Underbelly: The Art of Slowing Down with Amy Rogg

Underbellyis a non-verbal somatic practice (embodied meditation) where we reclaim our slow in a fast and overwhelming world. Our dominant culture survives on speed, which keeps problematic and oppressive structures in place at the devastating cost of our well-being and planetary health. Underbelly is a somatic response to the loss of slowness in an increasingly urgent world drowning in climate collapse, AI threat, technological addiction, diseased capitalism and polarization, as well as historical nervous system trauma from continuing racism, colonialism, and patriarchy. It's time to acknowledge that we are standing at a terrifying precipice. Instead of pushing through injury or confusion, we cultivate a willingness to know things as they stand. It's time to surrender the rush and instead, show up with our heartbreak to encounter what is becoming. It's time to dismantle the hurry and have a conversation with the present moment.
This practice helps us explore the art of slowing down with ourselves, each other, and our current environment. There is space to metabolize our emotions, strengthen empathy and intuition, and develop an intimate relationship with our bodies and the world around us. We practice being in the questions themselves- listening and yielding to the intelligence of life without pushing, controlling, or fixing. Room is made for nuance, complexity and paradox. Our individuation and togetherness are felt in a group field—deepening our presence and attunement with one another, co-regulating our nervous systems, being held, witnessed, considered, and noticed exactly as we are. We meet ourselves AS IS, without grasping for more, escaping, transcending, or resigning. We re-learn what it is to be relational instead of transactional. To commune instead of consume. To be of service instead of self-serving. To rest back into more vastness and organicity, releasing tight circuits of linearity, programming and conditioning we've inherited or been entrained to. Spend quality time with your body, breath, and being. Come back to the foundations. Sink back into reverence. Say a prayer. Voyage beneath the surface of our fast culture, and dive into a slow sanctuary for unearthing what is alive, tender, and honest for you in every moment.
This experience is not a solution, method, workshop or teaching of tools. It is not a business, ceremony, or ecstatic dance. It is an experimental and somatic gathering space that supports bodily intelligence, nervous system co-regulation, ample rest, and radical self/community care. Every Underbelly experience varies depending on what is alive in the group field at that given time. All movement forms are welcome (authentic/personal movement, sensory/somatic movement, contact (improv) inspired movement etc). So is resting, pausing, meditating, stillness etc. Participants may explore being solo or discovering connection with others through consensual energy and/or touch.
No prior experience necessary, just an open mind/heart.

About the Creator:

Amy Rogg (she/her) is an activator and nurturer of the human spirit. She is half Taiwanese/half Jewish, born in Denver Colorado and raised mostly in the Bay Area. She is the conduit, creator, and facilitator of Underbelly: The Art of Slowing Down. Amy has a B.A. in television/film production and studied acting/improv in Los Angeles. She has also taught yoga (E-RYT 500), meditation, and somatic/relational movement for the past decade.

Some of her inspirations: nature, GAGA, Hakomi, Continuum, The Artist's Way, Yat Malmgren, Contact Improvisation, Movement Liberation, Anna Halprin, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Resmaa Menakem, Sarah Blondin, Marc-André Leclerc, Jeong Kwan, Qi Gong, Yoga, Open Floor, Ecstatic Dance, Dancing Freedom, 5 Rhythms, Soul Motion, her mom, and romantic relationships. You can find her on instagram: @amyrogg

Host or Publisher The Berkeley Alembic Foundation