Soul Motion (Martí)

Domain X · Body, movement, breath & physical · Vinn Arjuna Martí · Portland, Oregon

What it is

Soul Motion is a facilitator-led, non-choreographed conscious dance practice created by Vinn Arjuna Martí, who now goes by Vincent Martínez-Grieco. A photographer's profile of him states the two names belong to one person, and a 2025 UK workshop listing advertises him teaching Soul Motion under the…

Format

• Format. Classes are for groups. No dance experience is needed, and sources stress it is not about skill or performance. Formats in published sources:
• Weekly drop-in classes, e.g. a Sunday-morning "Body Prayer" class open to beginners and long-time dancers.

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• Introductory "Foundations" workshops. The Soul Motion Institute requires one before teacher training. A 2026 Australian Foundations listing describes a four-day immersion that introduces the practice's movement tools and "somatic languaging", the relational landscapes (alone, with another, community, and the "infinite" carried into everyday life) and its three named rhythms, open to beginners with no dance…
• A 2013 two-hour experiential CPD session for marriage and family therapists and clinical social workers in Los Angeles, led by a certified Soul Motion teacher.
• Criteria for moving between stages. No criteria are published. The facilitator decides when to move on. Training content includes "reading group dynamics" and class structures. That suggests teachers judge readiness from the group's state, not from a fixed clock.

Evidence status, as the guide reports it

• Evidence status. Independent outcome research or systematic reviews of Soul Motion are not documented in the sources listed below. Benefit claims in promotional and press material include relaxing, empowering, healing, freeing people from guilt and shame, and stress reduction. These claims are…

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Is there physical contact? Was it explained beforehand, and do you feel free to say no or stop at any point?
• Does it involve intense or unusual breathing? Have you been told about the medical conditions for which that is not advised?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• How do you and the practitioner understand what is happening, in spiritual or cultural terms? Is that a source of comfort, worry, or both?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• Shame and minimising. Loyalty to the community that makes it hard to complain.
• Clients seeing you as a fellow dancer. Partner phases with your own client. These need to be avoided.
• Stillness can be the safest choice for an overwhelmed client. Make sure they know it is fully legitimate.
• A teacher who claims to treat trauma or mental illness, or who discourages clients from continuing therapy.
• A teacher who reads a dancer's inner state aloud, or pushes catharsis, is going beyond the published training emphasis.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.