The first snow and Kateřina!

24.11.2025

This morning I woke up in darkness just to discover as I opened my curtains that the whole landscape was covered in snow. And my heart accelerated like when I was a child!! The first snow of the year! Today I didn’t go to the forest with Gigi, instead we drove to Obora Hvezda, a wonderful big park/woods surrounding the Hvezda castle. It was magical to walk there, Gigi was so happy in the snow and so was I walking through the beautiful majestic trees all with their snow coats on. What a great way to start the day.

During my walk I naturally started thinking of what I will do today: writing the blog and continuing writing the book. Today I will write about yet another special colleague and friend of mine, and she loves the snow and the winter. I remember her eyes lighting up when she speaks of snow: Kateřina Ledvinková. 

I had a wonderful meeting with her last week just a day after birthday. We celebrated, had a really nice conversation, where I interviewed her and we went over our memories, then went for a walk and had a coffee. It was one of those days which you don’t plan and everything flows naturally. 

These past days I have been writing so much that it seems quite natural for me nowadays. Of course I don’t want to sound ambitious.. especially after last week when I had a block and was doubting a lot about the quality of my writing… but this past week I have produced some good amount of writing. One feels immediately better, at least I do. When I get things done I feel energy building up in myself, and I am filled with satisfaction. And then I grant myself a little break, a nap or a nice tea and look out into the garden. So this past week was a little like that, except that I have worked a lot, and therefore also dreamt a lot. From my dreams I can always feel how much I have done during the day. I am starting to really feel my dreams, rather than remembering them. Even when I remember I cannot make sense of them, but I feel them, so I wake up with a feeling that somehow makes sense when I think of the past days prior to the dream.

I would like to come to the point of today’s blog. And that is my beautiful story with Kateřina. My dear colleague and friend, you came in one day, about 8 years ago, with your husband Martin and your little daughter Tonicka in your arms through our doors, and visited us. Gunes, Verka and I were very touched by the beauty of you all. It was a lovely meeting and you asked to rent the space, explaining to us what you were doing. And we agreed and you started using the space for your private classes. 

Kateřina: “Yes but you know, I told you about what we were doing. At that time we were working with Martin and maybe we talked about the clients with special needs, but I told you also about my work, about the teachers I had been working with and you just smiled and didn’t comment further on it. And we ended up  renting the space and I started doing my privates, and only some months later Martin told me that you were doing something very similar… and I then I looked and found the name Somatic Dialogue, and already I had my own name Somatic Healing, and I said wow, to myself, interesting. And then some time later I was able to attend one of your group classes. Through the whole session it was running through my head how similar this work was to my point of view or my work… in those times I was not doing group classes at all, but the wording, the focus of the things.. I was very happy but nervous at the same time because it felt strange to see this very similar approach. Because until this point I never felt this kind of compatibility before, and then since this experience.. I trusted my intuition, I just knew.. and from this class onwards I decided to ask you for the private classes and also for learning how you are doing this. I wanted to ask you and to know how it is possible that you are doing  what you are doing. And of course there were many things I felt I could learn from you. I could also feel that you had a higher level of confidence. I already had my own ideas, I worked with the people. This is very important for me to say this, but at the same time I was in the research mode at those times, and of course the research is still ongoing… but it was real research then, because I had questions such as… what if I wouldn’t do the exercises during the classes, because I tended to do less, and not give so much instructions… what if I could lead the session more openly. And you had this confidence also in the form of the work, in the way you were teaching. So I needed to grab this and learn this. This was the biggest magnet for me, to see that you were doing it and it was confirming that this work is like this. I found the confirmation of my thoughts and ideas.”

I remember we were then later on after the private lessons talking a lot about how to give the task or create the exercises with Kateřina. It was an interesting period for me because she was not like a normal client (whatever that might mean). Well actually after Beliz, Kateřina is the second “professional” colleague who asked to learn this method from me. And because she was so deeply listening and asking such intelligent questions, I was more and more finding an appetite to share with her what I know.  I developed an immediate trust in her, because she had such an ethical approach and was so open and sincere in her way of working. It really has been a pure joy to work with her like this, intimately for 2 years, nearly on a weekly basis. After some time, she was also coming with very specific questions about the work, about how certain approaches work etc. And for me I had found a partner in discussing the” kitchen” of this work. Because I am passionate about the dialogue, for me the exchange has to happen, the muhabbet as I call it. I am no longer interested in making monologues, in teaching what I know and not letting the others find their way… and with her this dialogue was happening, and this was a very inspiring time for me. 

How many hours did we work one on one? We decided with Kateřina that we had 160 hours together. How did you live these 160 hours? 

Kateřina: “At the beginning I would say, it was mainly for myself. I enjoyed the real physical path. I was writing after each session everything down, the whole structure of the session. Unconsciously I already wanted to learn structuring of the sessions…but at the beginning I really was working on my own themes. And because I was writing and then reading my own notes I was starting to connect the experiences from one session to the other and I was coming with precise questions. This was interesting. I was actively feeling where I wanted to improve in the movement. And from this period I vividly remember the Chest work we did together. Your approach was interesting.. I already had learned many things and absorbed many approaches, but how you approached the chest work was completely new to me. And also the work with the legs. The chest work was very concrete, because it was very physical, and not only emotional. And I remember when you showed me for the first time the work with the chest, I felt strongly a NO in me, something in me was resisting and from this resistance I knew innerly that it is this I need to work on. I didn’t like what you were showing me, and I was saying No-no-no inside. And also the approach with the legs, there was something that really helped me to find a new approach, especially with the knees.. I found the volume, the density of the knees and legs. This was the first part.

And then after I consumed all these experiences… and I was in between the sessions practicing by myself and after about a year or so, I felt I had integrated the experiences, and I started asking about how you were teaching and the structure etc. And then I started bringing concrete questions that were related to my own sessions. “

After a while our weekly sessions turned into weekly meetings where we started exchanging more, and I started moving too. I could experience first hand how Kateřina was present while accompanying someone in the movement. It was delightful to move in her presence. 

When I started the Somatic Dialogue Facilitator Training’s 1st cycle, I had agreed with Beliz and Kateřina that they would assist me in this process and see how I was transmitting the course, so that they could become co and guest instructors for the next cycle. 

Just after the first cycle I invited Kateřina to co-facilitate a workshop with me on the theme of sensuality, which I called Dare to be Sensual. Here we worked for the first time together with a group of participants. It was very touching and delicate, and we both have a very special memory of this work.

We had worked in the past on some contact and touch work,  especially the nestling into the contact which is  one of the qualities of contact in Somatic Dialogue. The outcome of these sessions inspired me to design this workshop on sensuality.

After the first cycle Kateřina became a guest instructor in the second cycle of the Facilitator Training, and we had 2 years of working together as a team also with Beliz, Zeynep and Güneş. We completed the training, we learned a lot from each other and we supported each other. It was a unique experience.

Now Kateřina is continuing having her private sessions of Somatic Healing, she is also giving workshops and currently she is working on a freshly new project that is in the creative process. She is a very unique and special dancer, who has a delicate and very personal deep way of relating to movement and the body. You can find all the delicacy of her work on her webpages www.somatichealing.cz

I have asked Kateřina how she is teaching, because I have only experienced her being my witness in sessions where we exchanged, but of course I haven’t had the opportunity to experience her private sessions. I know that we are very close in this path, so I have asked her. I know it is always difficult to talk about what one does, because our work is not easy to be talked about… so this is what she says, I am sure you’ll find it very inspiring:

Kateřina: I am trying to really create the space for people to feel themselves. And this is it. In the movement, through the movement and let’s say, the thing I really trust is, this sentence I have: “the body is wise”. And of course I have my own history, and there were times that I didn’t think that my body was wise. I thought that my body was damaged, that it is wrong, that it is not talking correctly, not moving or behaving correctly, and I really somehow through this very personal experience, because I really feel that it saved my life, that I really decided to start to listen. But not to some outside words, because they were too scary actually, that I somehow thanks to this I felt more safe in myself. So I have this huge trust that the body is wise. Which also means that I am really not trying to fix anything, not trying to offer people the solution, the ways to move, the tools, I am trying to create the space for listening, and with a very open mind and heart and also the setting, which means that I really start very openly. So even when I start I sometimes tell the client: you are the first one here, and I am trying to follow you as closely as I can. My will is really not to be ahead. In any case I am really trying to stay a step behind and sometimes we can be so close, and sometimes even hug and feel, but still you are the one who is in the movement ahead and I am trying to read and then I am trying to say this out loud, to formulate it, to say what I see, so that you can see it. Not to offer you what you should do. 

Really I am a reader, I am a follower of the movement, and I am here to help the client to understand and to hear more clearly what they are doing, because sometimes we can be lost in what we are doing. 

So after this first part, then I can ask what could be the next step or very gently suggest where we can go from there. I really ask the client sometimes to come up with a suggestion of what to do.

And my thing is the consciousness of it. Not the tools, the ways, but I am here to help to bring consciousness, and this is the work. Because if you just move and no one would see it or name it, it wouldn’t work and when you are doing the same thing and someone is there and you are seen, then it starts to work, it starts to heal… and this is why the word healing is so important for me because then the healing potential of the body starts. And by this safe space and by this wording the process starts, and sometimes I am amazed how intelligent and wise the system is because it feels it is a little bit counterproductive, because sometimes some bodies don’t move or move in a very strange way.. and I already after so many years have the trust that when we go with it consciously, it shifts. So I am not trying to change it…I just see it, name it and feel it and with time and the consciousness there definitely will be some point where the people by themselves make the discovery and feel the change. And this is it. This is what I am trying to do. 

Kateřina is truly inspiring all her clients with her unique approach. And you can find her with her private and group sessions at Limpid Works studio.

What is also very exciting, and this is my personal view, is that Kateřina always underlines that she is not a “trained dancer”, but in my view she is a dancer, a dancer who is finding her own style through her deep healing process through movement. And for me to have the courage to let the body dance, allow the body to move its story is being a dancer. And I am very much looking forward to the new chapter in her path: the performative aspect of dance. So watch out for her as she probably will be surprising us with her creative work. 

I am always in awe and my heart quivers with gratefulness when I see again and again how lucky I am on this path, to witness such inspiring colleagues. Stay with me dear readers, because the stories of our little but slowly growing community will continue.

And in the meantime enjoy this wonderful album that Kateřina made me discover.. because one thing that you don’t know, but might find out if you work with her, is that she also is a musicologist and has an amazing way of leading you through movement by her choices of music. 

Thank you Ma mila!

https://open.spotify.com/album/4KioiuRhIXlH5ezES8CmOe?si=YDuEKpc9QAii6Af558DcQw

Hermanos Gutíerrez, EL Camino De Mi Alma