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embodied anatomy

MOVE LIKE AN EMBRYO

about the course

Rediscovering Your Body's Original Movements

A 4-hour experiential journey into the foundational movements that shaped your body and how to access them for healing, performance, and authentic expression.

Why This Matters: Before you had bones, joints, muscles, and organs, you were a water balloon a quavering bubble with fluid pressures and membrane tensions that sculpted you into human form. These embryonic patterns didn't disappear; they became the foundation for everything else. When chronic pain distorts our body map, when movement feels habituated or forgetful or stuck, when we're searching for a more natural self-expression we're often missing this foundational layer.

What You'll Experience: Through guided movement explorations, we'll cover six core embryonic processes:

  • DENSATION & DILATION — How axes of your body (e.g. spine)  formed through alternating compression and expansion

  • MIGRATION & RETENTION — The forces that created your limbs and internal tensional networks

  • CONTUSION & CORROSION — How your heart, diaphragm, and organs emerged from colliding fluid chambers

Practical Applications:

  • For bodyworkers & therapistsAccess pre-muscular movement patterns that can help clients find spaciousness around chronic pain and create new perceptual landscapes in their bodies

  • For movement teachers: Discover sequencing that works with fluid pressures rather than just muscular effort, offering students a pathway to effortless power and authentic expression

  • For rehabilitation: Learn to work with the body's original architecture rather than against cultural/medical imagery that can amplify dysfunction

  • For personal practice: Find the "Old Forest Roads" back to your body's innate wisdom movement that feels like coming home

The Science Meets the SacredThis evidence-informed approach draws from current embryological research while honoring the profound experience of moving from your pre-voluntary, emergent self. Students consistently report feeling "nourished on a soul level" and discovering movement that feels both ancient and completely new.

"It's another way in... anything novel that wakes up the system." — Course participant       

what is embodiment?

Embodiment is an exciting new field of study, with numerous useful approaches.  For our purposes we define it as “The skill of perceiving, identifying with, and expressing the internal state of the body in the present moment.”

 

To speak in a grounded way about this subject, it helps to develop artful connections between different scientific modes:

From the perspective of embryology, how did this body form itself in the first place? What are the deep kinships between the body’s various tissues, and can awareness of these kinships instigate a richer experience of them?

 

From the perspective of somatic psychology, embodiment depends on certain conscious and subconscious processes. Are you aware of sensory changes in your body? Do you respond to them as gifts, as nuisances, as threats? Are you able to relate dynamically with other bodies, and with space?

From the perspective of neuroscience, the key processes are interoception, proprioception, and affective self-regulation. Where is the body in space? What are its physiologic signals? How does the brain integrate what it feels and how it feels about that information? Under what conditions do these brain systems learn/adapt? There is tremendous complexity in this field, but we can draw some careful inspiration for our daily embodiment practice.

continuing education certification

  • This 4-hour Continuing Education class is open to all clinicians, movement teachers, somatic educators, and artists, and meets the WA state CE requirements for physical therapy and massage therapy.​

NOTE: All virtual classes have a 'live' option, or can be viewed on your own time. All attendees will receive pre-class content, live class recording, supplementary materials, and a follow-up quiz for CE credit.

 

upcoming classes

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date

Saturday August 9, 2025

10AM - 2PM

class format

In-Person or Online

class format

Once registered, attendees will:

  • receive pre-class videos via email to watch in preparation
     

  • class (online, 10am-2pm
    attend class which includes the above lecture and a hands-on demo/practice session. A Zoom link will be provided. A recording of the session will be provided at the end of class

  • receive a follow-up quiz to grant you a Continuing Education Certificate for completion

related content

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video /

Fetal Development Animation

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