Interview by Morgan Magauran with Lynn and Lee Fuller, 2023:

Morgan: “Welcome Lee and Lynn Fuller. I’m honored to have my first ‘inner-view’ with both of you. The work you’ve dedicated your lives to: healing, integrating and evolving through embodied presence, is so essential, especially now in a prevailing culture that doesn’t value stillness, silence and the body. It’s been a privilege and profoundly healing experience to have you as my teachers of Authentic Movement for over twenty years. Before we dive into your reflections, let’s pause and remind our readers if they are unfamiliar with the practice, they can find a definition of Authentic Movement on your website.” 

“The core of the movement experience is the sensation of moving and being moved. There are many implications in putting it this way. Ideally, both are present in the same instant, and it literally may be an instant. It is a moment of total awareness, the coming together of what I am doing and what is happening to me. It cannot be anticipated, explained specifically, worked for, nor repeated exactly.” -Mary Whitehouse

Morgan: What was your pull towards the practice of Authentic Movement, how did you begin? 

Lee: At The Jung Center in Houston with Joan Chodorow when we did Authentic Movement, I realized “this is it”, I had no idea what that meant. I just knew in every cell of my body, this is it. I told Lynn and introduced her to Joan.

Lynn: I started going to Joan’s class in Santa Barbara. Hearing her say the words,”There is no right or wrong way to move”, when I’d been told all my life what was a right and what was wrong way: it was freeing to leave such rigidity behind. When I closed my eyes, my body loved moving. I was passionately enthralled with closed eyes moving, with no right or wrong. Lee and I were both synchronized swimmers. When you’re underwater it’s about locating in a sensory way, now to be able to do this on the land– oh my God. It was luscious. It was deeply creative and healing.

I went to class and worked individually in Joan’s studio. It was slow going, when we were beginning in the field. I moved for four years before I ever witnessed. To be seen that clearly was profound.

Both Lee and Lynn simultaneously say “Without judgment, without projection and without interpretation!”

Lee: Then Lynn introduced me to Janet. I’d been showing Janet’s film to whomever would watch it and hosted little workshops. Come see this, come see this—the title was “Looking for Me.”

Lynn: Because of Joan’s relationship with Janet, she brought her to Santa Barbara. I fell in love. I was six months pregnant when Janet came out. She started a class on the West Coast and invited me and Lee to be a part of her first study group. We studied with her for nearly a decade, at first going five times a year, then it whittled down to three times a year. 

Lee: Then Janet said, “You all have graduated.” It took many of us by surprise. She was opening the door for us to step out into the world on our own. Our studies continued individually and in small groups in California and in Canada when she moved, for over a decade. 

You can read the full interview by clicking here: authentic-movement-with-lee-and-lynn