Coyote Mentoring Core Routines: Animal Forms
What It Is—and Why It Matters
Animal Forms is the practice of embodying the postures, gaits, and awareness of wild animals through imitation and play. This is more than just a game—it's a deep invitation into empathy, awareness, and embodied learning. When learners move like deer, stalk like foxes, or hop like frogs, they begin to inhabit the sensory world of these beings.
The guide notes that by mimicking animal movement, children “activate ancient parts of their brain,” bringing heightened sensory awareness, agility, and nonverbal perception online. These are the same parts used in tracking, awareness, and survival. Through play, they become the fox, feel the stillness of the heron, or notice the curiosity of the raccoon. The transformation isn’t just physical—it’s relational. They begin to feel with the animal. And in that shift, the land becomes full of neighbors, not just names.
What It Might Look Like
Children move through the forest like deer.
They raise their hooves gently, pause to listen, and freeze in alertness. The air feels different when they become prey. They see everything.
Mentors offer playful invitations.
“Can you move like a fox without being heard?” “What does a crow sound like when it’s calling the alarm?” There’s no need for correction—just playful modeling and challenge.
Animal Forms become embedded in games and stories.
Tag becomes “Predator and Prey.” Hide-and-seek becomes camouflage. The mentor might begin a story: “One day, I followed the path of a coyote…” and suddenly the whole group is moving in silence, crouched and curious.
Sensory awareness comes alive.
By embodying animals, learners stretch their awareness: vision softens into wide-angle “owl eyes,” feet become soft like foxes, movement slows. These aren’t abstract skills—they’re lived, felt, and remembered.
Mentors model the forms.
Sometimes the adult becomes the animal first. A slow, coiled snake. A bounding rabbit. A heron in stillness. The group follows, laughing and alert.
Over time, learners stop “acting like” animals—they become them. And in that becoming, connection deepens. They move through the land not as tourists, but as kin.