All experience must transcend the outer happening and become inner gesture to register as authentic, personal, or real. Embodiment can only be judged/achieved in the personal, visceral aesthetic of the participant. These inner shifts do not need to be dramatic. We regularly have simple experiences that are deeply felt. The base requirement for embodiment is simply that some self-extending motion registers in the soma, not only on or around the body. We will continue to discuss embodied/disembodied in the coming chapters. For now, we can summarize in the following statements:
- All authentic experience is embodied.
- Embodiment is the body-extending act of unioning self-motion with some Other (self with self, with thing, with other body, or with environment).