Dynamic Embodiment of the Sun Salutation(R) Pathways to Balancing the Chakras and the Neuroendocrine System guides you to do the Sun Salutation with more ease by integrating awareness of glandular and chakral embodiment cues and neuro-developmental movement. Everything in this book can be applied to your personal practice and overall health, or to teaching others. It offers a soft, organic yet powerful approach to being in the poses and transitioning between them. What you will learn is effective and surprising. There is tangible mystery in accessing this ability, which we all have, to embody the endocrine system and the related energy fields. By working with the endocrine system and their correlations with the chakras we are grounding the subtle within the physical body. Learn about the dynamic combination of the specific electrical and systemic circulatory nature of the neuroendocrine system. Discover how the anatomical placement of the glands and the spatial tensions (or tensegrity) surrounding them are the natural bridge to activating the energy needed for a fulfilling life. One access route to these dynamic stimuli is through Body Mind Centering's developmental approach, conveyed through the lens of Dynamic Embodiment by BMC(R) Master teacher Dr Martha Eddy. This approach includes an understanding of careful skeletal positioning, brain-activating movement and hormonal balancing as well as integrating broader social somatic contexts such as the impact of lifestyle, cultural and intergenerational influences. In an age when, most likely, at least one person you know is struggling with thyroid, adrenal, or reproductive glandular imbalance, this book will provide information on the physical, emotional and spiritual impact of attuning with the glands and early childhood development imprints while practising the Sun Salutation. It includes clues for what to do when yoga or endocrine work brings on chaos - from trauma triggers, kundalini overwhelm, to basic life confusion. It gives you the tools to help ground yourself and others, and to take centered action in a dynamic world.

The Fluid Nature of Being is a collection of writings by practitioners of Integrative Bodywork & Movement Therapy (IBMT), an approach to somatic movement education and therapy. The cultivation of consciously embodied movement is at the heart of somatic movement practice. Through embodiment practices, soma - the subjectively experienced sense of embodied self - becomes a vital, living reality and a foundation through which healthy relationship to others, to Nature, and to life as a whole can be nourished. The book describes the practice, thinking, research and creative work of twenty-one IBMT practitioners. Each has also trained in other disciplines and their writing weaves together their broader learning, passion and professional practice within the IBMT approach to somatic work. In this volume we offer a collection of expressions with a rich diversity of themes and styles, bringing these voices from the next generation of somatic movement practitioners, writers and leaders to a wider audience. The book covers topics such as IBMT in therapy, education, early years learning, dance and theatre; the integration with psychotherapy, psychoanalytic thinking, and somatic trauma therapy; and the connection between individual healing and the healing of the Earth and Nature during this time of planetary crisis. There are many aspects of IBMT practice described in this book that are shared with somatic practices in general, though there are also aspects which are specific to this approach. IBMT uniquely integrates in-depth studies in Somatic Psychology and the Discipline of Authentic Movement into a foundation of Body-Mind Centering(R) training. At the core of the practice is the quest to deepen connection with self, and from there, connection with others and the world around us.

In Mindful Movement, exercise physiologist, somatic therapist, and advocate Martha Eddy uses original interviews, case studies, and practice-led research to define the origins of a new holistic field-somatic movement education and therapy--and its impact on fitness, ecology, politics, and performance. The book reveals the role dance has played in informing and inspiring the historical and cultural narrative of somatic arts. Providing an overview of the antecedents and recent advances in somatic study and with contributions by diverse experts, Eddy highlights the role of Asian movement, the European physical culture movement and its relationship to the performing arts, and female perspectives in developing somatic movement, somatic dance, social somatics, somatic fitness, somatic dance and spirituality, and ecosomatics. Mindful Movement unpacks and helps to popularize awareness of both the body and the mind.