Body-Mind Centering® is an experiential approach to embodiment, movement and consciousness. Developed by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen over the last five decades, BMC works with the conscious embodiment of anatomical, physiological, psychophysical, embryological and developmental principles. It uses anatomical information, guided movement, intentional touch, voice, expressive arts, and a developing awareness of the play of conscious attention, or mind.
Body-Mind Centering is:
Embodied: anatomical and physiological precision and specificity – embodying and integrating all of the body systems
Developmental: a grounding in the developmental patterning that occurs during the first year of life through the Basic Neurocellular Patterns (BNPs)
Embryological: re-membering the formative patterning of this body and mind to support well-being, ease and psychophysical integration
Relational: BMC sessions and classes begin with conscious meeting, being-with, rather than trying to fix or remedy
Creative: the practice of Body-Mind Centering® supports creative expression, somatic intelligence and embodied approaches to being in the world
Applications of the work are varied and wide-ranging, including private bodywork practice, movement therapy, yoga, creative arts practice such as dance and music, embodied leadership, somatic psychotherapy, meditation and mindfulness, somatic education in schools, and infant developmental repatterning.
“Body-Mind Centering® is an ongoing, experiential journey into the alive and changing territory of the body. The explorer is the mind – our thoughts, feelings, energy, soul, and spirit. Through this journey we are led to an understanding of how the mind is expressed through the body in movement.
An important aspect of our journey in Body-Mind Centering® is discovering the relationship between the smallest level of activity within the body and the largest movement of the body -aligning the inner cellular movement with the external expression of movement through space. This involves identifying, articulating, differentiating, and integrating the various tissues within the body, discovering the qualities they contribute to one’s movement, how they have evolved in one’s developmental process, and the role they play in the expression of mind. The finer this alignment, the more efficiently we can function to accomplish our intentions.
In BMC® we are the material, our bodies and minds the medium of our exploration… We are each the study, the student, the teacher.”
Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, Introduction to Body-Mind Centering®, in Sensing, Feeling and Action, 2003, Contact Editions
Olive Bieringa and Otto Ramstad are part of team of certified teachers of Body-Mind Centering® globally and are program directors for Somatic Education Australsia’s Body-Mind Centering® Somatic Movement Education Certification in Melbourne, Australia.