A Journey In Motion
By Jen Montoya
A Journey in Motion…that phrase came to me after sitting at my computer, trying to think of a call to action. Something real, something rousing, something that could break through a screen and land in the hearts of the people who practice yoga at Archetype Yoga.
It is the holidays, and there is a lot happening in the world. People are tired. People are carrying more than they talk about. And I wondered, What can one little yoga studio possibly offer someone who feels the weight of everything on their shoulders?
Movement has always been a happy place for me. Even as I age, I am still called toward motion. I have a strong memory for sequencing and can pick up choreography quickly. I also have stiffness in my back from years of overextending my cambre in dance school, and calves that sometimes cramp at night. And yet, none of these things have ever stopped me from moving.
Because movement is a gift. Movement is a story.
And every single person carries a story locked inside their body.
Yoga, soccer, walking, it is all part of a Journey in Motion.
When I started thinking about this year’s gift card design, I asked myself what the best possible gift could be. Not something decorative or convenient. Something meaningful. Something that could meet someone exactly where they are. I meditated on it, and then typed out the words: A Journey in Motion.
So instead of thinking about a sales pitch, I sat with movement itself and my own long story with it.
Recently at book club, I joked that if I ever wrote a memoir, it would be about my life’s connection to movement. How movement has saved me, how it has defeated me, and how I have evolved inside this body that keeps changing. At 41, I move differently than I did at 21 or 31. These days my movement landscape looks like 2 yoga classes a week, recreational soccer on Sundays, and daily walks.
That is what I want someone to feel when they see it. A moment of recognition, like Yes. That is exactly what I want for myself.
If I received an A Journey in Motion gift card, I do not think I would register it at first as a traditional gift. But later, lying in a restorative class, feeling my body softening into itself, I know I would think:
Yes. This is my journey. And I am ready to keep moving through it.
My hope is that someone who needs this will find it. That this small offering, this little gift card, might become the beginning or the rekindling of a movement story that has been waiting inside them.
Because everyone has a Journey in Motion. Sometimes we just need a reminder to step back into it.
