Episode 21: Erica is Moving for Radical Presence and Radical Self Acceptance
a conversation with therapist Erica Gibbons about building movement practices that serve queer and trans BIPOC athletes
This week we’re continuing our series of interviews about trauma-informed movement! I’m excited to share this conversation with Erica Gibbons. If you’d rather listen instead of read, there’s a recording of this conversation here.
Erica and I met a few years ago when she served as a consultant and sat for an on-camera interview for a documentary I produced called 1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed. During the long hours on set, we had time to talk about some of our overlapping experiences in the fitness world. I loved the depth and curiosity and silliness that Erica brought to those chats, and I knew she’d have a lot to offer this current conversation about trauma-informed movement.
Erica is a marriage and family therapist based in Oakland who also has a background as a personal trainer. Back when she was coaching, she worked at a really special gym in Oakland called Radically Fit. Radically Fit describes itself as “The Bay Area's radical community gym rooted in fat liberation and joyful movement for all queer, trans, Black and brown folks and their allies, regardless of experience, size or ability.” What a miracle!
If you’d like to know more about Erica’s current work as a psychotherapist, dating coach, couples counselor, and EMDR practitioner, head over here.
In this interview Erica has some really insightful things to say about what it’s like working and moving in a space that’s designed specifically for marginalized folks. Towards the end of the conversation we start talking about boxing, and she offers a helpful reframe about the purpose of exercise.
This transcript of our conversation has been lightly edited for readability.
Building Radical Fitness Spaces
Kelly: Erica, we're so happy to have you here. Thank you for coming in to talk with us. You and I met in an unusual circumstance. We met in-person for the first time on a film set. We were working on a documentary called 1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed. So some people might know you from that, but would you mind introducing yourself and sharing some things about your current movement practices and the ways that you teach and hold space around movement and the body?
Erica: Thank you so much for having me, Kelly. It's really incredible to be here. My name is Erica. I'm a marriage family therapist and have been a lifelong mover. I've been pretty restless throughout my life and wanted to always move my body in some way. And while I wasn't so much of an athlete when I was in my adolescence, I started track and field in high school and have been pretty consistent in doing various types of movement since then.
Before I became a therapist, I was a personal trainer, specifically and primarily for BIPOC queer folks. And I worked at a gym called Radically Fit, which centers BIPOC, fat, disabled, marginalized folks, and really disrupts a lot of the hierarchies and white supremacy culture that exists in fitness culture. I'm not so much a trainer anymore. I may train a friend or two, just on the side, but most of my movement is primarily for myself right now. And it's been really beautiful to be a clinician, a practitioner in therapy, and also really find a way to move my body to kind of release some of the energy that I hold almost every day.
Kelly: What does it look like day-to-day to be in a space like Radically Fit that is built by and for BIPOC queer and trans people?
Erica: I mean, I think that the first thing comes with the name. I think that there's such critical value in having communities or spaces where your identities are already named in the community that it's serving. So to know that, oh, this specific class is for Black and Brown queers or this specific class is for fat folks or this specific class is for trans and gender nonconforming weightlifting. There’s value in being able to already know that the instructor there will have already thought intentionally about what it means to hold these identities and what it means to hold these identities, not individually, but also in a shared space and what strength training or growth looks like within that community. That’s definitely a departure from the ways that we think about strength training just generally, right, like strength training with and for Black women may be different for white women and may be different for trans Latine folks. I think it just allows for a container for people to really explore other parts of themselves that may not have been available in spaces that are just like, “Hey, come work out in this fancy gym without any intentionality as to identity and what it means to hold the safe container.”
Kelly: What you’re describing at Radically Fit feels like a real step beyond just, “You're welcome here!” or “You're tolerated here!” or “No one's going to mess with you.” Radically Fit says, “No, this was specifically created for you and with you in mind.” And it acknowledges that there's a variety of things that people are looking for and also like bringing with them when they show up to a gym.
When you were working in that space, were there things that you noticed about how it felt to be a person in their body, moving around and how it felt to be a person at their job, working? Did it feel different from other jobs that you've had?
Erica: One thing that I didn't share in my introduction is that I identify as a cis woman, able bodied, half Black, half Japanese and queer. And so in that space and spaces where I'm training folks who are coming to me specifically, I feel like I can show up as my full self. I feel like I can be as queer, as Black, as Asian, as ridiculous and silly as my full personality can show.
I'm gonna answer this question by sharing some experiences of being in gyms that are not like that or spaces that are not like that. It's over a decade of going to many, many, many, many, gyms where I felt incredibly uncomfortable. Sometimes I would just go in and just, you know, keep my head down and focus on my own little movement plan. But often I would get distracted and pulled away. I have many stories that I'm happy to share around moments where I felt unsafe, like from the spectrum of either a microaggression to just flat out unsafe, to the point where I was like, “I'm not ever going to come back to this place.” And even if it's a different instructor, it still would need some form of clearing for me to really feel like I can come back to that physical space where maybe I was harmed in some way.
So to go back to your original question, when I think about facilitating movement spaces for other queer BIPOC folks, I feel like it's a tremendous honor to be able to cultivate spaces where people can say, “Okay, I can let some of this armor down a little bit. I can maybe access a different part of vulnerability for me.” And it's already vulnerable enough to do movement in our own bodies individually. And then to do that with somebody else, right? It's like, they gotta be on the same level to really like hold and trust!
Kelly: Yes!
Erica: I mean, it’s a big deal for you to be able to trust yourself and then another person in that way. So I take it very seriously and intentionally. And it's not just movement for the sake of “getting fit.” It's really about a deeper connection to self, to spirit, to ancestors, to the physical body, to the body of us being in this wild world. It means so much to be able to be in a space where we can say, “All right, this is for you, this is for us.”
Coming Back to Movement After Experiencing Racist Microaggressions
Kelly: I suspect that I have been in yoga studios, gyms, various fitness places and have felt unsafe but didn't even really know that that's what was happening because everything seems on the surface like it is fine and normal. Like nobody is pushing me around. No one's calling me names. Like it's not a violation or sort of boundary crossing in a really obvious way. But there are clearly things going on that are making me feel uncomfortable, and I can't even quite put my finger on it.
I'm wondering if it may be helpful for folks to hear examples of things that have happened, if you're up for talking about that, when you knew in the moment that this is not okay with you or made you feel unsafe, even if nobody else on the outside would have clocked it as a problem.
Erica: Yeah. And what you're speaking to, Kelly, is really some of the most vicious forms of microaggressions. Where it's like, “Wait, that was uncomfortable. But did that happen? Did that happen to me? Am I making things up here?” When I have experiences like that, it takes maybe a day or two to then realize like, “Oh, that was really violating. That was really not okay, and I didn't feel comfortable in that space.” I can share one experience. I actually was just walking past this yoga studio in Oakland today where I had, pre-pandemic, maybe 2018, spent many, many, many years building my practice in yoga. I was in a class with a white-presenting woman who was the instructor. The class was going fine. It was mostly white, but I was just there, you know, focusing on my breath and body. And at the end – during some styles or modalities of yoga, there's an opportunity to lie down in corpse pose or Savasana – this person was coming around and making adjustments to people. I don't mind, actually, when people touch me. As long as they check in, I feel okay with modifications. This person then proceeded to touch my face, like in between my brow and my temples, just kind of massaging me there. And I was like, “This feels great.” And then they proceeded to just like, pull my hair.
Kelly: OH NO
Erica: Yes. You know, after a full hour of yoga, my body and my heart were so open, right? I'm so expansive. So to end the class with this moment – if a partner or a friend was consensually doing this to me, it would have felt great. But I don't know you. I did not give you consent to touch my hair. And as a Black woman, having a white person touch my hair in this moment in which my full body is relaxed and receptive felt like another dimension of violation. And I haven't ever been back to that studio since. I don't even remember the name of that instructor, but it's one of those things where I don't know if I can go back to that physical space because it just reminds me of, “Oh, you didn't understand your identity. You didn't understand mine in a way for you to really take into consideration my humanity, to understand that there's direct correlations to anti-Blackness.
Kelly: Yeah.
Erica: That's definitely one that sits with me and will for quite some time.
Kelly: When things like that happen, how do you take care of yourself afterwards?
Erica: It's such a good question because it's generally movement, right? That's how I take care of myself. I'm grateful that something like that hasn't happened in quite some time. I've been pretty selective as to the spaces that I'm moving in. But I think that when I feel like I'm around somebody in a fitness space or a movement space where I felt like they didn't really take in my full humanity in some way, I just remind myself that it actually has nothing to do with me. Even though my body was a projection of this person's words or actions, I have to remind myself internally that it has nothing to do with me. And I think that that helps depersonalize some of these moments where I can just feel like, “How could you?” It allows for me to let go.
But more movement generally is helpful here. I'm a long time runner and running is so beautiful in that it's just so solo. I feel very meditative when I'm running. I’m with my own self and thoughts and music. It's not very solo – because I'm running around animals and plants and building those relationships as well – but it's solo in that I'm not with any other human being. So I come back to a movement that's just for me and nobody, no other human around can really help re-empower me after moments where I'm like, “Wow, that didn't feel right!” I feel if I give it too much power, it can easily make me feel disempowered. So I want to come back to myself to reclaim and center and ground.
Kelly: You’re right. There's something so great about running as a way to access a kind of agency. I'm moving my body through space. I don't have to be vulnerable in the sense that I need to do this with an instructor. I get to go and use my body to move through space and be with myself. It makes a lot of sense that running would be helpful.
You mentioned earlier in the conversation the way that your movement practices help you function as a clinician. What has that been like since you finished school and started seeing clients on a more regular basis?
Erica: I've been really incorporating more somatic and movement work with my clients. It’s not that I'm asking my clients to do a bunch of jumping jacks on Zoom. It’s actually more about attunement and awareness to, “Wow, I have a body. What's coming up for me? Am I noticing sensations in my body as we're talking about this? As I'm reflecting on this? Are there sensations of discomfort? Where am I feeling that?” So I've been really weaving in a greater awareness of the intersection and the flow of mental health and awareness of the body. It may take years for people to really center and accept that we have a body, and that's a location inside of healing in itself. For folks who maybe are in a different place within that journey, they might have more movement during a session. Maybe it’s like, “That was a really messed up thing that happened to you at work today. Let's move your body a little bit. Let's shake your shoulders. Let's move your wrists. Shake out a little bit.
Through my training I’ve gained an awareness of how trauma and stress is stored in the body and how that correlates to so many medical concerns when untreated. I offer my clients and myself an opportunity to know that you are not the worst thing that's ever happened to you. Like you get to move through it and also notice whatever past stressors or traumas are existing. Maybe they still are living in your body and there's an opportunity to bring awareness to it and then move through it.
Kelly: That's lovely.
Accessing Anger in the Boxing Gym
Erica: Yeah. You had a first part of that question, which I'm now forgetting.
Kelly: We can go back to it. When you were introducing yourself earlier, you mentioned that even though you're not training clients as frequently as you used to, there are ways that you use movement to help support yourself as a therapist.
Erica: Well, I am so excited to share with you, Kelly, that I started boxing in the last few months and I've been going three to four times a week and it's been awesome. It's been really, really cool. I'm punching bags, not people, because I don't think I could. I'm too much of a softie to do that. I was working with a healer. She was an elder Japanese American woman. She said, “You have a lot of anger in you.” And I was like, “Really? Tell me more.” I feel so disconnected from anger. I find it difficult to express anger. When I express emotion, I just start to cry. Like if I'm starting to feel dysregulated, I'll just move towards sadness. That anger is harder for me to experience internally. Outside of maybe righteous anger, when I'm noticing injustices around me. But for me personally, it's really difficult to access anger. And so I said, “Okay, noted. I'm going to explore this place of anger.”
I started boxing and I realized that there are aspects of my past and my present and some of the strong emotions and memories and stories that I hear from my clients that are stored somewhere in me, and I want to let them be free because I don't have to hold onto them anymore if I don't choose to. And I also want to say that that's a privilege, right? It's like an immense privilege that I have the resources to be able to go to a boxing gym or that I have the emotional and psychological resources to say this is just a moment. Because a lot of people in my life don't really see that there will be change in their lives. And I'm very, very grateful that I see a correlation to, “oOh, that felt uncomfortable. That's still with me. I wanna let it go.” And I can move through the motions of allowing some sort of shift here and be okay with not knowing what's going to happen on the other end of letting it go. So I've been able to access some of this in boxing, which has been really beautiful.
Kelly: Oh, that's so exciting. Lisa and I both have trained in boxing in the past before we met each other. Recently we joined a gym where boxing is one of the classes that is offered on a pretty regular basis. So just in the last couple of months, we have returned to boxing after many years away. I was just shaking my head to everything that you just said, absolutely all of it. I also have a difficult time accessing anger that is not sort of righteous anger about the state of the world. I also go to sadness and tears when I have big feelings. I find boxing to be so, so helpful in moving some of that energy that's otherwise hard to get in touch with. I also find myself energized but relaxed at the end of those sessions in a way that's just different from other forms of training that I've done. And because we're often learning fairly complicated combinations (or they feel complicated to me because I'm new to this again) I have to pay such close attention to what's happening – what's happening with my body and what's happening with the teacher's body – that I find that I'll spend an entire hour not thinking about anything else in my life. And I never get to have that experience. Even in the best yoga class, my mind goes somewhere else occasionally. There's nothing like boxing for me when it comes to being present. Lisa, is there anything that you wanted to add about boxing?
Lisa: Yeah, I feel the same way. You also have to remember a lot of stuff so you don't hurt anybody. That’s such a grounding thing. “What's a one and what's a two?” Because this person's face is in front of you. But yeah, I agree with everything y 'all have said thus far.
Erica: There's something that I love about boxing – I remember watching tennis throughout when I was a kiddo and being like, “Wow, they make a lot of sounds in tennis. Like, why do they have to do that?” The encouragement to release air and make an audible sound with that is so cathartic. And it's also cathartic when I hear other femmes and other non-cis men around me breathing and expressing themselves. I just went boxing this morning and there was a Black woman nearby me and she was going hard. I could just feel this place of focus and presence. And it made me wanna box more fierce and forceful. It was such a special thing that I can't access when I'm watching, maybe, a boxing video on YouTube. It’s almost this place of co-regulation. To be co-regulating with other people who have similar identities, it's like, “We're out here, right? We're doing it!”
I get this sense, too, that patriarchy comes up for me internally when I'm punching. I just start to look back and I'm like, “Wow, look at all the awful sexist things that have happened in my life.” And I find that it comes out in an unintentional way in that I'm absolutely fighting back to all of the things that have ever happened to me in regards to cis men doing harm to me. While I've never talked to anyone at my boxing gym about this, I get the sense that other femmes, womb carriers, and non-cis men are experiencing this when they also make an audible sound. I just have a hunch. I just have a hunch.
Kelly: Yep, yeah, I think so. Yeah, yeah. In my experience, in a couple different boxing gyms, there's a sort of respect that I think those of us who are not cis men in these spaces have for each other. And actually I feel that the cis men with whom I’ve trained also really respect us as fighters. If you show up and you do the work and you practice skipping rope and you work on the combos, there's a kind of respect for the fighter in everybody.
This is a new thought that I've not ever had before, so it's coming out sideways, but there's something about that that feels good that even though there are some parts of boxing culture that certainly don't align with ALL of the values I purport to be aligned with. But there's that part of the culture where everybody's fighter gets to take up space and gets to earn respect. That is really special.
Erica: Well said, well said. I feel that similar space of reverence from the other cis-het and male folks that are in the space and the male instructors where it's like, “Oh, we're all doing this together.” And so far, my current boxing gym feels mostly really good about all of that stuff. And I'm so glad to hear that there's other spaces too that just feel more inclusive.
It’s funny. I just signed up for a month, but then I think the fine print accidentally said – not accidentally, very intentionally – said six months. I was like, “Shoot, I have to do this for six months.” It's been three months now. It's been about two, three, and I love it. So I'm okay. It's been fantastic.
What’s Movement For?
Kelly: Are there any things that you wanted to say that we haven't said yet?
Erica: You know, when I was training more as a personal trainer, I really encouraged my clients to understand that I am not going to be sitting with you and moving with you for an end point goal. Like it is this place of presence and it is this place of this radical self acceptance and maybe radical self love that is far, far, far more valuable and far more critical than, “I need to lose five pounds.” While I don't want to critique anyone for their movement journeys or their goals, sometimes I think that there's a philosophy that can get really caught in if I just lose this X amount of weight then this will happen. Or if I just, you know, do this, then this will happen. It's really limiting. And it doesn't allow for the spaciousness of what movement can be.
Also as somebody who is able-bodied and loves just dancing and moving all over the place, I want to be very intentional that movement is not accessible for everyone. All movement is not accessible for everyone in all the ways. And I have deep gratitude and reverence for how we all come into movement and really defining what movement means for us. I'm somebody that's never experienced chronic pain. There's aspects of movement that I take for granted. Absolutely. I take for granted that I can walk up and down the stairs in my apartment or that I can just go boxing at any day of the week if I'm feeling up for it. And I also want to be mindful that it's not that certain kinds of movements have more value than other kinds of movement. I just want to be in spaces with people who are going to celebrate that – whether it's dance, whether it's shoulder rolls, whether it's a face massage, whether it's a hug – that's kind of a movement. We have the opportunity and the power to practice what kind of movement feels right for us. And I feel like that lens is important for me to remind myself as I am of the nature to get sick, to get old, to die. And with that, my body will continue to change. And I want to really honor where my body is today, where it has been and where it will go. And really I'm open to the changes that happen over time.
Kelly: Oh, what a beautiful way to conclude this conversation. Thank you for that. That is such a nice reminder. And it really expands the power and purpose of what we show up to do when we're moving.
Lisa, is there anything that needs to be clarified?
Lisa: That was really lovely to listen to. What you said at the end, Erica was just beautiful. I think it's something that Kelly and I have been talking a lot about – getting older and sort of honoring our bodies and what they can do at this point in time. One conversation that we had, we were in the car, I don't remember when this was, but it was recent and we were just talking about how cool it is that like our bodies can stand upright. We can hold each other's hands and they're really cool and they're really magical. It made me reflect upon the fact that both Kelly and I have a background in eating disorders and body dysmorphia. And we've been to these gyms and workout spaces where the goal is to change yourself and become somebody different. And when we were just talking about the magic of being able to reach out and hold each other's hand, it made me so sad to reflect on the idea that I would ever mistreat this awesome thing that is only trying to do its best for me every single day. It’s wild that I would be like, “No you can't have what you need to do what you want to do to make me healthy and happy.” I like the idea of going into movement spaces thinking about where we've been, where we are, and where we're going. I appreciate that perspective.
Erica: Yeah. Thank you, Lisa, for sharing such vulnerable aspects of your journey. And this is a reminder – it sounds like you and Kelly are doing this together – that this work cannot happen in isolation. I think that there's so much individualism In my field of mental health. You just go to a single therapist and then you get healed, or you go to a gym and you get fit and then you're ready for the summer. Like it's, it's so linear. It's so colonial. It's so transactional. And the antidote to a lot of these kinds of messages that many of us have inherited – or all of us have inherited in some way – is to do so in community and with people who are like, “Hey, I'm here for you. And let's hold each other's hand as we marvel at being able to stand up right, as we marvel at being able to notice that we have ten fingers and that they can wrap around one another.”
So thank you for that.
Lisa: Yeah, and it's also not taking that for granted that everyone can do that. We're very lucky to have ten fingers and be able to stand up right. Our bodies are awesome. Love your meat sack.
Erica: Totally. Love your meat sack.
Kelly: Thank you. Erica, thank you so much for talking with us and for being here and for all of the work that you're doing inside yourself and with the people in your community, with your clients, and the way that you've been willing to share your story on HBO or on this podcast. Your openness is a real gift.
Erica: Absolutely. Yeah, thank you so much, Kelly and Lisa for having me and for sitting down with this conversation. It was an absolute joy.
Lisa: Thank you.
Series on Trauma-Informed Movement
Want to check out the rest of this series of essays and interviews on trauma-informed movement?