Reclaiming your Sensuality with Sensual Movement
Discovering the power of sensual movement quite literally changed the course of my life and in this episode you’ll learn how it can change yours too. From learning to appreciate your body to indulging in your pleasure, sensual movement is the ultimate way to connect with yourself.
In this episode we explore:
The detrimental impacts of the traditional fitness industry
How sensual movement can transform your self esteem
Why I renamed my signature movement practice
Cultural appropriation & yoga
Introducing Sensualista Flow™️
This podcast is for YOU, so if you ever have any questions you’d like me to answer on the show, or topics you’d like me to cover – reach out to me on email here or over on instagram @eleanorhadley
Links & Resources
Enrol in The Art of Sensual Movement Online Course here
Join the waitlist for The Art of Seduction here
Take the Pleasure Language Quiz
Join my upcoming workshops here and join the waitlist for future workshops here
To work with me 1:1 head here
The Sensuality Academy Podcast is edited and produced with thanks to Lucy Arellano. You can find her work at @lucy_podcastva
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Episode Transcript
Hello my loves and welcome to another episode of The Sensuality Academy Podcast.
So if you’ve been following me for a while - especially on instagram - you’ll know I’m obsessed with sensual movement. Like, obsessed. It’s honestly what started my entire career trajectory and without sensual movement I wouldn’t be speaking to you today, I wouldn’t have created my business and I definitely wouldn’t have created this podcast.
Today I want to share with you some insights into why I’m so obsessed with sensual movement and how I believe it can impact every facet of your life. I’ll be sharing why I never ever refer to my signature movement practice as a “fitness class”, more ways that you can incorporate sensual movement in to your life, plus I’m going to open up about why I have renamed my signature movement practice Sensualista Flow and why I’m letting go of its old name Sensual Yoga.
As I’m sure you know by now, sensuality is my absolute passion and I believe there are hundreds of ways that you can cultivate sensuality. In fact, I’ve dedicated the past 10 years or so of my life to discovering, testing and creating specific tools to tap in to and enhance my innate sensuality. Many of which I share for free on this podcast and across my socials, along with diving deeper in my workshops, retreats, online programs and coaching.
I first discovered my passion for sensuality through movement, and my sensual movement practice is still my most favourite way to express my sensuality. Movement is the language I speak, and the one that my students feel the most. I could talk all day about why sensuality is good for us - and you, my dear listener could listen to me bang on about it all day - but it’s honestly not until we physically do the practices and feel them in our bodies that it all clicks. We can get so caught up in rhetoric and discussing all the myriad reasons behind our blocks to feeling sensual. But it’s not until we move and really, truly drop in to our bodies that we can understand its importance.
That’s what my work is all about Getting you out of your head, and into your body. Look - it’s the tag line to my online course for a reason! It’s bloody imperative.
In my experience having been a personal trainer and fitness instructor and then as a pole dancing teacher and now in my work teaching my signature practice Sensualista Flow along with embodied lap dance in The Art of Seduction, I can confidently say that nothing makes you feel more connected to yourself and your physical body than sensual movement.
But my style of movement is pretty different to traditional forms of ‘fitness’ out there. In fact, my approach to ‘exercise’ is based on feeling good. I don’t participate in traditional ‘fitness’ because I don’t believe that I need to burn X amount of calories to have any form of self-worth, I do it because it feels very good. Which tends to be the message fed to us by the fitness industry at large.
I mean, we all know the benefits of exercise on our physical, emotional and - most importantly - mental health. Exercise can improve your heart health, build bone density, make you happier through endorphins, increase focus and concentration and help improve your sleep and relaxation. Notice I don’t mention slimming down, toning up or losing weight. Because these aren’t indicators of health.
Don’t get the wrong, I’m a huge advocate for exercise. It’s important. We all know this. But - I hate the fitness industry. And I will never refer to Sensualista Flow, or any other style of movement that I teach for that matter - as a form of fitness. Despite the fact that yes, it’s a physical challenge, you’ll likely get sweaty and your muscles will feel it the next day but that’s not what it’s about. At all. A happy byproduct, but not the purpose.
I have huge issues with the traditional fitness industry - or rather, the diet industry in disguise, pretending like it gives a shit about your health when really it’s just trying to invent new insecurities to then take advantage of so they can ultimately take your money.
I have huge issues with the damaging effect that the fitness industry has on the mindsets and self-esteem of people all over the world - particularly for those of us who identify as female who have it dialled up even more. It's an industry built on judgement, shame and comparison disguised as one that promotes health and happiness - and being ‘able’ to wear a bikini on the beach. It praises you for weight loss and muscle gained - on your external appearance and outward efforts.
Got a juicy booty and a flat tummy? Achievement unlocked - you can now finally feel good about yourself. But, if you don’t have that ‘perfect’ body? Well, then my friend apparently you aren’t worthy. This is what the traditional fitness industry will have you believe. It’s sneaky. It will masquerade as your bestie who truly cares about you and your goals. But it will also pit you against others in challenges and competitions and make you always feel like you’re not quite enough.
What does your body look like? What needs to change? How can it be ‘better’? These are the questions the traditional fitness industry asks. I don’t think this is good enough. And I refuse to participate in it.
I’m sad to say that I was an active part of the industry for many years when I managed a gym and ran my pole dancing studio and these messages of never being good enough made me really uncomfortable. I was involved in creating campaigns which promoted ‘getting fit for summer’, achieving a ‘beach body’ and other face-palm worthy, slimy marketing pitches. I didn’t feel good about it, and I knew I needed to move in another direction. At the time, I didn’t have quite enough confidence or understanding to take a stand, but I’m happy that I’ve now taken the time to learn and grow and I feel totally at ease giving the fitness industry a big ol’ middle finger now.
Back when I started teaching pole dancing at my studio, I noticed that many of my students were coming to us because they had lost patience with the gym or other traditional forms of fitness. They were craving a different style of movement and they were searching for a safe space where they wouldn’t be preyed up, watched or judged by other people in the gym - particularly men. Yep, I’m talking about that insidious, omnipresent male gaze we’re all so used to. The studio offered solace from this.
And it was here that I discovered the power of shifting the focus from what your body looks like, to what it can do. As a student, I became addicted to the progression that pole dancing offered. Each week, I would learn something completely new and feel amazing when I finally mastered that difficult trick. I saw this in my students too.
Week One, students would often walk into my classroom meek and mild, shoulders hunched, hands pulling down on the shorts we told them they needed to wear (because you can’t grip to the pole if you don’t have bare skin - trust me. I always noticed in the newbies, their eyes darting around the room nervously, internally questioning what the hell they had signed up for. But in a matter of weeks later, I witnessed these women transform completely. After only a few sessions, they were rocking their short shorts and high heels, beaming with pride and high-fiving each other after nailing their first upside down flip on the pole. Seeing these transformations was my favourite part about teaching.
But, as the pole industry grew over the years, I noticed a shift. What was once a really fun hobby, became a serious sport. Competitions popped up at every studio, in every state as well as national and international stages. As the competitive pole grew, so too did the focus on what your body could do. I noticed students putting pressure on themselves to learn new and harder tricks at a quicker progression than I had done as a student years before. Many wanted to perform on stage and win the coveted sash. Which, I saw as just another way to compare yourself and your abilities against someone else. There is nothing wrong with healthy competition but I saw that it was taken away. It was at this point that I realised I didn’t want to be involved anymore. It had gotten away from the gentle, nourishing roots that had originally made me fall in love with the sport.
So I sold my studio and began my journey to create a form of movement that was no longer centred around what your body looks like, or what it can do - but instead on how it feels. My work is so deeply rooted in helping you to reignite sensation, to connect with the sensate body, to be of the senses. It’s about helping you to recognise that your body has soooo much ability to feel really fucking good. My work is about connecting you with your own pleasure, your own bliss. It’s about showing love and appreciation for your body. Not judging your body for what it can and can’t do.
This is the premise of Sensualista Flow. Sensual movement empowers you to appreciate the body you’re in, to own it, cherish it and show it some well-deserved love. Savouring it, luxuriating your body and really feeling nourished by the practice. Fitness is a by-product of my movement practices, not the sole purpose. I truly believe that the traditional fitness industry breeds body shame and self-consciousness. And I think that’s unethical.
So you won’t hear me suggesting that Sensualista Flow will help you lose weight, slim down, tone up – because I don’t believe you need to change. I’d simply like to invite you to connect deeper with yourself, and your sensuality.
Over my many, many years of teaching women how to move I‘ve noticed three things:
There is so much shame around embracing our sensuality and our sexuality. Society sends us such confusing messages about what is and isn’t deemed ‘appropriate’ and ultimately we have mixed emotions around stepping into our sensual bodies and whether it’s safe to do that or it’s shameful.
Women are innately sensual - it may take some re-learning, but our bodies are designed to move in a soft, smooth and sensual way. Our bodies crave and welcome big, juicy, fluid movements. And in the words of my students, it’s like coming home.
Once given a safe space to explore our sensuality away from judgment once we are given that safe space and our innate feminine movements - there is no stopping us! I’ve been lucky enough to be witness to hundreds of women going from shy, broken, and shame-filled to super confident, bright, happy, 'sensualistas' in a matter of sessions with me. It is truly transformative work.
I want to inspire people to embrace their sensuality and cultivate self-love in every aspect of their lives. One vehicle to achieve this is through movement. In connecting with our femininity and really dropping into our bodies - we open ourselves up to create a deep connection with our body, our breath, our pleasure, our soul.
So this is why I created Sensualista Flow and my online course The Art of Sensual Movement. It’s why I teach empowered lap dance in The Art of Seduction (and yes, an online version is coming soon - you can find the link to join the waitlist in the episode description and show notes).
In, what I like to call, a ‘moving protest’ against the body-shaming tactics of big business - I’ve resolved to reclaim my body through the power of sensual movement. And I hope that you’ll join me too.
I’m taking my body back from all those people out there saying it should look like this or that, I’m taking it back from those who try to tell us what a ‘real’ woman is, that gender is a binary and especially from those who tell us that our physical appearance is in any way tied up with our worth.
So now, let me shift gears a bit and talk about my journey with sensual movement and why I think you should incorporate it into your life.
Personally, I grew up dancing all my life and I taught pole dancing for over four years and so it’s only natural that I have a penchant for this style of movement. So often when I teach classes I have student lament that I make it looks so easy or natural, that why they just can’t move like this, that they’re just plain bad at it and on and on.
But I want you to know, I need you know, that moving my body in a sensual way definitely didn’t always feel natural. Far from it! The first time I tried to circle my hips or attempt a ‘body wave’ I felt like a complete and utter noob. I was awkward, embarrassed and WAY outside my comfort zone. I seriously questioned if I would ever be able to look as fluid as my own instructors. But at the same time, something about the style of movement felt familiar. Distantly so, but still, something deep in my body knew this was natural.
So I kept practicing, I kept playing and experimenting and I slowly got the hang of it, then I fell in love with it - then I started to CRAVE it.
I’m now at a point where it's so healing and transformative for me, that if I haven’t allowed space for it for a while, I feel it in my body, in my energy, I notice my mood shift and I notice a disconnection from my pleasure. That’s a sure sign that it’s time to get back into my body.
So, how can you incorporate sensual movement into your own life? Honestly, it can be quite simple. As simple as slowly running your hands along your body and breathing into it. Actually, let’s do this together now. If it’s safe to do so - I want you to close your eyes with me, take a slow, deep breath in and allow your consciousness to drop from your head into your body. Tune in to how your physical body feels right now. How your emotional body feels right now.
Then gently bringing the fingertips of one hand to the top of the other, and slowly, softly run your fingers up along your arm - breathing into the subtle sensations here, allowing yourself to melt in to the moment, gently bringing your fingertips along your chest, slowly bringing them up your neck, caressing your face and melting the hand back down along the chest…Mmm. Doesn’t that feel so delicious?
That’s one simple example of sensual movement. Then, of course we can go to the other end of the spectrum into full body movement, cat rolls, hip circles, body waves, hair flicks and fun floor work. But the difference here between other forms of movement or dance is this: presence.
It’s about presence with yourself. Being with yourself. I always talk about sensuality being akin to mindfulness. But it’s more than that. It’s like mindfulness 2.0 - with an embodied twist. Sensuality is not just about simply noticing or observing your senses and your surroundings, but instead it’s about savouring and luxuriating in them.
When we infuse this mentality into the physical movements, it makes them even juicer. When I teach my practices, I always invite you to close your eyes, to breathe, to take up space, to make your movements big and expansive, to express yourself fully. I think this expansive nature is especially important for us women who are consistently told by society to be smaller, quieter. We cross our legs and shrink ourselves when we should be allowing ourselves to be seen, to take up space, to man spread on the train too.
These movements can feel really strange and often quite confronting though. Because we’ve conditioned to see sensuality and women owning their sexual expression as something to be vilified. Tell me, how often have you censored yourself and your natural movements out of fear of being seen as asking for attention? Or perhaps you’ve judged that girl on the dance floor who is shaking her hips and dancing super sexually. Why is that? Why do we do this? Because it’s fucking powerful and magnetic and our bodies are goddamn temples - and if we just knew this about ourselves, we wouldn’t be fooled in to wasting our precious time, energy and money to spend capitalist corporations designed to keep us small.
Lofty, perhaps - but this is part of my inspiration and purpose in creating Sensualista Flow, The Art of Sensual Movement and The Art of Seduction. It’s all a reclamation.
Now, if you paid attention to the intro - or perhaps you’re a regular listener and you know it well - you’ll know that I introduce myself as the founder of Sensual Yoga. I will be updating this intro soon, but before I get the chance to do so, I’d love to share with you a bit more about why I’ve decided to retire the name Sensual Yoga and why I have renamed my signature movement practice Sensualista Flow. And yes, that’s Sensual-eesta, not sensual-ista. And no, it’s not a real word - I made it up to describe a person who is embodied in their femininity and their sensuality. I love Spanish so much and was inspired to create a word that articulated this essence, and that also sounded deeply feminine. But, that aside. Let’s chat about cultural appropriation.
When I first had the inspiration to create Sensual Yoga a few years ago, it was very influenced by both my study of yoga and my experience in teaching dance and fitness for years. I created Sensual Yoga to inspire more feminine movement in a practice that can be rather masculine in energy, as traditional yoga was created by men and predominantly with male bodies in mind. I talk a lot about this in episode 5 - though I feel I’ve evolved my views since that episode. Oh the things you can learn in the space of a year!
For those who may not know, I want to share a definition for cultural appropriation with you: it refers to the use of objects or elements of a non-dominant culture in a way that doesn't respect their original meaning, give credit to their source, or reinforces stereotypes or contributes to oppression. It’s things like the white wellness community buying sage in bulk despite it being a spiritual practice of certain indigenous peoples and the capitalist nature of its popularisation causing harm. It’s white folk wearing their hair in dreadlocks or cornrows. It’s the fox-eye trend, the tanning industry and yes, people using the word yoga to describe a practice that is not culturally accurate.
Please please do some further research on cultural appropriation as I can’t cover it in depth here today. Particularly if you’re white and thinking “none of that stuff is that bad”. It’s harmful, and we need to do better.
So, with my creation of what I called Sensual Yoga, it never was real yoga. And now it’s evolved to a point where, while there remains some influence from the yogic tradition in terms of the focus on introspection and a few of the asanas, it’s moved quite far from it. It’s a sensual feminine movement practice. It’s not yoga.
As a white woman committed to anti-racism, I’m constantly learning and unlearning about things like the impact of white supremacy and cultural appropriation and it’s through this work and the labour of many wonderful educators of colour out there that I’ve recognised that it’s really not my place to be using the term yoga for my creation. And I believe that impact is more powerful than intention, and so I decided to retire the name Sensual Yoga and rename my practice. It’s now Sensualista Flow.
In all honesty, I think this had been in the back of my mind a long time, and it’s a big part of why I put Sensual Yoga on ice for a while - but I hadn’t allowed myself the space to unpack it. Since I first created the practice, my business has shifted to such a degree that Sensual Yoga wasn’t the main focus. It hasn’t been for quite a while. Last year, I consciously split my business, separating the Sensual Yoga and Eleanor Hadley brands to try and allow them space to be their own entities. But, it’s time consuming enough to run one business by myself, let alone two. So, Sensual Yoga didn’t get much of a look in for a while.
But, I recognise it’s a really powerful practice, and any of my students will attest to that. I’ve always had big visions for it, but I couldn’t comfortably move forward with making it a global movement practice with that current name.
I’m now sharing more sensual movement again, and particularly my empowered lap dance class, The Art of Seduction and so I wanted to take this opportunity to start fresh and introduce Sensualista Flow to you. I’m so relieved to have changed this name and I hope you love it as much as I do.
Now, if you’d love to try this practice that I keep banging on about - please join me on my workshop tour, as I’ll be sharing elements of it in some of my upcoming workshops. Head to eleanorhadley.com/events to book your spaces now. At the time of recording, I’m in Sydney and have 3 workshops on this week, then I’m heading to Melbourne and Adelaide and will have more workshops coming up in Queensland, Byron Bay, Newcastle and Perth soon too. Make sure you register for the workshop waitlist at eleanorhadley.com/workshopwaitlist to be given notice when new workshops are announced in your location.
And for all my loves who aren’t in Aus but want to get on the sensual movement bandwagon - I’d love to invite you to join my online course, The Art of Sensual Movement. This is where I teach you the foundations of Sensualista Flow and break down these movements module by module. You’ll learn sitting movements, cat rolls, hair flicks and a full sequence. This is the best place to start, and you’ll be able to go at your own pace and revisit the lessons anytime in your own space. This is also the best foundation for my upcoming course in The Art of Seduction so I highly recommend enrolling and practicing now before that comes out. Again, you can find the links to enrol and to join the next waitlist in the show notes . You can go to theartofsensualmovement.com.course to enrol now - and as a special thank you for being a fabulous listener and supporter of the podcast, I’d love to gift you with 15% off when you use the code PODCAST in all caps. Enjoy!
That’s all from me for this week, my loves. Until next time, stay sensual!
