Sensual Partner Movements For Better Sex (Not What You Think)

Marlo Fisken

Thank you for having me. This is exciting.

Diane Mueller​, ND, DAOM, LAc

It really is. It really is. And your work is so unique. Your work is really unlike anything else that I have seen out there. So we’re going to jump into what you do, how it can help people from a sexual dysfunction, a embodiment, and how to get inside their body. You know that perspective. But before we do, just tell us a little bit. Can you just kind of ground everybody in, like what exactly you do as well as how you got into the unique work that you do?

Marlo Fisken

Yes, I am a lifetime dancer, which means since I was, you know, this tall  I’ve been dancing and knew since I was a kid that I wanted to teach movement and dance. I’ve been actually guiding people into having more joyful experiences of moving their bodies, more oriented towards having fun doing something, rather than trying to fix something for 25 years now. So that’s still what I do. I sometimes have people enjoying moving on the floor. Sometimes I have people enjoying moving their spine, sort of like playful mobility work, and pole dance is probably what I’m most known for in the world at this point. Yeah.

Diane Mueller​, ND, DAOM, LAc

Yeah. You’re pole dancing videos are amazing and inspirational. And when I watch there are like I don’t even understand how the body can do these amazing things. So you guys, Marlo’s truly truly truly so well studied and advanced in these types of embodiment types of practices. So I want to connect this like first of all for people, like how do you feel like with what you’ve seen and movement. Like can we start just by talking about like dropping into sensuality, dropping into these movement practices? How do you feel like that actually helps with sex and sexual dysfunction?

Marlo Fisken

Well, I think that being able to have an experience where focused on feeling what we’re doing rather than trying to fix ourselves is really important. And, you know, no matter how we want to change, we first need to be able to feel where we are and feel what’s going on and particularly in a non-judgmental way. And that could be if you want to get better at a handstand or you are dealing with a sexual issue. You know, first, we need to be able to feel in a more neutral way and kind of start to dance with the sensations that are there. So we’re like being able to encounter, I’m gonna say like a stickiness or a resistance in your body, and instead of trying to like beat it into being something different, like learning to be with it and play with it and move with it. So a lot of us are used to and have grown up in movement, environments, or education that also leave large areas of the body out. Leave guidance into sensation out. It’s what to do or what to think about, what to make happen. And I think that if we want to have access to pleasure, if you want to have access to sensuality or even just like joyfulness, present moment, awareness, flow, state, getting immersed in what we’re doing, we just have to be able to drop into an experience and not try to have it be anything other than what it is.

Diane Mueller​, ND, DAOM, LAc

Yeah, I’m actually thinking about the concepts of affirmations as you talk. Because I feel like affirmations so many times are things like, I feel sexy, I feel sexy, I feel sexy, I feel sexy. And it’s so cerebral, like you’re saying, versus like actually doing the things that allow you to experience that in your body. Right. That’s largely what we’re saying here, right?

Marlo Fisken

Yeah. It makes me think of sometimes people say, I want to do something. Let’s say I want to feel more sexy. I’m like, well, what are some words that we might associate with that? And they’re like more fluid. And so we might start to move with fluidity. And that might mean moving in really small ranges of motion. I see you moving with me and anybody watching this can see me rocking. You know, I’m going to go to like what people have experience with in terms of cat cow in yoga often. It’s full spinal flexion and full spinal extension. We’re kind of learning to go to these endpoints. We go to these kinds of extremes, and they are we come across a kind of a block or a hard stop. And it’s so important to stay within where things are able to move easily. Because that’s where we can start to feel confidence. Our sense of confidence and comfort expanding gradually. So, yes.

Diane Mueller​, ND, DAOM, LAc

Amazing. Amazing, amazing, amazing. And so I’m curious, you know, and just like thinking about the probably the average person that’s listening to this. And I know for so many people it’s like, oh my goodness, I’m at my chair all day, I’m at my desk and I get home and I’m tired. And then I’m trying to find like the ability to come back into my body, you know, after a long work and being super heavy and sitting all day and hardly moving. So can you walk us through from a standpoint of like connecting to sexuality and sensuality really throughout the day through our bodies? Like what kinds of things do you recommend that people do to continually stay connected to their sensual body throughout the business of a workday?

Marlo Fisken

Yeah, well, I might start pretty far away from the pelvis. And beginning with, like, we can all do this together. Just bring your hands together and start to rub your hands together. And as soon as I do this, I notice I change the way I’m breathing. So just notice how your breathing in response to rubbing your hands together. And you can imagine that you’re lathering up some soap, some suds. You want to want to make sure to get in all the crevices. And so this imagery of sliding and gliding your hand along your forearm, a number of things are happening here. One, you’re getting touched you’re being touched. You’re getting to know the contours of your body. Even just in the hands and the wrist, there’s all these curves that go out and curves that go in. And in order to touch yourself, someone else, a pet, in a way that’s comforting your hands have to change shape. You know, we have to. Right, I see you starting to. Exactly, go up into your arms. And you just notice the way that your hands can really rest on and conform to your body as you touch. So here as well, awakening the skin. Now, you can use this in a more soothing way. You might notice if you’re wanting to go really slow, that might be what’s needed for you. If you want to kind of wake yourself up and build energy, we could do something that’s a little bit more vigorous. And we could just keep, you know, expanding this, expanding the range. How are the cheeks going? You know, I’m sure that somebody in the summit has mentioned something about a connection between your jaw or your voice or your pelvis, maybe somebody.

Diane Mueller​, ND, DAOM, LAc

Not really. We haven’. No. We haven’t gotten there really.

Marlo Fisken

Well, I mean, you could think about how, if your face is kind of furrowed, your face is held tight, probably your pelvis is clamping down a bit too. So I like a little help stimulation. That’s right. And if anybody asks you what you do, you’re doing, you say I’m just dusting off and dusting off. I’m just dusting off. You know what I’m going to sit back a little bit. So, you know, without even leaving my chair I could just get my thigh skin moving. And I think this is a really nice time when we’re doing a bit of we could call it skin awakening, we could call it enhancing our proprioceptive abilities, our ability to sense ourselves and space. Also, just call it sensual movement. I like to say thank you. I’m like, hey, thank you, legs, thank you hips. And you know, we haven’t even gotten up to move at all but then you can just be still for a moment and notice the movement or the sensations. A little sparkly sensations that are there. As a result of your touch..

Diane Mueller​, ND, DAOM, LAc

Yeah, I feel.

Marlo Fisken

You feel the sparkles.

Diane Mueller​, ND, DAOM, LAc

I feel more sparkly. I don’t know if you can sense that on the camera, but I’m definitely more sparkly.

Marlo Fisken

Yeah. You know, we’re getting things moving. I think it’s the sexual function, accessing sensuality really comes along with something like this stagnating, getting things moving again. And so this is where putting your hands, if you do stand up,  stand up have a break. Rub, rub what needs some attention? Rub what feels a little bit stiff. Then these are, I love these sorts of practices because they’re, you watch sometimes the older folks in the park and they do this. And even kids are using touch to self-soothe. But in some environments it got a little weird but I advocate bring it back. So that’s a great place to start. And if it feels weird to use your hands on your body in a rubbing way. Like even just sort of tapping. Tapping, tapping, tapping, tapping, tapping, tapping, tap your butt. Everybody tap your butt. Tap your feet. It’s a great place to start. Have you tapped your cheeks today?

Diane Mueller​, ND, DAOM, LAc

It’s a great question. And you know, there’s still like comment on the, like the weird facts are this like, you know, there is always like that social awkward of like doing things, like what is that person doing? But at the same time, I feel like it’s like anything. Like I was like talking to a girlfriend of mine that I’ve done a lot of pole dancing with. Around like how much after doing these classes and just have it seeing how normalized it is to be sensual, right? Of like how much more like in public, like just the way we’re dancing, the way we’re moving, the way we’re sitting on like a bus or whatever. Like, it’s like so much easier with practice to just all of a sudden, like this isn’t the weird thing anymore this is just the thing I do. And, like, if you want to come join me, you can come join me and do the thing with me as well. So I also see such a normalization happening there. That’s amazing.

Marlo Fisken

Being receptive to to honoring the need for movement. I think we’re used to feeling discomfort or sort of a knocking from within. That like your body is asking for movement and there’s asking for things to be moved. But we’re just like, Oh, it hurts or feel stiff and maybe try to off offload what to do about it to somebody else and such a great, it’s just hard. Have you tried rubbing it, have you tried knocking on it? Have you tried wiggling it? Like this is a great thing to do. Have you tried just shaking, trying to shake your flesh off of your bones? For, you know, I would say to anybody. Do it for 15 seconds and then just check back in with any sensations of stiffness and see if it’s changed. Because it doesn’t take long at all to make a really pleasurable shift. Yeah.

Diane Mueller​, ND, DAOM, LAc

I love this, I love this. And I love how much, like, just that embodiment is already bringing people more into the senses. And when we feel more in our own body, of course we can feel more in our pleasure body too. So do you work with, like do you do movement like this, like within the context of like couples? Like how do you recommend like people in partnership? Obviously, I want to make sure that we are inclusive of people that are in partnership and not at this moment of listening to this. So obviously, you’re demonstrating, you know, stuff we can do on our own but then to also just bring in like if people do have a partner. Are there different ways you even work with movement like this in partnership?

Marlo Fisken

The classes that I teach usually we are not working with people who are partners, so to speak, but I do a lot of partner work. Meaning grab somebody from the class and then we have an opportunity to play with responsiveness. So if I’m alone and I’m making choices about my movement. You know, it’s like I come up with the idea, I think about something and then I make the change. But when I play in with somebody else, I get to offload my decision making and then just respond. And so here’s a simple game, I would do this. If I stand up and my job is to circle my hips. And I’m, are we going to do it together? I love it. Okay, here we are. You’re you know, our one job is to keep circling our hips. Okay, now, Diane, you have a remote control in your hands, okay? And you have a couple buttons on that remote control. You have a button that’s faster. You can turn it faster. You have a button to make it slower, okay? You have a button for bigger. If you wanted to go bigger, if you wanted to go smaller and you also have higher, lower, reverse. I mean really we could make this up. We could have any buttons we want. But let’s just play with those. So you can change my speed. You could change the size. You could make me go up or down. You could tell me to reverse. And you might even have more buttons on your remote control than we’ve talked about right now Like the button that says, now walk while you do it. Okay? So I’m going to just do hip circles. I’m going to keep on circling, even if it feels like I’m creaky and it’s not working very well, I’m still going to circle. Okay?

Diane Mueller​, ND, DAOM, LAc

I just want to take a moment to see if you guys are at home and safe and not driving or anything. I hope you’ll do this with us.

Marlo Fisken

You can, but you could even. You could even do a teeny tiny in your chair. If you are driving. So I have my home base hip circles on. Now, Diane, you get to tell me what to do.

Diane Mueller​, ND, DAOM, LAc

Okay, let’s go. Bigger.

Marlo Fisken

And when I go bigger, I’m thinking of, like, almost the size of a hula hoop. I’m getting my hips way outside my base of support. Okay.

Diane Mueller​, ND, DAOM, LAc

Yes. Okay, let’s go. Faster.

Marlo Fisken

Oh, now, this is a hard one. It’s big and fast. So now you get to even, Diane if you want to have me go even faster, you can tell me faster again.

Diane Mueller​, ND, DAOM, LAc

Okay, let’s go a little bit smaller but keep the speed. And then faster and faster. And faster.

Marlo Fisken

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. And this feels like, you know, there’s like, oh, there’s one sticky side, but it’s clay, it’s okay, you know. And the more I do it, then it gets looser. And remember that you can also reverse me.

Diane Mueller​, ND, DAOM, LAc

Oh, yes. And reverse and slow it down. Okay, let’s show walking me. Can we show walking?

Marlo Fisken

Yeah. This one’s a fun challenge. And you could even have me do other things around, on around the house. Like, can you keep moving your hips and take a sip of water?

Diane Mueller​, ND, DAOM, LAc

Oh, yes, yes, yes. So I’m really seeing how this could be a fun partner activity like this. One person has the remote and the other person, it’s a fun way of just like connecting and also having some of that sensuality. I really love this.

Marlo Fisken

It’s like you keep your tush moving. And you know, I chose circles, but if you imagine you have fringe shorts on and you were like trying to keep the fringe going. It’s really like, can we keep the hips moving while going about our day? Here I am typing on the computer. 

Diane Mueller​, ND, DAOM, LAc

Yes, yes, yes.

Marlo Fisken

Yeah. And it’s I mean, it’s, it’s fun. My mood is always lifted from doing it. And sometimes people feel a little bit, a little bashful. But that’s sometimes where if it feels intimidating, that’s where to drop into hip movement, to go there. That’s where making a game of it is really a great place to start. I sometimes have people start by moving their hands like, look, look at the directions your hands can go. And then we’re like, okay, now do it with your hips, too.

Diane Mueller​, ND, DAOM, LAc

Yes.

Marlo Fisken

And out here. Now my hands we can conduct. And just like I could really start to slow down my hands and be delicate with my hands. I could do the same thing with my hips or spine. So another opportunity could be that one person, you could be casting spells with your hand. This sort of final sensual movement witchery. And my job is to try to follow what your hands are doing.

Diane Mueller​, ND, DAOM, LAc

This is so Good. This is so good. I’m really thinking even to just kind of practicality. You know, you mentioned like neck and pelvic bowl. And we have, we do have a lot of people talking about like pelvic floor and the relationship of like these muscles of the pelvic floor that oftentimes they’re just not really talked about or like we don’t go to massage therapists and like work on our pelvic floor muscles, right? So they get ignored and they’re like hypertonic or they’re too tight or they’re too loose. And so a lot of people are talking about like, oh, working with a pelvic floor therapist to do massage or like how to do Kegels correctly, which are all wonderful exercises. But I’m also thinking like, isn’t this just a really sweet and playful way that people can actually get into their pelvic floor without like really having like a lot of, you know, specialty training just like moving in these ways you’re talking about, right?

Marlo Fisken

Definitely. I think that even if somebody did go to address a hypertonic pelvic floor in a therapeutic context, they’re going to, they’re going to work on being able to shape change,. Being able to have both, like internal and outernal tissue shape change. And our movement reveals that. You know, like if when we and with when we’re bending over we tend to bend from our spine or when we’re trying to move our hips it’s really just coming from our knees and our back instead of being able to move with all the bones of the pelvis. If your cheeks can spread. Definitely a good sign for being able to load your tush. You know, and as far as breathing, even if you are seated or standing and you really clutch the sides of your pelvis, giving some firm, firm pressure. And if you can imagine that as you breathe your breath goes and opens the pelvis from the inside. Kind of like it’s going, hello, pressure going down and out and wide. For me, those really strong visuals are, make it make sense a lot more than breathe into your pelvic floor.

I mean, I heard that for a long time and I was like, it’s not, those are words, they’re talking in my brain is trying to find the connection down. And there’s a lot of wheels turn and creaking to get there. You know, so if I can just imagine that there’s a billowing breath that is coming down into my pelvis and actually creating some space in there or another one that I find quite helpful. If you imagine you’re wearing a really tight leotard. Like tight underwear or tight leotard. And that you want to stretch the leotard down in the groin. The sides as you inhale. And you don’t have to try, it’s already happening. So that when you’re inhaling you are feeling, oh, there’s some stretch there. Stretching your underwear. Breathe into your panties. Breathe into your boxers. You know, that that feels for me more accessible than something like, you know, breathing into your pelvic floor as a first way to get to know it.

Diane Mueller​, ND, DAOM, LAc

Yeah, I appreciate that so much and I feel like so many people I talk to, they’re such this. There’s almost like this numbness. And I especially see this in women I work with where it’s like parts of the vagina, parts of the vulva, parts of the female anatomy really are just numb. And so what I’m thinking about, if I’m breathing in my pelvic floor, there’s an element of like, I can’t even feel my pelvic floor. So like, how do I breathe into this area that like I sort of lost connection with? And so, you know, I’m wondering, like with this too, when you’re talking about breathing into the panties, breathing into the boxers. Right. Are you finding sometimes? I know you, are you finding sometimes that this brings a certain level like of awareness to the anatomy, to actually feeling the genitals more than, say, somebody used to? Do you ever notice that? People have report that?

Marlo Fisken

Yeah, I think so. The words that I choose is particularly around, around breath, or around bringing people’s attention to the pelvis. You know, I choose them carefully. And sometimes I let them be kind of ridiculous to unweight it. To like loosen the pressure from it. So that’s where, you know, breathe into your panties. And it does is, it immediately brings people’s attention to what they can feel of underwear, which would be like some sort of fabric contact in their crotch. You know, and so can you create shape change with your anatomy in a way that’s allowing you to feel that your panties are expanding, you know? So, yeah. We tend to be, it’s easier to feel what we’re wearing or what we’re in contact with often than our own tissues as the first. So that’s where we’re sitting. And somebody really is in a more vertical pelvis or even a little bit more towards an end to, you know, more anterior orientation and they breathe down into the chair, let your breath descend into what you’re sitting on. That for me eels clearer than breathing into a pelvic floor or a pelvic back door or whatever you want to call it.

Diane Mueller​, ND, DAOM, LAc

Yes.

Marlo Fisken

Yeah. So it’s easier to sense ourselves by bringing the attention to what we’re in contact with. And that’s also why, like why touch is can be so helpful. Why I do a lot of work on the floor or with the walls and anything that we can kind of push ourselves into it. Particularly helpful for waking things up, as you mentioned might be numb.

Diane Mueller​, ND, DAOM, LAc

Yeah, yeah. I’m so appreciating you told me offline how much you like to bring play into this work. And I’m just also so appreciative, I also want to name this because I think it’s so common we’re talking about sexual dysfunction that it can be so heavy, right? There can be so much as elements of like so easy to feel not enough in oneself. It’s so easy to feel like we can’t, we’re not providing for our partners, if we’re partners. It’s so easy to feel like so much heaviness. And just even approaching this from like, let me give you a remote control that like control my hips or, you know, let me bring it into my panties or boxers. Like it just it really, you’re really doing such a good job of just, like, turning this thing, this conversation that can sometimes be so heavy and it can be so harmful to the ego and to self-confidence of really just making it light and playful. So I just really want a name like how much I appreciate that in, you know, in this conversation and in your work. And so if you were to give people like the top most actionable step today to get inside their bodies, to feel themselves more sensual, would there be anything to add or say in addition to what we’ve already covered?

Marlo Fisken

Things coming to me is,  you can’t have function without the word fun. You know, it’s really like figure out, you know, what does it take to get you to unload some of the pressure. Yeah. And if it is like stand up and try to shake the meat of your thighs and cheeks and think like you’re trying to shake the meat off your bone. Just challenge yourself to do it for maybe, you know, one minute or a big challenge, a whole song, and be able to watch yourself go through it. Watch yourself go through the mental turmoil of like, what am I doing? Just watch it. You know, commit to staying with it anyway. Breathe through it, breathe it, breathe it, breathe it. But yeah, the levity is, levity and, you know, play is a big part of feeling safe. And in terms of a nervous system state that’s going to start to permit change and starting to permit pleasure sexual arousal. This is like, such an inborn way to get there. Play is the way that we’ve, we learn. And we’ve always have. Yeah, have a little fun with it. Make a mess of it. Sometimes I say sometimes people get a therapeutic exercise and I’m like, just make it messy for a minute. You know, like make a mess of it. And then they kind of have fun with it again and then we can go back to serious work.

Diane Mueller​, ND, DAOM, LAc

Yeah, you’re right. It is such a great learning tool. Like having fun, laughing, like those neurological pathways. Like it just, it works so much better. And usually we get a dopamine hit and then we want to come back and we want to do it again. So, so good. I want to make sure to wrap up with, tell people about the offer that you’re giving. You’re giving away a free giveaway on our summit. So you guys can find that in that section that I keep referring to throughout the summit where you get to download all of these various things that our amazing speakers are offering. So I want to make sure we mention that. So can you tell us about what you’re giving away?

Marlo Fisken

Yes, I made a 15-minute audio-guided pelvic agility lesson. It’s really is the hip, hip movement exercise, but we take it really slow and gives you some space to drop into sensation and get to know how you’re moving. And 15 whole minutes of pelvic movement fun. Audio only. Do it in a quiet corner.

Diane Mueller​, ND, DAOM, LAc

Yes, yes, yes. I love that so much. I will definitely be doing that, I promise you that. And also, we will have in your bio, in your speaker bio, how people get a hold of you, how they work with you. But let’s just mention that real fast. Like how do people actually study with you and your movement and everything that you’re offering?

Marlo Fisken

I’m quite active on Instagram, Marlo Fisken @marlofisken and my website is flowmovement.net.

Diane Mueller​, ND, DAOM, LAc

I really hope you guys follow Marlo like I do. It’s just such amazing work. It’s such a pleasure to finally meet you after all of these years. So thank you so much for everything you’re doing in the world and for supporting everybody on this summit. It’s truly a pleasure.

Marlo Fisken

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Diane Mueller​, ND, DAOM, LAc

All right. Everybody will be back soon with another great interview. See you next time.