on February 11, 2024, 9:38 am, in reply to "Re: Invitation to free book reading of "Perineum Power for Women" Feb. 11 at 11am."
Special acknowledgement and gratitude go to my parents who provided a foundation both in the material and the spiritual worlds for me as a child. Through their love and nurturance they gave me my first feelings of being safe and grounded on the earth while experiencing a yearning for the mystical.
I thank the following teachers who fueled my knowledge and understanding of body, mind and spirit. They came into my life at times when I was either in the pit of physical pain or at the frontier of new horizons of discovery.
Richard Hittleman’s Yoga 28 Day Exercise Plan (1969) provided an easy to understand, self-help, first introduction to yoga. Swami Vishnu of the Sivananda Institute introduced me to traditional hatha yoga and meditation in a formal setting. Maureen Tribe, Dr. Bruce Carruthers, and B.K.S. Iyengar himself instructed me regarding precise physical alignment through Iyengar Yoga for several years. Donna Farhi contributed by approaching yoga through intrinsic movement patterns, which she had learned from Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen’s School for Body-Mind Centering and which were reinforced by the work of Stanley Keleman. Risa Kaparo introduced me to Vanda Scaravelli’s “antiforce yoga” and was instrumental in expanding my experience of Somatic Learning and self-sensing in my yoga practice.
Debbie and Carlos Rosas, creators of The Nia Technique, trained me as a black belt teacher of this holistic barefoot fitness practice, which combines dance, martial and healing arts principles, and advocates listening to sensation. They also exposed me to the work of Stanley Keleman, who described human patterns of physical and emotional development in terms of tubes, pouches and diaphragms.
The Washington Psychic Institute, and later Barbara Ann Brennan’s school, taught me in-body meditation, psychic reading and the healing of chakras for emotional and spiritual well-being. Master Mantak Chia and Minke de Vos introduced me to the chi meridians and the tan tien of Traditional Chinese Medicine, as well as to the in-body meditation and chi kung energy practices of Taoist Healing Love. Michael Reed Gach provided further detailed training on chi meridians, the Twelve Meridian Cycle and Five Elements Theory as it relates to acupressure, well-being and healing.
Thomas W. Myers discovered a “new anatomy” to describe the human body and its movement in terms of fascia rather than isolated muscles, and when I noticed that these myofascial continuities paralleled the chi meridians I had been activating in Taoist energy practices, the last piece of the puzzle was added and the Somatic WAve™ system started to reveal itself to me.
I am deeply grateful to my students, who were trusting and enthusiastic participants during the development of this material. I appreciate their courage, willingness and sense of humour.
I thank Michele Lilyanna for her Rebound drawing and timely encouragement in my initial creative stages as well as Cody Chancellor for his sensitive and artful execution of all other illustrations.
I am in awe and gratitude that, under the most unlikely circumstances, the Universe brought me together with the assiduous editorial expertise of Lynne Willard and the design artistry of Kathleen Ennis to benefit from their skill in the creation of this book.