Somatic Movement Summit 2023 – For Healing & Stress Release

Discover how to de-stress, feel free in your body, and experience healing motion with the power of somatic movement.

When you move about during the day, do you feel discomfort or pain?

The ability to move freely and gracefully is the secret to youth and vitality.

As we age, our bodies tend to become less fluid and mobile — leading to tension, pain, and discomfort, which causes even greater rigidity. What’s even more alarming is that our minds tend to follow suit.

Our modern-day society encourages a lack of mobility. We are chronic sitters — at desks, in cars, on couches. We become set in our ways as we move through life.

As a result, we feel “stuck” inside ourselves. We lack the energy, freedom, and resilience we enjoyed as children, when we ran, jumped, and played for hours every day.

The good news is that we can recapture the fluid movement and resilience we experienced as children — an imperative for fostering lifelong health and wellbeing.

How often do you think about the way you move? Do you have a daily movement practice?

Are you familiar with somatic movement — movement coupled with awareness? It provides a pathway to healing through embodied motion.

During the Somatic Movement Summit…

You’ll not only receive abundant knowledge from world-renowned somatic movement experts…

You’ll also experience firsthand, instructive practices and demonstrations of a variety of disciplines.

What You'll Learn During the Somatic Movement Summit 2023

You’ll have the opportunity to slow down and embody the richness of what our accomplished speakers and practitioners have to offer.

This powerful gathering will feature more than 40 of today’s highly sought-after somatic movement experts and teachers…

Who will be sharing simple somatic practices to move you from stress, anxiety, fatigue, or depletion…

And into easeful states infused with vitality and relaxed alertness.

This groundbreaking Somatic Movement Summit will reveal the medicinal art and power of embodied motion.

Here's just a few of the topics you'll explore:

• Ways to build parasympathetic dominance in your nervous system that also deeply support strength and flexibility
• 7 secret keys that can unlock your movement superpower to overcome the challenge of pain
• How liquid movements, primordial sounding, and breathing deliver you into open awareness and love, awakening the spiritual imaginal capacity of the heart
• How your nervous system’s ability to continue learning is your salvation
• Ways that your physical, mental, and emotional centers respond to intentional movement and open a window to a deeper experience of the self
• How to self-regulate physical tension that shows up as somatic reflexes, so you can reduce stress
• The five indigenous technologies embedded in us by nature for physiological and mental health
• Emotional effector patterns (EEP) are specific breath and muscle movements that provide accurate and repeatable methods for emotional clarity and flexibility

Watch the 2023 Somatic Movement Summit Trailer Video

What You'll Discover During The Somatic Movement Summit 2023

We do not have to resign ourselves to inertia, disease, or deterioration as we journey through life.

Your body holds the keys to deep emotional healing, resilience, and balance. This life-enriching summit will help you awaken your somatic intelligence and discover new ways to release all that feels stuck inside you.

We are designed to stay in motion!

Join this unique gathering of expert teachers in the field of conscious motion, and start enjoying the rest of your divine, delicious, movement-filled life today!

Here are just a few of the featured speaker topics you'll get to learn from:

• Betsy Polatin will explore how to release defensive, shutdown states by activating movement and breath.
• Brian Siddhartha Ingle will explain how self-healing takes place once the obstacles to health are removed, and how embodied fluid movement is the missing link in the self-healing equation.
• Gayatri Maya Andersson (Schriefer) will teach you how to revitalize and energize your soma – body and mind.
• Mimi El-Ashiry
• Paul Pui Wo Lee will share how the active-experience somatic practice known as The Feldenkrais Method®, can help you find hidden individual possibilities within.
• Yalini Dream will describe the internal shifts needed to integrate a somatics approach into dancing.
• Banafsheh Sayyad will reveal how dance can give you the capacity to not only withstand emotional difficulties and challenges with grace, but also to process them.
• Paul Linden, PhD, will ponder whether finding strength without anger could be the beginning of true spirituality and world peace.
• Sundernath (Shandor Remete) will discuss tools required to cultivate the self, and how discovering and exploring your gifts plays a pivotal role in the unfolding of your true destiny.
• Emory M. Moore Jr. will share his observation that excellence – as well as economic success – is at the heart of somatic movement.
• Dr. Arielle Schwartz will explain how vagal toning can help reduce trauma-induced autonomic nervous system imbalances that can otherwise lead to anxiety, depression, or chronic illness.
• Dr. Marc Cohen will show you practical ways to enhance health, support detoxification pathways, and minimize toxic exposures through dietary manipulations, breathing practices, hot and cold exposure, and flow states.

Cultivate Your Body’s Innate Intelligence for Increased Vitality, Healing & Fluidity

While modern society tends to focus primarily on cultivating cognitive intelligence… our physical bodies also hold innate intelligence for lifelong vitality and youthfulness.

Somatic movement offers support so you can come so fully into your body that you enter your potential for wholeness, aliveness, and connectedness to all of life — and yourself.

So what does “somatic” mean, exactly?

The word somatic comes from the Greek “soma,” which means “living body” — therefore, somatic refers to the lived experience of being a body.

Somatic movement means to move and sense from the inside out. This summit of expert speakers empowers you to understand this in an experiential, embodied way.

Deliciously subtle, deeply connective, inward-focused movements can completely change how you feel in the world… calming the nervous system, altering your experience of discomfort and distress, and helping to foster balance.

During this 5-day healing journey into somatic movement — with world-renowned speakers and experts — you’ll partake in the union of science with decades of experiential wisdom.

You’ll be guided through revitalizing somatic awareness practices such as micro-movements, grounding, centering, meditation, and breathing — all of which are simple ways to self-regulate your own system.

You’ll discover methods to increase longevity, sensory-based intuition and awareness, which enable you to live a more fully-embodied life.

Somatic Movement and Aging Gracefully

Do you see yourself aging gracefully with ease, expressing a bubbly, exuberant zest for life? Can you physically do everything you used to do without thinking about it? Are you still sharp, and mentally focused?

Do you bounce out of bed each morning feeling rested and refreshed, ready to handle the challenges and pleasures that each day brings?

Somatic movement practices can help you melt resistance to your limitations, respect your physical architecture, and take joy in your potential. Growth is a process, and the journey is the point!

As you release self-criticisms and the need to beat yourself up for not being perfect, you’ll then find room to bless and release whatever physical, emotional, or spiritual challenges you face, giving yourself room to grow (and permission to do so.)

Clearing emotional distress paves the way toward deeper physical and emotional healing, opening a pathway for you to literally change your life by physically embodying your deepest internal reserves of eternal spiritual joy.

And, by finally transmuting whatever you still may be carrying that no longer serves your highest self, you create space for powerful transformation and rebirth.

Embody All of Yourself Through the Medicine of Somatic Movement

“When we dance reflectively, we are in a process of becoming more fully conscious — returning what we have forgotten of our intrinsic perfection.” ~ Sondra Fraleigh

Somatic movement can be described as “being breathed by the body” — letting go of force, trying, and control — and, instead, falling so deeply into resonance with primordial intelligence and sensory awareness that profound wellbeing is the only possible result.

This entails coming home to your own body as a repository of safety, wisdom, and deep knowing.

We do not have to be resigned to inertia as we journey through life — we are designed to stay in motion!

Take yourself to the next level in your somatic awareness and ability and join this unique gathering of insightful expert teachers in the field of conscious motion…

And start enjoying your divine, deliciously aware, movement-filled life.

You’ll be in good hands with summit co-hosts Gayatri Schriefer and Brian Siddhartha Ingle, co-founders of Living Somatics.

In this illuminating series, you’ll be guided into the beautiful world of conscious, embodied motion to discover lifelong practices for vitality, fluidity, and healing.

Our diverse array of seasoned teachers and practitioners will provide insights on the plentiful benefits of somatic movement as well as simple ways to self-regulate your own health systems, including micro-movements, grounding, centering, meditation, and breathing.

The beauty of increasing your body awareness through somatic movement is that it’s so immediate and easy. Mastering somatic movement doesn’t require you to be flexible, have years of formal training or advanced yoga abilities, or visit an enlightened master on a mountaintop in order to get started.

Thank you for joining us for this groundbreaking and experiential series — may it be nourishing and deliciously enlivening for you.

How the Somatic Movement Summit 2023 Can Help You

Would you like to move with more freedom in your body, release “stuck” trauma, and liberate yourself from emotional distress?

If the body holds tension and anxiety about the past or future, it can block the flow of wisdom coming in the moment. By tuning in to your body’s innate sensations, you can open up space for healing and growth to emerge.

Deep healing requires us to release trauma and PTSD, and hold space for transformation and unity. Somatic movement is a rich, body-based, self-healing tradition that empowers you to become more aware of your body’s subtle guidance and inspiration. 

The Somatic Movement Summit invites you to strengthen your connection to your body’s innate intelligence as a pathway to greater resilience, flexibility, and vitality. Whether you’re a seasoned practitioner or new to conscious movement, you’ll discover a wide range of somatic modalities to expand your awareness and inspire your healing journey. 

You can practice powerful rejuvenation techniques during this highly experiential, one-of-a-kind event. Most sessions include 10 to 20 minutes of guided practice to help you connect to your body’s wisdom. Plus, each day will conclude with a 75-minute session featuring a full 30 to 45 minutes of experiential somatic movement practices.

If you’ve been operating in survival mode lately, applying somatic movement techniques can help you shift out of the fight-or-flight response, and foster deeper relaxation and vibrancy. 

Through a variety of somatics modalities including Hanna Somatics^TM, Feldenkrais®, Body-Mind Centering®, Biodynamic Osteopathy, Continuum Montage, Dancemeditation^TM, Dynamic Embodiment^TM, Alexander Technique^TM, and somatic psychology, you can practice alchemizing sensory overload, and embody a more grounded, balanced, way of living.

Why Attend the Somatic Movement Summit 2023

By exploring a continuum of well-known somatic practices, you’ll discover the modality that resonates most with you – from delicate physical manipulations including gentle breath, vibrational touch, and soft sound… to subtle movements you can do lying down, seated, or standing… to full-out dancing!

This inquiry provides you with a beautiful opportunity to honor and deepen your body-mind connection by honing in on the styles of movement that best suit your levels of energy and fitness – neither too high-intensity nor too stagnant.

For example, by using a simple somatic method called pandiculation – alternating movements to gently stretch and unlock your trunk and extremities – you can safely reset your nervous system and reduce physical tension and pain.

While releasing the grip of chronic pain can sometimes be an ongoing process, it can also happen surprisingly quickly – and when you uncover the hidden message of your pain, you’ll discover the path through your trauma to healing transformation.

Each day of the summit will provide you with experiential opportunities to activate quick shifts in your body, regardless of whether you’re new to somatic movement, or an experienced practitioner enhancing your skill set.

Full Speaker Schedule for the Somatic Movement Summit 2023

Somatic Movement Summit 2023: Monday, Jun 5

• 9am: “Rewire Your Resilience: Vagal Toning for Self-Discovery, Embodied Healing, and Meaningful Change” with Dr. Arielle Schwartz
• 10am: “Transmute Difficult Emotions Through Dance” with Banafsheh Sayyad
• 11am: “Discovering and Changing Your Essence Through the Power of Intention” with Paul Linden, PhD
• 12pm: “Honoring the Legacy of Somatic Movement and Fueling Its Inspiring Future: The Purpose of Somatics in These Times” with Don Hanlon Johnson, Eleanor Criswell Hanna & more…
• 1:15pm: “Waking up to Awareness Through Movement® as an Agent of Transformation” with Lavinia Plonka
• 2pm: “Move and Manifest” with Mimi El-Ashiry
• 3pm: “The Way of Wellness: How to Add More Life to your Life” with Dr. Marc Cohen
• 4pm: “From War Zones to Healing” with Jordan McCallum
• 5:15pm: “Experiencing a Dynamic Feldenkrais Method® Lesson” with Lavinia Plonka

Somatic Movement Summit 2023: Tuesday, Jun 6

• 9am: “A ‘Neuro-Conscious' Taste for Beauty in our Dance of Life” with Paul Pui Wo Lee
• 10am: “Fluid Movement, Consciousness Shift and Trauma Healing” with Manuela Mischke-Reeds
• 11am: “Serendipitous Timing — How Past Experiences Shape Our Future” with Judith Aston
• 12pm: “Pick a Spot, Any Spot: All Bodies are Brimming with Beauty and Order” with Candy Conino
• 1pm: “Somatic Practices Focused on Equity and Access” with Dr. Martha Eddy, MSMT/E, CMA
• 2pm: “Transforming your Emotional and Physical Pain Through Somatic Education, Body Awareness and the Principles of Aikido — The Art of Peace” with Richard E. Sims MSME, MSMT, CTP
• 3pm: “The Required Tools for Self Cultivation” with Sundernath (Shandor Remete)
• 4pm: “Understanding the Relationship Between Yourself and the Land You Live in for Your Inner Health” with Waangenga Blanco
• 5pm: “Body Awareness and World Peace: The Spirituality Crowbar” with Paul Linden, PhD

Somatic Movement Summit 2023: Wednesday, Jun 7

• 9am: “Nourish and Revitalise Your Life” with Gayatri Maya Andersson (Schriefer), MSME
• 10am: “Somatic Wisdom and Liberatory Futures” with Yalini Dream
• 11am: “Changing the Language of Body from Object to Process” with Liz Koch
• 12pm: “Somatic Movement: From Stillness to Dancing for Healing and Expression” with Jamie McHugh, MA, MSMT & Manuela Mischke-Reeds
• 1pm: “Enhancing Blood Circulation Without Increasing Your Heart Rate” with Simon Borg-Olivier
• 2pm: “Social Somatics” with Dr. Samuel H. Leguizamon Grant
• 3pm: “Somatic Expression® and the Five Somatic Technologies” with Jamie McHugh, MA, MSMT
• 4:15pm: “Dynamic Embodiment's Eye Care: Caring for The Windows of Our Souls” with Dr. Martha Eddy, MSMT/E, CMA

Somatic Movement Summit 2023: Thursday, Jun 8

• 9am: “Connecting Liquid Movements to the Continuum Inquiry” with Susan Harper, MSME/T
• 10:15am: “Removing the Obstacles to Health to Ignite The Breath Of Life and Support Self Healing” with Brian Siddhartha Ingle, ND, DO
• 11am: “Moving Beyond Bias in Movement Pedagogy for Freedom and Fun” with Ms. Didi
• 12pm: “Liquid Presence Resonance and Love Somatic Practicum” with Susan Harper, MSME/T
• 1pm: “Anti-Fragility Through Movement” with Cameron Shayne
• 2pm: “Discover Emotional Clarity and Resilience with the Emotional Body Method” with Laura Bond
• 3pm: “How Our Reflexive Responses to Stress are Intertwined with Body, Emotions, and Movement” with Martha Peterson, CCSE
• 10pm: “Wild Psoas: Tracking Your Primal Expression” with Liz Koch

Somatic Movement Summit 2023: Friday, Jun 9

• 9am: “From Freeze to Flow – With Support, Suspension, and Breath” with Betsy Polatin, MFA, SEP, AmSAT
• 10am: “The Evolution of Yoga Movement in Western Society from the Late 80's to Present.” with Bianca Machliss
• 11am: “My Teachers, the Legacy and Culture – Past , Present, and Future” with Emory M. Moore Jr, MSME/T
• 12pm: “Do You Have a Superpower That Can Overcome the Challenge of Chronic Pain — These 7 Secret Keys Say Yes” with Cynthia Allen, GCFP, STMI, RSME
• 1pm: “Moving Into Higher Consciousness” with Leora Gaster & Tom Rankin
• 2pm: “Embodying Water as a Somatic Practice” with Vannia Ibarguen
• 3pm: “The Hidden Messages of Pain: The Lost and Sacred Art of Symbolic Interpretation of Signs and Symptoms” with Dr. Marcus Chacos
• 4:15pm: “Breathe Less not More: The Common Origin of All Traditional Movement Practices”

About Your 2023 Somatic Movement Summit Hosts

About Martha Eddy

Dr. Martha Eddy, MSMT/E, CMA, is an international speaker and author, a Master Somatic Movement Therapist (MSMT), Registered Somatic Dance Educator (RSDE), and applied physiologist, with a doctorate in Movement Science/Biobehavioral Studies from Columbia University. She shares her contemplative and activating movement approaches on the SHIFT network with the Course – Reset Your Nervous System and Regulate your Well-being with Dynamic Embodiment® Movement

She is an innovator dedicated to social justice and was named the First Geraldine Ferraro Fellow of Social Justice and Movement at Marymount Manhattan College. She spent 10 years as part of the certification faculty at the School for Body-Mind Centering® and the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies. She was inspired to blend these profound disciplines, the first to be named The Somatic Movement Therapy Training. Once the field of Somatic Movement became known she rebranded as Dynamic Embodiment® SMTT, also affiliated with Moving On Center – bridging Somatics with Social Change for 30 years, and Moving For Life DanceExercise for Health ® – two nonprofit organizations that she co-founded, the first with Carol Swann.

Her articles and chapters on eco-somatics, movement, the brain, social-emotional learning, and healthy living have been published in research, arts, educational literature, and the news. Martha is the author of Mindful Movement: The Evolution of the Somatic Arts and Conscious Action. The book she co-authored with Shakti Andrea Smith, A Dynamic Embodiment® Approach to the Sun Salutation, guides readers in how to balance their hormonal system through understanding the sacred use of space, vibration, and movement. She has served on numerous boards, including The Yard Choreographic Residency, the National Dance Education Organization, the Congress on Research in Dance, the International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association, and the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies, the last two of which she has served as president. Clearly, dance is a big part of her expression. She has been training people in her somatic approach to dance for 15 years with Certified Teachers of BodyMind Dancing around the world. Together with Moving For Life Certified Instructors and Dynamic Embodiment Practitioners there is robust eco-somatic, social justice, savvy group of somatic movers and shakers applying this work in hospitals, community centers and libraries, businesses – corporate and small, and universities, also internationally.

Her work, especially the dance films and free Moving For Life wellness programs for people going through cancer, have been featured in the NY Times, National Public Radio, and almost every national television news network, along with as well as the healing nature of BodyMind Dancing in releasing pain, tensions, grief, loneliness, stress and MOVING it to pleasure, joy, relief, ease, creativity, and beauty.

About Simon Borg-Olivier

Simon Borg-Olivier MScBAppSc (Physiotherapy) APAM C-IAYT is co-director of YogaSynergy, one of Australia’s oldest and most respected yoga schools. He is a registered physiotherapist, a research scientist and a university lecturer. Simon has been regularly invited to teach at special workshops and conferences interstate and overseas since 1990. Among the people he studied with are an Olympic athlete, a Tibetan Lama, Iyengar, and his main teacher Natanaga Zhander (Shandor Remete). Simon credits Zhander as being the most important person in his pursuit, passion and understanding of hatha yoga. Together with yoga teacher Bianca Machliss, Simon and Bianca have developed the unique YogaSynergy system over the last 20 years.

In recent years, Simon has continued his training with Master Zhen Hua Yang. In addition to performing with several dance and yogic dance productions, Simon has also regularly taught yoga to dance companies and lectured at universities. Simon has co-authored many books and scientific articles and has radio and television appearances. He is featured in the film Yoga and Me (2009). Since 1995 Simon has been teaching courses in the Applied Anatomy and Physiology of Yoga internationally.

In 2007 Simon was approached by Professor Marc Cohen of RMIT University (Melbourne) to create a course. Simon is now the main lecturer and course co-ordinator of a course called ‘Body, Breath and Movement' which he developed and wrote with Bianca Machliss. Simon undertakes regular private yoga and health consultations and travels interstate or overseas to teach at special workshops and conferences between 20 to 30 weekends every year.

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