Postural Alignment and Somatic Integration in Austin

This class is a safe space to find a home in your own body and also to cultivate the hutzpa to “show up” in life. The underlying principle is learning how to integrate your interoception (internal feelings and sensations) and proprioception (balance and coordination) together in order to bring awareness to how your “inner” life may influence your movement choices. For example, do you notice if you walk with your head looking down or out into your surroundings? Or, do you notice that when you are in public spaces you feel like you can take up space or do you pull away to make yourself smaller? Your choice will affect your posture. This class encourages neuroplasticity (repatterning) in order to break out of old habits inviting new possibilities for greater freedom, ease and expression in your body.

As a participant you will learn foundational movement practices that will encourage and bring mindfulness to how you physically interact in the world through awareness of your body’s alignment, organization and coordination. Activities occur while seated, standing or lying down and include breathwork and meditation to slow the body down, and movements that encourage mobility, strength and flexibility to enliven and awaken. The class also explores exercises which integrate your visual, vocal and tactile senses with breath and movement to cultivate a fuller self-awareness.

By design, no two classes are alike and yet to gain familiarity and knowledge of Bartenieff Fundamentals, the movement principles are repeated continually. As your instructor, my aim is to support a body-positive attitude to sustain a healthy and active lifestyle so that you may be fully present in life and have the audacity to be accepting of yourself and also of others. My teaching practice is informed by embodied anatomy, dance, grief counseling, body-mind centering, somatic movement education and movement analysis.

Bartenieff Fundamentals are a set of principles for “corrective body movement” developed by Irmgard Bartenieff, who studied with Rudolf Laban and colleagues in Germany (1925). After coming to the United States in the 1940s and becoming a physical therapist, Bartenieff developed the method in the form of a set of exercises, based on concepts and principles of kinesiological functioning, (Physiological, Anatomical, Biomechanical, and Neuropsychological Principles and Mechanisms of Movement) that can be extended into all types of movement possibilities. Bartenieff in developing this work fused her studies in both Laban movement analysis with Physiotherapeutic principles and the influence of both is a strong component of the Fundamentals. There can be many varieties and expansions of Bartenieff Fundamentals, but a group of movement sequences have become known as the Basic Six. While the Basic Six and their common supplementary/preparatory exercises represent the most codified aspect of the Fundamentals, many variations and additional exercises are taught but not necessarily described in writing but nevertheless form an integral part of the oral transmission of this material.  -Wikipedia