with Andrea Juhan and Vic Cooper, I also worked with Emilie Conrad and Susan Harper who created Continuum Movement and Continuum Montage. I am aware of the dedication and sacrifice it takes to found a body of organic movement work as it takes devotion to maintain the integrity of an emerging form. I’ve been holding space myself for 3 decades.. we are all bringing what is elemental into tangible and translatable form together.

Website: movinground.com

Instagram: cobbettjo

Facebook: Fumbling Towards Ecstasy

Image Credits
Jo Cobbett