Body-Mind Centering® Workshops
exploring the dynamic relationship between mind & body
Body-Mind Centering® workshops at SOEL, offer a holistic, creative teaching approach to multi dimensional waies of learning about our self and our relationship with our world.
Through the process of embodiment we creatively explore the wonders of our anatomy & physiology, infant developmental movement and embryology offering us a deeper understanding and conscious awareness of how the mind is expressed through movement and our movement expresses our mind.
Workshops include gentle, guided movement meditations and the study of traditional anatomy and physiology alongside different combinations of sounding and vocal expression, directed breathing, quiet contemplation, hands-on-touch upon our self and in partners, discussion & dialogue and, reflective writing, somatic drawing and movement integration and dance accompanied by music.
Spring / Summer Workshops 2025
Workshops are open to anyone interested in SOEL courses to visit the school and join a class. Please contact us to arrange a visit.
SEPTEMBER 2025
Our Pelvis
poised between spine & hips
Monday 1st September: 10.30am - 4.30pm
Tuesday 2nd September: 10.30am - 4.30pm
Wednesday 3rd September: 10.30am - 4.30pm
FEES: £225 / £190
Community workshop: Open and accessible to anyone interested in somatics movement education, voice, breath work and mind-body integration.
In this workshop we will explore the embodiment of the living structure & the contents of our pelvis including the organs, pelvic diaphragm, our limbs and spine.
Through gentle, guided, facilitation from the experiential anatomy of Body-Mind Centering® we will take time to meet these organs and the structure that contains them through movement meditations, mind, hands-on touch, breath and voice. There will also be time for somatics drawing, reflective writing and movement integration accompanied by music.
Made up of four bones the pelvis is sculpted into a bowl-shaped cavity poised between our spine and our lower limbs. By deepening our sensory awareness of our pelvis we can develop greater ease and freedom in this region in all that we do from digestion to love making, breath to voice, child bearing to walking, standing to dancing.
Class material includes:
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Pelvic joints and bones from legs to feet
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Integration of pelvis and spine from tail to head
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The Unified Diaphragm and our breath; exploring the pelvic diaphragm and thoracic diaphragm
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Pelvic organs and facial wrappings as the contents within our boney container
Information and registration: click here
The May and June summer workshops also form part of SELF (Somatics Experiential Learning Facilitator) course. For more information about courses at SOEL click here or for information and to register for a workshop or course click contact.
MAY 2025
The Unseeable Animal
Encounter and kinship in the natural world
Module 13: SELF | course pre-requisite
Monday 12th May at 3pm - Thursday 15th May at 4pm
FEES: £290 / £255
During this workshop we will be in the studio and outdoors along river, in meadow & woodland. We will take time to immerse ourselves in the living landscape in which we are embedded through the embodiment of our heart perception, gut brain, solar plexus and the still quietude of our cranial brain. Through creative practice, wildhood and spontaneous exchange we will explore the qualities of mind that arise from these organs; walking, witnessing and deep listening.
Okanagans teach that the body is Earth itself. Our flesh, blood, and bones are Earth-body; […] We are everything that surrounds us, including the vast forces we only glimpse. Jeanette Armstrong
Teachers: Rosalyn Maynard & Daisy Martinez
Assisting: Isabella Shirley Miller
JUNE 2025
Our Life Sense
The Immune system from an embodied perspective
Module 14: SELF | course pre-requisite
Monday 2nd June at 2pm - Thursday 5th June at 1.30pm
FEES: £290 / £255
The Immune system is a fluid, cellular system keeping our body in a healthy balanced state. It is our quietly present life sense maintaining our molecular identity. In this workshop we will explore our shared and individual sense of this system through Embryological Breathing, cellular consciousness, fluid circulation and the embodiment of our organs, skin and membranes.
Teachers: Rosalyn Maynard & Julie Rousseau
Assisting: Abbi Jackson
The study of BMC® is a creative process in which embodiment of the material is explored in the context of self-discovery and openness. Each person is both the student and the subject matter and the underlying goal is to discover the ease that underlies transformation.
The Body-Mind Centering® approach has an almost unlimited number of areas of application. It is currently being used by people in movement, dance, yoga, bodywork, somatic studies, physical and occupational therapy, psychotherapy, child development, education, voice, music, art, meditation, athletics and other body-mind disciplines.
Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen: www.bodymindcentering.com
Teachers & Assistants at SOEL:
Teachers & Assistants at SOEL have been teaching and researching somatics movement education together & independently within their own fields and professions for many years.
They share a rich history of working together informed by the experiential anatomy of Body-Mind Centering®, Elsa Gindler's Human Work, western science & anatomy, the arts, philosophy, human embryology, infant developmental movement patterns and the evolutionary history of life.
Many of the staff have been working together for more than 10 years and during that time they have explored and developed a unique approach to the application and the practice of somatics in many contexts. Workshops, courses and research projects have included the fields of: pedagogy, heath and well being, arts and ecology, community workshop practice, natural horsemanship, small mixed farming, mentoring practice, mythology, walking practice, pilgrimage and personal development.
At SOEL we are dedicated to knowing and learning about our self and the world as an interdependent, interconnected, creative, whole; giving equal weight to knowing and learning through experience, felt sensation, intuition, practice and mind.
I got a lot out of the workshop and it has provoked my increasing awareness of my internal environment. I feel so much more aware in a positive way which has lead me to be more consciously aware of the interconnectedness of us all - the essence of life which is in all living things. Just so simple yet so profound. A beautiful piece of work, literally.
Heather Griffith Retired OT
(Body-Mind Centering® Workshop: The Heart as an organ of perception FEB17)
Description of Body-Mind Centering®
Body Mind Centering® is an innovative approach to experiental anatomy and physiology, within the expanding field of somatics. BMC® offers a deep understanding of how the mind expresses itself through movement, touch, and perception. It fosters an embodied knowledge of the human body, with a special emphasis on the different body systems, the principles underlying the development of our movement patterns, and the study of embryology.
The method was founded 30 years ago by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, a pioneer in the arena of movement research, who has
never ceased to deepen its scope and expand its curriculum. The essence of the work lies in the subtle consciousness and inherent intelligence with which every cell, tissue, organ, and system is endowed with. This study leads to an understanding of how the mind is expressed through the body and the body through the mind.
Merging creatively the cognitive and experiential dimensions, BMC® opens a doorway that leads to an increasing awareness of the conscious body.
Body-Mind Centering® is a creative process in which we learn to meet and recognise ourselves and others through the exploration of embodiment: through feeling, sensing and action. Each person is both the student and the subject matter. Principles and techniques are taught in the context of self-discovery and openness. We learn to engage ourselves and others non-judgmentally starting at the place where we are and the place where others are. In this way we seek to find the ease that underlies transformation.
About BMCA Professional Members
BMCA Professional Members have completed a rigorous, hands-on training which ensures a safe and consistent experience of the work and are required to fulfil continuing education requirements on an ongoing basis. To locate a professional member of BMCA go to: bmcassociation.org
Further reading about BMC®
Body-mind Centering® by Bonnie Bainbridge-Cohen click here to download
Somatics: the experience from within by Thomas Hanna click here to download
To learn more about Body-Mind Centering® go to: bodymindcentering.com
Body-Mind Centering® and BMC® are registered service marks of Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, used with permission.