Episode 22: Embodied Anatomy, Embryology and Body-Mind Centering Aki Omori

Aki Omori is a true explorer of movements and living body-mind.

She is a registered somatic movement therapist / educator, trained in Body-Mind Centering® (BMC) and Integrative Body-Work and Movement Therapy (IBMT), and a qualified practitioner of Neuro Affective Relational Model ® (NARM), which is a form of early trauma healing work designed for adult clients.

She is passionate about developmental movements; embryology and they are largely incorporated into all her work, including teaching yoga.

She runs trainings for yoga teachers, holistic therapists and psychotherapists, based on developmental movements and embodied anatomy of the nervous system in search of wellbeing.

Her latest interest is to develop a practice on “voice & movement” as a way to enhance and improve the quality of lives. Her future project will be to bring developmental movement work to psychotherapy trainings and she is also preparing to launch her web based live training courses.

(She loves driving, chopping vegetables with a good sharp knife, contact improvisation (a form of dance) and enjoys general dancing about in the flat and in parks. Her aim is to dance and sing her way into her grave.)

In today’s episode:

Aki comes from a musical family and started singing young
She studied physical theatre and became interested in movement and dance including contact improvisation
Contact improvisation has a deep relationship with the work of Bonnie Bambridge-Cohen, who developed Body-Mind Centering (BMC)
Aki was also influenced by yoga teacher Donna Farhi
A Japanese bodyworker called Noguchi, who she describes as being a gift to humanity, influenced Bonnie Bambridge-Cohen when she lived in Japan
Using active intervention to explore the movement of the body, by providing questions and allowing each person to be respectful of their own experience
Somatic work tends to have a two-way dialogue, so the person has agency about their process
Learning anatomy through the experience of the body as well as teaching models and diagrams
Sensory information is incoming flow
The more we are embodied, the more we can contact the cells and tissues with their language through touch, e.g. the periosteum and skin
Cellular breathing of the whole organism
Consent about receiving adjustments in a class
Addressing early trauma through the body
Attachment issues
Addressing embryology in embodied movement
Play and lightness to aid understanding
Awareness of the front surface of the body has a different feeling than the back
Embryology relates to the meridians
Physiology from the East and Anatomy from the West
Developmental trauma work with adults
Exploring sound and movement