Interdisciplinary Movement & Somatics

online somatic movement education for teachers

Interdisciplinary Movement & Somatics is a 250-hr somatic movement training for teachers and therapists who want to offer skillful movement practices to help folks with self-regulation, embodied recovery and gentle myofascial re-patterning. Learn how to guide movement techniques with a fascia-oriented and trauma-informed approach through Somatic Groundwork. Weave the teachings with other methods or modalities, or teach Somatic Groundwork as a stand alone practice.  

Interdisciplinary Movement & Somatics (IMS) is a 100% online somatic movement training designed with a balanced mix of theory and practice relevant to the somatic skills needed to guide therapeutic movement experiences. IMS provides a framework for applying the art and science of somatics to your movement classes, client sessions or workshops. 

Schedule a 30 minute call with me to see if IMS is a good next step

(not salesy, a call to connect and get your questions asked)

IMS Spring Enrollment

open March 11 – March 30th

IMS Enrollment Pathways

There are 2 pathways in IMS: IMS Core and IMS Total. Both pathways offer a 2 year membership.

IMS Core is a self-directed path. You will find everything you need to organize your study and experiential practice through the structure of the Modules and Sections.

IMS Total includes a 1:1 Mentorship* with Kaila and the IMS Certificate of Completion**. The 1:1 Mentorship provides: personalized learning sessions, small projects to develop your applied theory and somatic teaching skills, direction on how to guide Somatic Groundwork, and support on creating a Final Project***. IMS Total requires completion of the small projects and the Final Project to graduate the program and earn the IMS Certificate of Completion.

 

* 1:1 Mentorship occurs over 9 – 12 months and needs to be complete within the 2 year membership. Includes: five 75-minute mentoring sessions, one 90-minute movement assessment, regular email support, individual feedback for all small projects and review of the Final Project.  

**Certificate of Completion is not the same as a Certification. A certification program (common in Yoga and Personal Training) is generally accredited by a third-party organization and requires renewal every 2-3 years. IMS offers an optional ‘Certificate of Completion’ indicating the completion of an assessment-based professional learning program. In some cases, a ‘Certificate of Completion’ may serve to fulfill a category for required CEU’s for some organizations (see your organization for requirements). You can also list ‘Certificate of Completion’ programs on your resume detailing your education.

*** The Final Project demonstrates a synthesis of IMS organized around either your unique craft as a somatic movement teacher or your interest in being a Somatic Groundwork guide. For the Final Project choose between the: ‘Comprehensive Client Program’ or ‘4-week Class Series’. The Final Project must be submitted within the 2 year membership.

 

TAP HERE FOR 2024 FEES & REFUND POLICY

OPEN IMS CURRICULUM SPRING 2024

Why IMS?

you desire to participate in social change by teaching movement

you know movement practice has the potential to shift our relationships on multiple size scales

you believe in a movement movement

you are interested in movement beyond striving and achievement and attaining a metric

you understand that movement is a healing way

you know we need good recovery and self-regulation tools right now so we can be better relatives

Somatic Groundwork is the base

Somatic Groundwork explores natural movement and patterning from the inside-out and ground up. The experiential practice leads with sensory awareness or systems sensing. Our attention and presence in movement helps improve movement quality, function and efficiency. The gentle and nourishing movements in Somatic Groundwork are based on:

  • sensory tracking
  • fundamental forces
  • developmental patterns
  • somatic myofascial unwinding
  • natural movement skills

Practitioners of Somatic Groundwork experience mental and emotional benefits like calm, safe and nourishing feelings. The method is effective for reducing (and eliminating) low back, hip, neck and shoulder pain, calming the nervous system, increasing vagal tone and improving neuromyofascial patterning. Further, Somatic Groundwork also reduces chronic pain and other unfavorable symptoms from daily stress overload, repetitive injury and illnesses.

Somatic Groundwork is the essence of IMS.  In IMS you will practice and learn to articulate the first teachings in every session as well as the foundational movement vocabularies of Somatic Groundwork such as:

  • ten basic patterns
  • primary core support series
  • unwinding methods

You will also learn how to encourage the process of change in your movement sequences through user-friendly somatic patterning recipes. With these tools, you will be guided on how to organize your interdisciplinary craft with a somatic approach.

read more about Somatic Groundwork

comprehensive. relevant. cutting-edge.

Instead of quick-fixes, medications and surgeries that often fail to provide long-term solutions for a majority of people, let’s offer another solution: somatic movement as a tonic medicine. Through systems sensing, Somatic Groundwork explores conscious and organic movement process as a method for deep recovery and neuromyofascial repair.  Somatic practice returns us to presence with our body impulses and attitudes and gives us a chance to research what is under the holding pattern of a behavior/movement. Due to the sensory pathways between our body and brain, these mindful movements aid in reduced pain and inflammation, enhance neuroplasticity and bring feelings of calm and balance. 

Somatic movement practice is a way to know ourselves through our felt sense experience with our body. Our path of inquiry is via tracking sensation to learn about our patterns of behavior, our reflexive responses and underlying autonomic tone. Tracking sensation brings us directly inside the learning cycle giving us access to change how we do things that have become patterned and habituated. Somatic patterning is an embodied process of movement education and bodymind awareness used to uproot holding patterns and discover healthier replacements. Somatic Groundwork uses several simple and effective somatic patterning recipes to help people overcome common movement limitations and pain cycles. 

Goals & Objectives of IMS somatic movement training:

  • Generate rapport and safety with clients and students and create effective learning spaces through trauma-informed somatic inquiry 
  • Create membership with clientele and student groups that encourages individual autonomy and responsibility
  • Maintain scope of practice and ethical and legal business operations
  • Apply decolonial processes to somatic movement education and embodied research in lived experience
  • Articulate the grounding resources and other sensory channels through systems sensing
  • Explore the process of teaching (and change) as a dynamic system that allows for emergent ideas to be revealed between members (teacher and student) of a class or session
  • Articulate movement experiences for gentle and intentional neuromyofascial repatterning
  • Guide clients and students to experience embodied active rest through Somatic Groundwork yielding practices
  • Facilitate movement activities to downregulate nervous system defense responses for receptive learning and embodied relating
  • Demonstrate a commitment to self practice and “being your own client”
  • Apply somatic patterning recipes to guided movement practice to help with improved function, support and stability in movement  
  • Design interdisciplinary movement sequences that encourage sensorimotor and neuromuscular patterning
  • Conduct reliable and valid movement assessments and translate findings to individualize client program
  • Learn the science of bottom-up sensing practices and somatic movement unwinding through neuromyofascial science
  • Learn the developmental movement sequence and how these patterns are the base of Somatic Groundwork
  • Learn how to invite both process-oriented and goal-oriented perspectives to a movement session 

teaching a movement movement

 

The somatics field was named in the 1970’s by Thomas Hanna and Don Hanlon Johnson in the US. Since then, it has developed as an alternative to the philosophical discourse of cartesian dualism found within the western sciences. Somatics fundamentally recognizes our living body as a place of knowing and that mind is not a phenomenon solely assigned to functions of cognition. From the beginning, somatic practitioners were identified based on their approach with bodymind processes. The majority of these “somatic pioneers” have roots in Europe and the United States.  

Since then, with 50 years of growth, somatics is now related with movement education, bodywork, psychology and social change movements. A somatic approach brings a perspective of self-inquiry, wholeness, interrelationship and possibility for change.  It with these themes that a somatic practitioner explores the idea of healing for both the individual and the collective. Somatics itself is dynamic and reflects this moment of living – the cultural beliefs and societal systems we are embedded within now.

As a somatic movement, there is an opportunity to reflect on the past 50 years of growth in the somatics field and how it has been shaped as a white racialized field. In other words, may we both sit with the significant benefits somatics has generated for modern people and how the field has been elitist, exclusionary, and appropriative – owning practices without consent. As a social body, we are imprinted by the grit, resiliency, behaviors and traumas of those who came generations before us. Decolonization and the wider decolonial processes are in direct response to settler colonialism as a way to reverse and remedy the ongoing forces of white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, racism and capitalism. IMS is a commitment to engaging with decoloniality and somatics.

A decolonial somatics intends to identify, uproot and transform behaviors rooted in white supremacy that influence the ideology of the somatics field. Both the institutional structures that govern our society and the implicit beliefs that underlie our reflexive behaviors are addressed in decolonial methods. We observe and question how the field of somatics:

  • values and shares knowledge
  • decides who gets to participate
  • affirms or denies the experiences of practitioners who carry marginalized identities
  • validates research methods

As well, decoloniality and somatics is a commitment to self-research that tracks body sensations, impulses and inner felt-sense states to identify implicit bias, embodied assumptions of privilege, and behavior sets that maintain body hierarchy and separation.  Decoloniality is also about remembering our place in the web of life and the basic spiritual essence that runs through all things. Learning about who we are through the people and land we come from and developing a sacred relationship with Nature, with the gift of life, are seeds for social change.

 

what does it mean to use an interdisciplinary lens?

Interdisciplinary brings together somatic movement training with ideas and methods from different disciplines to create new understanding. The combining of knowledge in an interdisciplinary approach is not the simple addition of parts but rather a process of seeking to find collaborations and integration between the disciplines.

IMS seeks to: bring ideas together from different sciences, explore the relationships between seen and unseen systems, honor knowledge that is generated from more than one worldview, and understand and implement both evidence-based and discovery-based research and learning.  Interdisciplinary approaches challenge traditional ways of perceiving and encourages creative participation in the learning process.  While building bridges between ideas, the spaces in between the elements become teachings about how things relate or relatedness.  

The western sciences in our rationale include:

  • Somatics (the experiential science of our personal consciousness)
  • Biotensegrity (complex systems science that describes our living architecture)
  • Kinesiology (the science of human movement, function, and performance)
  • Neuroscience (study of the nervous system)
  • Anatomy (the science of identifying parts within the body)
  • Psychology (the science of human experience including behavior, cognition, and emotion)

IMS categorizes specific movement techniques by outcome and groups them into movement Elements. These are the building blocks of Interdisciplinary Movement Design or how we create movement sequences. Somatic Groundwork is an adaptable system that is used as the base and easily woven into other methods like:

  • Yoga asana
  • Pilates
  • Corrective exercise
  • Functional and resistance training
  • Dance technique
  • Creative movement
  • Injury rehab and physical therapy
  • Dance-movement therapy
  • Somatic psychotherpay

somatic patterning

No matter sedentary, active, or athletic, we are each susceptible to the same contemporary bodymind challenges including repetitive injury and movement interferences, toxic stress and unresolved trauma, chronic pain and illness, and under-recovery. Often these issues have underlying holding patterns that somatic movement can help to alleviate. The whole-person approach for uprooting these holding patterns is called somatic patterning.

Somatic patterning is a method of neuroplasticity which emphasizes bottom-up processing to facilitate change. Sensory awareness is a direct pathway for meeting the present moment experience. Change the experience – change the pattern. The process starts by tracking sensation to understand cognition/behavior/movement. This bottom-up learning cycle gives us a chance to observe the spaces-in-between and make new choices to shift, or modify, our neurobiology and motor function. Moving with mindful attention includes tracking how we initiate movement, how much effort we use, the qualities available to us, the spaces we occupy, how we give and receive and our shaping from the inside out.

A holding pattern has any combination of structural, psychological, social or ancestral layers. Cumulative injury can be seen as a holding pattern that at one time was established as the best adaptive strategy our body had available in the moment. To help unravel these conditioned responses and actions, we need a bottom-up approach to movement education. Through the guided process of somatic patterning, we can down-regulate our defense strategies, influence the quality of our tissue architecture and modify muscular synergies.

 

 

weaving art & science

The IMS movement education spectrum includes a continuum between the movement arts and the movement sciences. The movement arts tend to have a subjective orientation, honor creative expression and use systems sensing to research relationships. Movement science tends to have an objective lens, aim for function and performance outcomes and be motivated by goal attainment. On one side is a quantitative, evidence-based interest and on the other is a qualitative, discovery-based inquiry. IMS offers a framework to unify these viewpoints. Read more about our approach to movement science here.

IMS also teaches a unique movement assessment process to ensure we maintain scope of practice in our work with others. Implementing a movement assessment in the client on-boarding process helps us:

  • learn who is a good match for movement as a therapeutic method
  • identify if a client needs medical clearance
  • when to refer out to another allied health professional, alternative practitioner or healing modality
  • identify functional adaptations and movement limitations
  • choose specific movement techniques to improve autonomic tone, myofascial health and joint mobility
  • design individualized client programs that are specific and progressive

The IMS somatic movement training is structured yet flexible, specific and exploratory.  The program provides the essential ingredients for guiding somatic practice, rationale for why the practices work, process for working 1:1 with a client, basic recipes for somatic patterning, and a method for designing movement sequences that create meaningful change in our clients and students lives.

“Kaila’s expertise in the field of movement science is the hard-won result of cumulative years of interdisciplinary study and hands on work with hundreds of clients and students.
As a teacher, there is no one I would trust more with the hearts and bodies of students.
She brings a dedication to working collaboratively, and an acute sensitivity and ability to respond valuably to whoever she’s with.”

~ Sarah Dawn Hartman, Cranial Sacral Therapist and Embodiment Teacher

Frequently Asked Questions About IMS

IMS is a 2 year membership, will I have access to the education site after 2 years?
IMS includes access to the Education Site for 2 years after the initial enrollment date. After the 2 year membership period, your access to the Education Site ends.

 

Am I required to complete the Final Project if I join IMS?
There are two enrollment pathways: IMS Core and IMS Total.

IMS Core is a self-directed path and does not include the Mentorship or Final Project review. IMS Total includes a 1:1 Mentorship and is a commitment to completing the Final Project + other small projects along the way. The Final Project is for pratitioners who want to earn a professional development certificate for the time invested in IMS (this is NOT an accredited certification).

 

Is everything recorded or are there live classes?
IMS has a robust and elegant Education Site that has been specifically designed for effective online learning. All IMS content is ondemand in the Education Site and includes a mix of reading and watching with both theory and embodied practice.  The content is organized into Modules, Sections and Topics for easy navigation. IMS also offers live monthly Community Calls and pop-up events. Curretnly the IMS Community Call is on the third Monday of the month at 10 am MT.  Pop-up events include deep dives into specific content areas and live class series.  Pop-up events are announced several weeks before the occurence (this is why they are called pop-up events). Several times per year, Guest Teacher workshops will be offered.

All live events are recorded and added to the Education Site.  Participants are asked to be on camera during events. Participant videos are not recored for the ondemand viewing. Most live events include opportunity for community Q/A. IMS has an international membership and attendance for live events varies with the circle ranging from 6 -20 members in attendance.

 

Is there any kind of support available if I have questions or get stuck?
With IMS Core, during your 2 years in the IMS program, you are welcome to email me with your: questions about content, reflections on process, needs for next steps or direction with the material. There will be opportunities for Q/A at the pop-up IMS workshops. Finally, the monthly IMS Community Call includes open discussion and opportunities for individual questions.

 

How much time will I need to dedicate to the program?
My recommendation is to allocate a minimum of 3-10 hours/week with IMS or an average period of 6 hours/week. You are encouraged to balance your time between reading, writing and watching with investigating, exploring and moving. You may spend your IMS time studying materials from the Modules, exploring movement practices, in self-research with the Learning Checks, and by applying new teachings with students and clients and in general life practice.

 

What kind of movement is taught in IMS?
The movement practice embedded in IMS is Somatic Groundwork. Somatic Groundwork is a movement system with a focus on developmental movement, natural movement skills and myofascial unwinding. Somatic Groundwork is desigend with a series of progressive vocabularies that organize movement from the ground up. The movement Elements include: tissue shape-shifting, joint mobility, neuro-developmental patterns, muscle tuning, dynamic mobility and dynamic stability. There is also a 20 day Kettlebells & Myofascial Fitness program that combines the movement Elements listed with the Interdisciplinary Movement Design.

IMS is a framework for weaving multiple modalities into a skillful program design based on neuromyofascial repatterning. The members in IMS come from a variety of movement and manual therapy backgrounds including Yoga, dance, fitness, Pilates, somatics, therapy, massage and more. A central thread in IMS is helping you cultivate a somatic approach within your movement craft. If you come to IMS with a seasoned practice in one or more specific modalities, the Somatic Groundwork movement vocabularies will provide a container for guiding somatic experiences and to offer you new movement techniques. If you do not have a dedicated movement practice, IMS offers a deep dive into Somatic Groundwork as your movement base.

 

Will I be able to teach Somatic Groundwork after I finish IMS?
Yes . . .  and my desire is that Somatic Groundwork is widely shared. IMS is the learning laboratory for that vision. Because the backbone of IMS is Somatic Groundwork, IMS members will naturally weave the movement system into their interdisciplinary craft as they learn with the program. I have intentionally created IMS for that to be so. The participation in IMS Total is the only way for me to have direct experience with a member’s teaching process to ensure that Somatic Groundwork is shared so the appropriate container for the practice is maintained. These are called the Somatic Groundwork first teachings. Therefore, those members who complete IMS Total and graduate will have demonstrated the basic skills to name themselves as Somatic Groundwork teachers (if they choose).

 

Overall, to the members in IMS, my ask is that if Somatic Groundwork has shaped your method or way of teaching, that Somatic Groundwork is named as is appropriate. The movement system is very flexible and readily adapted to working well with other modalities. To me, the somatics field is about creative response to the current times we are living here and now. I developed IMS as a framework for members to creatively evolve and refine their craft – their offering – in the context with which they teach.

 

I want to know more about human anatomy, is that covered in the program?
Understanding human anatomy and how to apply this knowledge to program design is a fundamental skill set for the movement teacher. IMS weaves together teachings from biotensegrity, fascia science and kinesiology to create maps with which to study our body’s territory. Our inquiry oscillates between global organization and how the various parts support whole body function. In IMS, there is a dedicated 12 hour Embodied Anatomy Course that surveys the entire body.

 

I don’t know that much about somatics, is this still a fit for me?
Yes! In IMS you will learn about the neuroscience of the somatic approach, how to guide somatic inquiry in a trauma-informed way and the basics of somatic patterning. Through the practice of Somatic Groundwork you will be prompted to develop a somatic language from your own experience and from over 50 hours of ondemand movement classes. As a bonus, there are also two curated libraries to motivate your learning interests: Western Somatic Pioneers and Somatics and Social Change.

 

IMS sounds great, but I am not sure I have enough experience to join. Should I wait?
Members in IMS enter the program with various levels of somatic experience. Some people have years of practice and inquiry and others are new to somatic research. And then others join IMS for personal development and self-care. In any case, if you are curious about movement as a healing approach and desire a fresh and contemporary perspective, IMS is a step in that direction.

 

How do I enroll in IMS and what happens next?
Spring Enrollment is open March 11 – March 30. During those dates, go to the section on this page Enrollment Steps and choose your pathway and payment plan. All new students will be given access to the Education Site on Sunday, March 31st after the Spring Enrollment period is over. Your login credentials will be emailed to you. You will have access to the Education Site for 2 full years until March 30th, 2026.

feedback from past graduates about the IMS somatic movement training

“IMS was one of the best choices I’ve ever made. The synthesis of information from various fields is elegantly woven into a curriculum that any therapist or movement teacher would benefit from both professionally and personally.”

Adrienne Eisenberg
BodyWisdom Movement Guide

“If, as I believe, connection with the body is the way to our deepest knowing and the sense of wholeness that underlies our ability to live joyfully and compassionately, the IMS approach has the potential to both address specific ailments and transform entire ways of life.”

Charo Montoya
Conscious Yoga and Movement Teacher

“I have emerged with a clear method for helping athletes navigate their path to pain free play. The process pulses between comprehensive study of the human movement system and dynamic exploration of your own lived body through felt experience. IMS includes rich content that is brilliantly packaged into modules and sections that prepare you to assess, interpret, design and apply intuitive, safe and effective programming.”

Emily Steers White
Somatic Movement Guide, Yoga Teacher & Fitness Professional

 

“The IMS program will up level your understanding of the science of movement without abandoning innate wisdom. This program is a masterful portal to understanding the brilliance of somatic movement. IMS is a sophisticated program that allows participants to be well versed within multi-wellness disciplines.”

Nikki Olsen
Advanced Rolfer and Movement Practitioner

“The IMS curriculum is incredible and includes excellent materials and resources. I now have the tools to connect the dots in my own unique way and the ability to share my gifts with joy and confidence.”

Kandace Bernal
Somatic Movement Practitoner, Aerial Yogi & Holisitic Coach

“IMS gave me a system to understand the source of cumulative injury and how to design a progressive client program with a somatic approach. With a somatic language, now my students are doing their own thinking rather than being spoon fed how and what they should be feeling.”

Linda Gerletti
Somatic Yoga Teacher

“I was searching for a map, a way to make sense of what I was seeing in my clients while they moved. IMS offers not only maps, but also somatic experiences to navigate the maps in order to organize choices, and create more meaningful experiences.”

Felice Amera
Gyrotonic Expansion System Instructor, Massage Therapist & Dancer

“ I highly recommend IMS to anyone with an appetite for exploring and developing a deeper sense of themselves. IMS continues to inform my personal practice and approach to teaching with the integration of Somatic Groundwork™ and exploration of yoga sequences through the lens of biotensegrity. This is a profound journey and I continue to evolve.”

Janet Steeves
Somatic Yoga & Functional Movement Teacher

“Working with the IMS program was exactly what I needed! It allowed me to coherently piece together all the information and modalities I already knew while adding to my knowledge and understanding of how we can use movement as medicine. This work is needed more than ever in our world, and I’m super grateful for the experience I had with IMS and to continue doing this work with my clients.”

Helen Marie Carruthers
Franklin Method Educator, Massage Therapist & Professional Dancer

JOIN MY EMAIL LIST

Get my 8 day intro to Somatic Groundwork! Learn about the science + philosophy that weaves through the movement system + get all the details when IMS is open for enrollment!

By clicking “add me to the list” you give consent to use this information to send emails and communication as described in our privacy policy. We will never share your email with any third parties. You can unsubscribe at any time.