Somatic Primer Podcast

Paulie Zink began studying yoga and martial arts as a teenager. While he was in college, he met a gung-fu master from Hong Kong named Cho Chat Ling.  Master Cho taught him  the Taoist arts of yoga and Chi Kung as a foundation for his martial arts training. Master Cho taught Paulie three distinct Kung-fu styles collectively called Tai Shing Pek Kwar ( Monkey kung fu). For seven years Paulie Zink co...

Don Hanlon Johnson is a professor at CIIS in San Francisco and the founder of the first graduate degree program in Somatics. He is the author of a body of literature on the intersections among bodily experience, the natural world, spirituality, social justice, and health. After studying and practicing the work of Ida Rolf, he founded the first masters degree program in Somatic Psychology. He was a...

Des Lawton has been a practising martial artist for over thirty years. He was a close student of Master Joseph Bell who is a direct lineage descendant of Master Wang Jiu Mei. Des is now the Principal Instructor of the San Bao Martial Arts School . He  teaches Taiji and Taijiquan classes in and around the Glasgow area and has developed a diploma course in Healing Qigong. He teachies both for Commun...

Robert Thurman is Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University as well as Co-Founder and President of Tibet House US/Menla in service of HH Dalai Lama & the people of Tibet. A close friend of the Dalai Lama’s for over 50 years, he is a leading world-wide lecturer on Tibetan Buddhism, passionate activist for the plight of the Tibetan people, skilled translator of Buddhist t...

Sam Cutler is an Honors Graduate in Contemporary History  and a qualified teacher  from the University of Cambridge. Cutler worked for Blackhill Enterprises as stage manager and master of ceremonies on a series of 1960s gigs in the U.K. and Europe with such artists, as Pink Floyd, Eric Clapton, and The Rolling Stones. In 1969, he acted as master of ceremonies at the Rolling Stones concert in Hyde...

Livia Kohn is an emeritus professor of Religion and East Asian Studies at Boston University, specializing in studies of Daoism. She graduated from Bonn University, Germany, in 1980. She then spent six years at Kyoto University in Japan, before she joined Boston University as Professor of Religion and East Asian Studies in 1988.  She is a long term practitioner of Taiji qua and medittiaton. Her spe...

Jeffrey Hopkins is Professor Emeritus of Tibetan Buddhist Studies at the University of Virginia where he taught Tibetan Buddhist Studies and Tibetan language for thirty-two years from 1973. He received a B.A. magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1963, trained for five years at firewood acres Buddhist Monastery  in New Jersey with Geshe wangyal. He received a Ph. D. in Buddhist Studies from t...

This is Part Two of my interview with Dr. Bennett. In this episode we discuss: Hanna Somatics & Tai Chi Hanna Somatics & Feldenkrais Method Forceful & gentle application of Somatics Importance of a daily practice and much more... If you'd like to find out more about Brad's work and read his article "The Somatic Work of of Thomas Hanna, Tai Chi & Kinesiology" ple...

BRADFORD C. BENNETT, PHD Dr. Bennett’s  formal somatic education began in 1985 when he began studying Tai Chi with Hubert H. Lui. For the next ten years Mr. Lui helped Dr. Bennett become both more relaxed and more biomechanically sound in movement.  He continued to explore methodologies to improve neuromuscular control and studied with several teachers including; Yochanon Rywerant, Ruthy Alon, Lla...

Dr. Patricia Huston, MD, CCFP, MPH has a dual academic appointment at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Medicine in the Department of Family Medicine and the School of Epidemiology and Public Health.  She has worked as a family physician, a public health physician and a scientific editor.  She has attended meetings at the World Health Organization as an Expert Advisor, been on multiple nationa...

Tom Waldron is a manual therapist, pilates instructor, Franklin Method Educator and specialist in exercise rehab. He sees and works with clients in both London and Portsmouth, UK.  Tom has helped rehabilitate with top athletes from injury in fields such as golf, running and students from the Royal Ballet and Birmingham Royal Ballet School. He also teaches nationally and internationally for educati...

Alexander Berzin began his study of Buddhism in 1962 at Rutgers and then Princeton University, and received his PhD in 1972 from Harvard University. Inspired by the process through which Buddhism was transmitted from one Asian civilization to another his focus has been on bridging traditional Buddhist and modern Western cultures. Dr. Berzin was resident in India for 29 years, first as a Fulbright...

Sam F.S. Chin is the co-founder of the art, and the current gate keeper of the I Liq Chuan / Zhong Xin Dao system. Master Sam Chin grew up in Malaysia and trained martial arts since childhood with his father. He lived at the Chuang Yen Monastery in New York for the 10 years studying many different styles of Buddhism.  In the ten years of working and teaching at the Chuang Yen Monastery, Master Sam...

Scott Park Phillips teaches traditional Chinese Martial Arts in a non-traditional way. His goal is to access the original intent of the creators of Chinese Internal Martial Arts to get at the core of their inspiration. He is the author of two books: Possible Origins, Chinese Martial Arts, Theater and Religion, And, Tai Chi, Baguazhang and The Golden Elixir, Internal Martial Arts Before the Boxer U...

HOLLY SWEENEY-HILLMAN is a TTM faculty, Anatomy and Biomechanics, academic coordinator and Co-Director of the Teachers Academy USA.  Holly has a degree in dance and graphic arts from The University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, VA and a Masters degree in orthopedic biomechanics from New York University. She is a certified Alexander Technique teacher and practicing CranioSacral therapist. ...

Lawrence Gold is a Hanna Somatic Educator. Initially Lawrence begin studying physical therapy before being drawn to the work of Ida Rolf following an injury. Impressed with the structural integration he was taught he wanted to find out more and eventually began studying Rolfing with Emmet Hutchins, Ida Rolf's first appointed teacher. He was part of the first and only Hanna Somatic Education T...

Ryan is a Feldenkrais teacher from Texas now living in Mexico. He’s been studying and teaching the method since the early 2000’s. He is a long time meditation practitioner having studied with Thích Nhất Hạnh, the Vietnamese monk who founded Plum Village.  Ryan uses Feldenkrais as a way to develop awareness. He uses the sensory motor learning process as a way help students organize their physical m...

On this episode I had the pleasure to discuss the Alexander Technique with Jeando Masoero. Jeando is a master teacher and translator of F.M. Alexander's work, having translated all of Alexander's books into French. While working on these translations Jeando discovered that Alexander had studied and was a teacher of the Delsarte Method of Movement which is remarkably similar to Alexander&...

Georges Dreyfus is  Professor of Religion at Williams College, Massachusetts. His focus is in the fields of Tibetology and Buddology, with a particular interest in Indian Buddhist philosophy, philosophy of mind, and cognitive processes.  At the age of 20, Dreyfus left his native home of Switzerland and backpacked across Eastern Europe through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan to India. He tr...

This episode of the Somatic Primer Podcast features Tim Cartmell. Tim  has over 30 years of experience in martial arts including Kung Fu San Su, Xing Yi Quan , Ba Gua Zhang, Tai Ji Quan, and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Tim is the author of the best selling book "Effortless Combat Throws," and "Passing the Guard." He is the translator of the several books including  "The Method of...

Eleanor Criswell is emeritus professor of psychology and former chair of the psychology department, Sonoma State University. Founding director of the Humanistic Psychology Institute, she is editor of Somatics Magazine, the magazine-journal of the mind-body arts and sciences, and director of the Novato Institute for Somatic Research and Training. Her books include Biofeedback and Somatics: Toward P...

This episode of the Somatic Primer Podcast features Alfons Grabher. Alfons Grabher is a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner from Vienna, Austria. His Youtube channel "Improving ability” ranked #1 on Feedspot’s Top 20 Feldenkrais Youtube Channels in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021. He is author of several books including "My Feldenkrais Book”, a workbook with movement lessons. Alfons and B...

This episode of the Somatic Primer Podcast features Vivien Schapera. Vivien is an Alexander Technique teacher and teacher trainer.  In 1993, Vivien and her husband, Neil, founded Alexander Technique of Cincinnati, a school for training Alexander Teachers, and in 1999, Vivien founded FourWinds Academy for the Healing Arts & Sciences. Vivien teaches workshops in all her subjects from coast to co...