“Body-Mind Centering® is an integrated and embodied approach to movement, the body and consciousness. It is an experiential study based on the embodiment and application of anatomical, physiological, psychophysical and developmental principles, utilizing movement, touch, voice and mind. Its uniqueness lies in the specificity with which each of the body systems can be personally embodied and integrated, the fundamental groundwork of developmental repatterning, and the utilization of a body-based language to describe movement and body-mind relationships.
Since 1973, the School has been dedicated to sharing this dynamic approach to embodiment studies with the world. Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen is the developer of Body-Mind Centering® and the founder and Educational Director of the School.”
– Source: bodymindcentering.com
For Anna, true inspiration for her work are children. By observing their behavior, one may learn a lot. Specifically, she observed basic neurologic patterns as children do them without having to think about it. Children may help adults to become curious again, wanting to discover new things as well as children observe their surroundings and even their own bodies. This ability of observing, discovering and experimenting is being lost during one’s life.
While observing us, one may realize that our movements are just some kind of shadows of real body movements. It is also about different perspective of viewing movement especially with dancers. For instance discussing a swing of one’s head – dancers usually see it as an inspiration for their own creative process, but non-dancers are simply experiencing heaviness of their head.
When practicing BMC® – crucial point is the feeling of movement coming rather from inside than outside. Before getting to know the system, to Anna, dancing was simply dancing with no additional value. After experiencing the BMC® system, reconnection with her own bodies appeared as well as with others, and she “started to feel like human being again.” After feeling reconnected, she had hankering for being on stage again – after losing motivation she found new impulse again. Another important change in Anna’s life was its daily use – to her, it is like a little ritual, which helps her to balance every day life. In physically and mentally demanding situations (such as raising children and taking care of her own family, etc.), BMC® explorations refresh her life and release overall tension. She always “comes back to her own body and that feels simply good.”
Anna graduated official BMC® training program almost twenty years ago and during this time she observed significant shift in meaning of BMC® system within various generations. According to her opinion, the change is happening on a genetic level, it redefines genetic codes. Nowadays, there are plenty of possibilities how to experience one’s own body in many different ways – this fact supports the shift of BMC® meaning to contemporary human beings.
During the discussion, some of the students had very interesting thoughts and they shared them with others, such as:
- Understanding and awareness of body–mind connection depends also on age and mental development – it is a very subtle work which needs very specific kind of attention to understand that dance technique is not everything
- Imagination is an essential motif for this type of work; it has no boundaries. Every person imagines different things and we cannot actually copy others images which come from their mind. It is something hidden, very intimate and personal.
Within the discussion, participants also agreed on possible future of dance carrier – it may lie in reconnecting people with their own senses, with their own selves and bodies. At this moment, the general feeling is that the contemporary society lost the body somewhere on its way to perfection. It results also in educational system that needs to be changed: “it is built in a way that we are not listening and working with ourselves, we are doing things and completing task just to complete them.” Group also declared that contemporary educational system does not produce human beings who are able to make their own ideas, but that they rather recycle ideas by using already existing and secure paths without expanding more into its surroundings. For this approach, motivation is desperately needed and coming back to the starting point as well – reconnecting people with their own bodies through BMC® system helps people to find motivation.
Share with your friends
