Ritam Studio Podcast With Jonni Pollard and Carla Dimattina

The Birth of Ritam Studio

• Jonni Pollard

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Jonni Pollard and Carla DiMattina introduce their new venture, Ritam Studio, which combines Jonni's meditation expertise in "Veda Therapy" with Carla's holistic physiotherapy approach "Chain Movement" to create a powerful system for transformation and healing.

1 Giant Mind is evolving!! Check out Jonni's new project Ritam Studio.

  • With hundreds of hours of courses and knowledge content to take you ever deeper into understanding and supporting your growth & evolution. 
  • Stacks of movement classes with Carla Dimattina to strengthen and align so everything can flow.

Try for free today head to ritam.studio

Speaker 1:

Hi Carla.

Speaker 2:

Hi Johnny.

Speaker 1:

So nice to have you with me on this podcast.

Speaker 2:

Can I call you babes?

Speaker 1:

Let's, for the purpose of this podcast, call me Johnny.

Speaker 2:

Okay, it's very hard to sit next to your husband and call him by his name.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, when we refer to each other as babes, or maybe we just do call each other babes. No, I think it'll really annoy people. I'm going to call you Carla. Are you going to call me Johnny? Okay, so, carla, what I'd like to do for the One Giant Mind listeners is create some context for why we are now calling this podcast Ritam Studio, and then I would like to introduce you more deeply and tell a little bit of a story about what's been happening with us and where we're heading and all the exciting things that the followers of this podcast can expect.

Speaker 2:

Okay, great.

Speaker 1:

So, as you may have heard already, the One Giant Mind podcast is now called Ritamstudio. Ritamstudio is the new project. That is, a joint partnership with myself and Carla that combines our work and, as you heard in the intro, carla is a holistic physiotherapist that has her own movement system called chain movement, and I, as a meditation teacher and as a spiritual therapist working with the process called Veda therapy, have combined our work for what? Eight years now?

Speaker 2:

No longer Ten.

Speaker 1:

Ten years. What eight years? Now no longer 10. 10 years, and we've been experimenting over this decade with how to treat our clients with our respective work and then combine each other's work, and we have been so blown away at the quickening, the level of advancement and progress that our clients have made by being tag-teamed by us and I think it was probably five years into it we're like there's really something to this, and as we've continued to develop, both as practitioners, as humans, as husband and wife, as parents, we have discovered a really beautiful, elegant system that we are now putting into the platform that we refer to as Ritam Studio, and what we want to do is share and teach this knowledge as far and wide as we possibly can. Teach this knowledge as far and wide as we possibly can. So, with that all in mind, carla, I'd like to ask you a couple of questions about what it is that you were surprised about having the time to integrate the meditation piece into your work as a holistic physio.

Speaker 2:

So I think it's important to share that.

Speaker 2:

We began working together before we were husband and wife and that started when I heard Johnny speak at a summit and he was the most articulate teacher on the stage who was able to answer people's questions in a really refined way that met them where they were at.

Speaker 2:

And when I heard him speak I immediately thought that he would be helpful for the clients that I was seeing, because treating the body is only one part of what I do and, as we'll speak about later, every physical ailment has a deeper emotional component to it and whilst I can unlock a lot of it with the movement, some people require deeper work on the emotional element and I recognized Johnny would be able to do that and so started sharing clients with him after that first time hearing him speak, and the relationship grew to the point where we were constantly sharing clients because the change that we were seeing in them was not just a little bit better, it was so much better. It was such an exponential change. They would look different, they were experiencing life in a different way. Their relationships changed. You know, it went just beyond. My body feels better to my whole life is better.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and that was the same thing that I was noticing when I was referring my clients to Carla. What would occur is just such a rapid capacity to process trauma that's held in the body and their ability to integrate the changes that they were making, the way they were able to break habits that were trying to break destructive behavioral patterns, cycles within relationships, and they would often attribute it to the moving they were still doing all of their meditation therapy process. And when I included the movement piece, well, when Carla included the movement piece, it was so noticeable how quickly it expanded. So we've both had an opportunity to observe this within our clients with the introduction of our respective work, and what we want this podcast to be is an opportunity to continue exploring, sharing really what we've discovered and what we continue to discover, but also the meat of our work. We don't just want to talk about what we do, we want to actually be what we do in this podcast.

Speaker 1:

So for many of you that have been listening to this podcast traditionally as One Giant Mind, the format in many episodes will remain the same mind, the format in many episodes will remain the same. There will still be the Ask Johnny questions and we will continue rolling that out because we know that that has been really helpful. But they'll be interlaced with episodes of me interviewing Carla about your process and really getting into the nuts and bolts, the nitty gritty of what you do and why it's so unique and why it's so different in the movement world, and then also to break out and provide insight into processes that we've discovered through the bringing together of our work. And what we hope that it'll do is inspire you to want to level up in your own daily practice your own approach to your own personal development, to incorporate movement, if you haven't already, and to incorporate meditation, if you haven't already.

Speaker 1:

Now, we're aware that this podcast following is probably already meditation bias and meditation heavy, so we're going to introduce Carla and create some context for her work, more so in the first series, just so you can really understand why it's so important that meditation itself is not the silver bullet. You really must have a movement practice to complement all the stuff that you're doing in your inner reality, and Carla is going to explain exactly how they correlate. There is this beautiful confluence of the two disciplines where they meet in the middle to become one whole thing, and I practice all of Carla's stuff and Carla practices all of my stuff, so we really live and breathe and embody what it is we're sharing with you, and so we observe the transformation that happens in our own life as a result of practicing this. And then we work with people all day long, teaching them what we practice for ourselves.

Speaker 2:

Johnny's been doing my classes once a week and maybe be helpful to the for the listeners for them to hear you speak about how integrating that into your meditation practice, the changes you've noticed.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So you know, when we had our two children, I had to give up. Well, I didn't have to.

Speaker 2:

I chose to give up surfing because it takes like half a day.

Speaker 1:

Yes, give up surfing, because it takes like half a day. Yes, it can take a little while for me to find where the best ways are, but anyway I I chose to to um put surfing on pause just to be more present at home and, um, just to be more present with Carla, the kids, with parenting and with work. Surfing became a huge time sucker. And so what I found was that my normal exercise regime kind of went out the window and I acquired the standard dad bod and put on some KGs. You know, I'm a year off 50 now, and so I only have to look at a burger to put on at least a kilo. And so, you know, I put on a little bit of weight and sitting all day, a lot of the time with clients, you know, back can get sore, and what I quickly noticed is that my body started to really suffer. I was in pain, I felt inflamed, I needed movement and it was very difficult for me to come to the conclusion that I needed a regimented, you know, daily discipline of movement. Psychologically it was very difficult for me. I used to be a professional inline skater and all of my exercise was always just about, you know, putting on some skates or grabbing my board, jumping out in the surf and having some fun. It wasn't like exercise. And so to actually learn how to exercise for the sake of exercising was a big leap for me. And it wasn't until, you know, I think. One day I looked in the mirror and I was like, oh geez, I'm a bit chubby and a bit stiff. And Carla was always very gracious to not over embellish it, but I think there was a period of time where she kind of would just come up and pinch my belly and give me a little wink. That was all it really took. And so I said listen, I want to start taking your classes. At this stage Carla wasn't running her live classes, she was only pre-recording them. And I said why don't you start running some classes on Saturday? We've got a beautiful studio space. And so she did said why don't you start running some classes on Saturday? We've got a beautiful studio space. And so she did. And people came, I started doing the class and, oh my goodness, honestly, within like three weeks of just doing it once a week, I noticed such a profound change in the strength of my body and the way my body moved and my body awareness.

Speaker 1:

And then I started incorporating her classes a little bit more in the week, followed by some other things that she was prescribing. We have a Pilates reformer. I started getting into that and within a very short period of time, my body transformed. It was incredible. I started shedding kilos and started getting very strong in all the ways that I wanted to my core. I started to understand what my core was, what it meant to stand correctly, to be in correct posture. I found my energy flowed. My consciousness was more easily expansive. I saw the pressure that I was creating in my system by not addressing my body. It was something that I just normalized because it was a slow creep and as a result of introducing her stuff, which is really enjoyable, I actually enjoy going to her Saturday morning classes. I really look forward to it. We've got an awesome crew of people that turn up every week and everyone's noticing Everyone growing their strength and their body shape, everything. It's just really, really fun.

Speaker 2:

Not growing in body shape.

Speaker 1:

No, we're growing. Yeah, we're growing, not in body size. Yeah, we're growing in strength.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's a very good and the shape of their bodies are changing yeah, it's amazing, my body I didn't think at this age that in my body could respond to something so quickly and it does, it has. So this is just another reason why and I feel great because of it. I feel really great because of it. And you know, we just want to share our stories and our experience. Like that's just my own personal one, but the the, the stories that we have of our clients are incredibly compelling and over time, we're going to share those with you for the, for the sake of informing you, educating you, training you, but also inspiring you to really, you know, get on the mat and then on the cushion every day and do exactly what you need to do in order to to rejuvenate, reinvigorate and build strength and evolution and expansiveness of awareness. So did I do that justice?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I think, because you're mostly all meditators, the primary thing you're doing is expanding your awareness and I'm sure you've all noticed great changes in your life and relationships as a result of doing that. And it's really to get you to take the next step, to bringing that awareness more deeply into your body, because how you hold your body and what your body holds, your body stores tensions and trauma from the past. That meditation is one aspect of opening your awareness to be able to heal those. But when we move our body, we allow space for that tension or trauma or anything that's stored in the body to release, and it's the combining of the two. So, having the awareness, having the release and then how would you describe it, johnny? Yeah well.

Speaker 1:

I would describe the chain movement system as therapeutic, Like you're not just coming to work out and get strong, You're coming to access parts of the body that have been trapped in movement patterns, that are trapped by the trauma. When Carla cues you to move correctly, she causes you to break through those movement habits, those movement patterns, into correct patterns. And when you start accessing those correct patterns of movement, invariably what you remove and move is the energy that was holding you in those bad habits in the first place. And so it's a common thing and I don't want to deter you here, but it's actually brilliant.

Speaker 1:

You'll see somebody in a posture, in a movement sequence, and they'll start crying and something's being released. And all of this is totally fine in this class and it's a very safe held container. And I'm not saying everybody's bawling their eyes out in the class, it's not the case. But on the occasion you'll see somebody just having a really deep release, and there's a pretext for that and an encouragement to just allow that to happen in the class. And as a result of doing this practice, people are becoming liberated from the energy that's stored in their hips, in their guts, in their back, in their neck, in their jaw, in their face throughout the whole system, and you know so perhaps just talk about why you've called it chain movement.

Speaker 2:

So the concept of a chain is? It mirrors the interconnectedness of the body, where every part is linked and interdependent, so like as a single link in a chain can affect the entire structure, movement or restriction in one area of the body influences the whole system. So this holistic perspective and calling it chain addresses how one part of the body, your mind or emotions can unlock patterns and restore harmony throughout the entire physical structure. Does that make sense.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, totally so, and that's very prevalent in the way that you run your classes and the way that you instruct us to move. We start with your foot mapping, bringing our awareness from our feet all the way up through the top of our head, and there's a really elaborate process by which you get us in correct alignment and correct posture before we start the class and before we start moving.

Speaker 2:

And let's keep in mind that that alignment is not rigid. We establish it and then we're sustaining it through movement, but the movement is very rigid. We establish it and then we're sustaining it through movement, but the movement is very dynamic. The movement is very flowing, but you've established a base. Particularly in your feet is the most important part that you are always connecting with and engaging with, and it's from that place that we are stimulating that whole chain that we just spoke about.

Speaker 1:

Hmm. And so for all you meditators, just to create some context here, place that we are stimulating that whole chain that we just spoke about. And so for all you meditators, just to create some context here, you know the one giant mind technique, vedic meditation, anything that is enabling the mind to transcend into being. This is what we talk about often on this podcast podcast. The context of this movement system is that it enables us to access, through motion, through movement, through awakening the physical body, a deeper embodied state and the ability to release deep stored energy, trauma, stress in the system, to create more space for the body's natural intelligence to align with our intuitive intelligence, where we unite the mind sensory experience of ourself and the body sensory experience of ourself as one thing, and this is essential for moving into the next level of becoming your full self, and the whole Ritam Studio offering is just about this. This is the sweet spot of how we bring these two together, and so the platform itself is an evolving thing, as color and eyes work is together, and what we're going to do over time is start creating programs that, based on what we're hearing and observing, through interacting with our offerings, we're going to evolve and iterate so they become more elegantly expressive of this beautiful unification of mind and body, and what we're hoping with this podcast is to inspire you to come along on the journey with us. So, with all of that said, I'm so happy that we get to do this together, carla babes, and I'm looking forward to sitting down with you in our next episode and diving in a little little bit deeper with all of our stuff. We we welcome all of your insights, your uh feedback on the podcast and also questions you might have for us so that we can uh riff on it in one of our episodes. We'd like to invite you to join our newsletter at ritamstudio.

Speaker 1:

I'd like you to also go and explore the seven-day free transformation that we're offering on the website just to give you a taste of Carla's work and, at the very least, go to retimestudio and look at Carla's offering all the fundamentals of what she teaches for free on the website under chain movement.

Speaker 1:

You just go check out chain movement and there's a carousel there of like maybe 15 videos where she breaks down the fundamentals of her whole system. It's a very generous offering and that should inspire you to want to take the seven-day free transformation program where she's offering the 30-day challenge Only 10 minutes a day and I guarantee you it's going to change the way you move. It's incredible and for all of you meditators, the One Giant Mind app is still living and breathing One Giant Mind. Teachers all around the world are teaching the One Giant Mind technique. What you have to do is go to the website onegiantmindcom and find a teacher and learn with them, and also, of course, we've got the One Giant Mind teacher training and Vedic meditation teacher training. But all of that we're going to talk about a lot more in coming episodes and we're really looking forward to you continuing to join us.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, bye, bye.