In 2015 Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, through the School for Body-Mind Centering®, licensed Moving Within as an organization to offer a BMC® Somatic Movement Educator program to certify people to be Somatic Movement Educators.  Moving Within is one of two such organizations in the United States. 

Our Mission is to promote personal health by empowering individuals through education and embodiment practices. To embody is to live more fully in one's body with understanding and compassion. 

Studio in the Woods is the site where these offerings take place. Many of the workshops and the BMC® program are residential although commuting is always optional.  

about the director Mary Lou Seereiter

Mary Lou created, developed and led the Dance Program at Lane Community College from 1980 to 2003. She pioneered a somatic curriculum including Body-Mind Centering®, Authentic Movement, Anatomy for Dancers and studies in Laban Movement Analysis™. Her background in dance and choreography have forged her pursuit of the longevity of a healthy, moving body. Her interest in Body Psychology led her to various forms of Healing Arts. Mary is a certified teacher and practitioner of Body-Mind Centering, a certified Laban Movement Analyst (CMA) and a skilled practitioner and teacher of Authentic Movement. She holds a Master’s degree in Dance with a related field in Anatomy and Kinesiology. She trained for one year as a counselor in the Chemical Dependency Program. She is a Registered Somatic Movement Therapist (RSMT) through the International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association (ISMETA). 

It is a healing art form and a treasure of somatic tools. It involves various mind states of moving from the different systems of the body such as the fluid, organ, endocrine, nervous, skeletal, muscular, ligamentous, and fascia systems. BMC® is experiential anatomy. Through touch, hands-on patterning, illustrations and visual aides, through movement and observation, one learns to embody their personal anatomy. BMC® includes developmental patterns, which are the patterns we go through from the watery environment of the womb, to the land based patterns of crawling and walking. BMC® is personal and universal. It is cellular and whole.

and Body-Mind Centering® are registered service marks and BMC® is a service mark of Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, used with permission.

A more complete picture is created, when one begins to look at themselves or others in Laban's terms: how one uses effort in weight, time, space and flow, the designs and shapes one assumes, how one moves through space. Every person has their own movement preferences. LMA offers a means to identify personal movement signatures. Laban Movement Analysis™ is used in teaching dance, training actors, in movement therapy and in physical therapy. Psycho-therapists use the material for diagnosing and treating clients and for conversing with other medical staff. Movement is a window into the psychological aspects of a person. LMA gives us the language to discuss what we see.

Bartenieff Fundamentals is a component of LMA. Irmgard Bartenieff, a protégé of Rudolf Laban, designed a series of exercises which allows the mover and practitioner to analyze the physical function and therefore the potential for expression of the human body. In these exercises, one learns to embody core support and clear joint efficiency. One learns to support a full range of movement choices including simple two dimensional movement as well as more complex three dimensional possiblities. Bartenieff Fundamentals is often referred to as 'adult' developmental movment.

As witnesses, participants learn to see without judgement, to communicate with personal responsibility, to develop empathy and understanding, and to listen with openness, clear attention, and respect for self and other. The witness stays present with personal sensation, experience and meaning. The witness speaks only when the mover asks for response.

As movers, participants learn to listen to their inner impulses, become aware of self-critical inner monologues, integrate body and mind and practice presence in the physical body. With the eyes closed and with a witness, the mover eliminates external visual stimuli and senses deeply into the tissues of the body evoking imagery, emotion, body sensation, memory and dreams. This experiential process allows one to become receptive to the knowledge stored in the body and to explore cellular memory, body metaphors and subconscious material.

The use of language in Authentic Movement follows a specific form. Making “I” statements, speaking in present tense and describing physical movement and sensation, develops awareness and communication skills. Inherent in this practice, both mover and witness learn to take responsibility for projections and transference, develop empathy and non-judgmental abilities to see and be seen.

Developmental movement includes primitive reflexes, righting reactions, equilibrium responses and the Basic Neurological Patterns. These are the automatic movement responses that underlie our volitional movement. The Basic Neurological Patterns are sixteen primary movement patterns developed by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, based upon phylogenetic (animal) and ontogenetic (human) movement development.

When we are born, we have relatively little control over our movement. Through experience, we develop strength, coordination and the ability to voluntarily control our movement. At first, our movement is reflexive. It occurs as a response to outside stimuli such as sight, touch and sound. All reflexes have a counter reflex which balance muscle activity. Reflexes are motor loops in which there is a sensory stimulus that travels to the central nervous system. The system responds by sending a motor impulse which makes the muscles contract moving the bones through space. In other words, this is a neuro- (nerve) muscular (to muscle) event. Reflexes support and underlie the Basic Neurological Patterns (BNP).

The Basic Neurological Patterns include pre-vertebrate and vertebrate movement patterns. Pre-vertebrate Patterns are: vibration, cellular breathing, sponging, pulsation, navel radiation, mouthing and pre-spinal. The pre-vertebrate patterns mirror the development of primitive water creatures. Vertebrate patterns are: spinal movement. homologous movement, homolateral movement and contralateral movement. The vertebrate patterns mirror the development of land creatures. Each vertebrate pattern has a yield and push, and a reach and pull component. Push precedes reach and pull.

The establishment of these patterns is based on a series of stages that the infant moves through, the developmental stages. There is a parallel development in the perceptual awareness and the brain of the infant that goes hand in hand with the movement patterns. The theory is that movement patterns represent perceptual and intellectual patterns. One effects the other. These patterns exist on a continuum from efficient to inefficient. Patterns established in the first year underlie all other movement. These patterns underlie posture, walking, sitting and skill development.

Each pattern underlies the next pattern. Each pattern affects all other patterns. When one pattern is changed they all change. Revisiting these patterns offers opportunities for transformation on many levels: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual.