The Senses and Perception
The Senses and Perception is the first of the four BodyMindMovement courses in the developmental movement sequence, which study how patterns of awareness, movement, and responses to the environment shape your being. This course serves as a portal to the somatic process through the investigation of your senses: touch, proprioception, kinesthesia, taste, smell, compassion, hearing, and sight. You will develop an understanding of how your habits of sensing the the environment directly affect the way you move in the world. At the core of that process is perception: the ongoing process of sensing, interpreting of what is sensed, and responding to your interpretation in movement. In this study, we call that process The Great Cycle of Being, and see it as a key element in our ability to access change in the body and mind. The goal of this course is to introduce a specific sensory and perceptual vocabulary to provide you with some landmarks in the vast question of who you are as an individual, and to provide some tools for transformation.
The Skeletal System
Individual living bones work together to provide our bodies with form and clarity in relationship to space. The joints between them provide articulation and movement. The resulting skeletal system is equally suited to the contradictory demands of stability and mobility. It creates a container for our organs and soft tissues, provides the ability to resist gravity while we move in space, and forms the cellular nursery for our young blood cells. The Skeletal System course uses an embodied approach to the study of skeletal anatomy and physiology, movement analysis, and kinesiology, and presents principles of repatterning through movement and hands-on work. In this course you will develop a strong working knowledge of the skeletal system; begin the process of embodying your bones; and acquire skills in movement facilitation and hands-on work specific to the skeletal system.
The Organ System
As a system, the organs oxygenate blood; process food and fluids; eliminate waste; measure, calibrate, and adjust metabolic processes; and maintain complex relationships with each other and distant body parts. Each organ plays a unique role in that larger system. Embodiment of your organs in the Organ System course helps you to experience the sweeping range of dynamics and rhythm in your body, from the constant drumbeat of the heart to the steady hum of the kidneys to the stopping and starting, filling and emptying patterns of digestion. In studying the anatomy and physiology of organs, you will address your personal themes of transformation, three-dimensionality, expression and emotions, creativity, and individuality. You will feel how they support your postural tone and give volume to your movement. You will learn to initiate movement and touch from the organs and support organ expression in others.
Reflexes
The course covers the reflexes, righting reactions, and equilibrium responses that form the underpinnings of volitional human movement. A reflex is an involuntary pattern of movement that occurs in response to a specific environmental stimulus. When you study reflexes, righting reactions, and equilibrium responses you are studying yourself in relationship, whether it is with the pull of the earth or the invitation of space, the touch of another being or object, a change in your internal world, or the excitation of any of your sensory organs—vision, hearing, smell, taste, or touch. In the Reflexes course you will refine your movement facilitation skills and learn to transition between hands-on and movement facilitation.
Basic Neurological Patterns
The Basic Neurological Patterns (BNP) are patterns of movement inherent in the nervous system that provide a template for the understanding of normal human development. The patterns emerge from the study of both animal phylogeny—the development of pre-vertebrate and vertebrate life over time—and human ontogeny (embryonic, fetal, and infant development). In the course, you will begin to embody those patterns in yourself, and understand how your history of motor development created your personal habits of movement, behavior, and thinking. Once embodied, you can use the patterns to analyze areas of movement efficiency or inefficiency in yourself and others, and improve proficiency in motor, cognitive, and perceptual function. You will also be introduced to cellular breathing and cellular touch, which underlie all subsequent hands-on work in the program.
Developmental Integration
The Developmental Integration course summarizes the material of the three preceding developmental courses: The Senses and Perception, Basic Neurological Patterns, and Reflexes. The major areas of study and investigation are 1) the normal sequence of motor learning in the first year of life, 2) a longitudinal self-assessment leading to an understanding of how your embryonic, fetal, and infant experience contribute to your present sense of self, and 3) applications of those and other developmental principles in somatic movement education. In this course you are encouraged to begin to develop strategies for bringing the developmental principles into your daily life, your personal creative process, and various professional settings.
Connective Tissue and Ligaments
The Connective Tissue and Ligaments course offers the experiential anatomy of the connective tissue matrix, with a particular focus on the ligaments. Connective tissue, the most abundant tissue in your body, binds together, supports, and strengthens other body tissues; protects and insulates internal organs; and creates compartments for various structures of your body, such as skeletal muscles and nerves. The course focuses particularly on the ligaments, which connect bone to bone, providing specificity and ease of motion at the joints. As your ligaments become embodied, their self-awareness contributes to your general ability to focus your attention, intention, and action. In this course, you will learn to initiate movement from your ligaments to facilitate the efficient flow of weight and movement through joints, as well as hands-on techniques for repatterning connective tissues.
The Endocrine System
The glands of your endocrine system together exert a profound influence on your physiological health, the plasticity of your emotional and feeling states, and the depth of your spiritual engagement. As physical and energetic structures they affect your quality of movement and the way you express yourself in your body. They form a matrix of energetic support for your spine and for individual bones, limbs, and joints. That support is achieved through acknowledging their presence, allowing them to breathe, and patiently opening and balancing the spaces and pathways among them. In embodying your glands you will discover that each one has a unique vibratory quality, essence, mind, and sound. In the Endocrine System course you will learn approaches to repatterning through touch, movement, and voice utilizing endocrine support and awareness; the relationship of the endocrine glands to skeletal system and to traditional chakras; sourcing and focusing endocrine expression; and enlivening the central energetic channel of the head, torso and pelvis.
The Nervous System
Your nervous system is one of the most complex constructs in the universe. When you study your nervous system from an embodied perspective, you witness yourself deeply: your nervous system holds the hologram of your personality and your sense of self—your sense of who you are. In the Nervous System course you are invited to explore your habits of response to the world, including your family, friends, community, and environment. You are invited to refine your ability to shift and dilate your inner and outer focus. You are invited to balance your sense of self with your experience of others, maintain a sense of yourself as you move into relationship, and sustain your external relationships as you move into your internal world. You are invited to balance your sensory self with your active self, to balance your core self (who you are) with your peripheral self (how you get what you need), and to balance your alert, protective self with your restful, nurturing self. You will learn to balance your nervous system as a person and as a somatic practitioner, and work with nervous system tone in clients.
Fluids and the Voice
In Fluids and the Voice, you are introduced to the anatomy of the vocal mechanism and basic principles of vocal production, in context of the embodiment of the fluid system. Your voice is understood as your fifth limb, which has the ability to reach out, defend, caress others, and draw them in, just as your hands do. Embodying your voice allows freedom of self-expression and refines your communication with others in both personal and professional arenas. The fluids, one of the communication systems of the body, also mediate the processes of transformation, health, decay, death, and rebirth. Hands-on, movement, and observational approaches to working with yourself and with clients are presented for each major fluid: cellular, transitional, intracellular, blood, lymph, cerebro-spinal (CSF), and synovial. Blood/CSF balance is utilized as a tool to match the tone of clients in movement and hands-on approaches.
The Muscular System
Your muscles are the interface between your nervous system, which determines what you want to do, and your skeletal system, which provides the structure and form to carry out your actions. Moving your bones on the instructions of your nervous system, muscles provide power, activation, and the will to execute those actions. The Muscular System course blends the detail of traditional muscular anatomy and muscle theory with hands-on and movement techniques for supporting change of tone and patterns of movement in muscles. You will learn to initiate movement from different substructures of your muscles and refine your sense of the relationship of your muscles to your bone, tendons, and fascia.
Somatic Overview
This course is an overview of somatic practice, encompassing both personal and professional issues. It summarizes the major themes of somatic practice, integrating the body systems with developmental principles. In that process, students are encouraged to articulate how their understanding of somatic movement education will become part of their personal and professional practice. The course covers topics regarding the professional dissemination of somatic practices and the development of a private practice, including ethics, scope of practice, record-keeping, legal issues, networking, membership in professional organizations, and the integration of somatic practice into previously established professions. The Basic Neurological Patterns course is a prerequisite.
* 10% discount on tuition if you register with 50% payment by April 15.