NEW INTEGRATIVE SOMATIC PRACTICE™ (ISP) TRAINING STARTING MARCH 6, 2024!

The Esalen® Institute has a long tradition of teaching different methods supporting the development of self-awareness and inner growth. Masters such as Charlotte Selver (Sensory Awareness®), Fritz Perls (Gestalt Therapy), Peter Levine (Somatic Experiencing®) and Gabrielle Roth (5 Rythms®) have evolved their approaches to exploring human potential on Esalen’s sacred grounds.

What all teachers at Esalen share is the point of view that inner development happens through understanding each person as an undivided whole. Through the integration of body, mind and heart, an innate process of self-healing and inner realization naturally arises. The key that these teachers discovered, although their approaches were quite different, was a focus on the development of awareness. Through developing awareness moment to moment of how we move, what we sense, what we are feeling and what occupies our thoughts can we begin to create profound inner change. We call this kind of awareness “Integrated Awareness” in ISP, and it represents the fundamental factor determining the depth and breadth of any person’s individual self-realization. Only by integrating the experience of our physical, psychological, energetic and spiritual dimensions can we realize our full potential.

Perry and Johanna Holloman have studied and taught for decades at Esalen

and bring this somatically-based teaching to Germany as the certification program in Integrative Somatic Practice™. This training is for anyone practicing the healing arts: Psychotherapists, bodyworkers, physio-therapists, doctors and nurses, and also for those simply interested in their own self-healing.

For anyone working as a healing artist, it is fundamental to learn to competently guide clients as they go through challenging processes of growth and exploration. This training focuses on developing important skills of attuned and effective touch, body awareness through movement and breathwork, and developing presence through integrated awareness.

Structure of the new ISP™ program

This program consists of 4 basic modules. These can be booked individually – each seminar standing on its own – or if certification is desired, all 4 as a total program.
Each module addresses specific topics fundamental to the curriculum of Integrative Somatic Practice.

Module #1:  March 6-10, 2024 (5 days). 

„Moving Into Presence“: Contact, Connection, Love.
In this module, Johanna and Perry will lead participants on a transformative immersion journey of Movement Practice™, Gestalt Inquiry, and breath practice. Our focus will be on contacting ourselves through the body and developing a sense of connection to our deeper Being through the integration of movement, breath, feeling and thinking.  Becoming aware of and working with inner patterns that create barriers to contact with our essential selves will be a central theme. As we make contact with others within the safety of the group field we can examine old patterns of relating developed early in our lives which hinder our growth and a sense of our own vitality. By meeting each other from the immediacy of our somatic (bodily) experience we enable ourselves and each other to rediscover our intuitive, creative potential and our natural abilities to self-heal, learn and grow as every living being is naturally designed. As a group we become what John Bowlby, father of Attachment Theory, called “secure bases” and “safe harbors” for one another as we create a web of relational support for our collective self-exploration.

Register for  Moving into Presence 2024

Second module 1 – 7 Sept. 2024 (7 days)

Freeing The Breath: Discovering the Foundations of our Inner Vitality
In this module we will deepen the process of our self-inquiry and presence development. The focus will be on different approaches to freeing the breath and learning breath control. When our breath can flow deeply and freely, our capacity to experience the fullness of our life energy, our emotions and our bodily experience we can live our lives and relationships more fully from a place of “embodied presence”. This is a prerequisite for directly sensing our essential nature, which is a more fundamental, subtle experience of Being itself.

In this seminar we will learn to develop our own breath practice and identify issues acting as barriers to our freedom to breath. We will also learn to guide others using attuned methods of touch (Deep Bodywork™, Light Touch Modality Method™) and Hologenic Connected Breathwork™ into rediscovering their capacity to breath freely and live a presence-based life.
Register for “Freeing the Breath: Discovering the Foundations of our Inner Vitality” 2024

Third module 4 – 10 May 2025 (7 days)

“Working with the Inner critic and Rediscovering our Love of Life” (Red Energy)
In this module, powerful barriers to our inner development (resistances, and what is called “The Inner Critic” in Gestalt) are addressed. We will work both on ourselves and support one another other in this deep, fundamental process of self-liberation.

Our inner critic keeps us trapped within a small, limited experience of life through internalized, negative self-criticism and self-sabotage. To free ourselves from its grip we need access to our authentic strength and life energy.  We need to discover intelligent, effective ways of dealing with this judgmental entity living within us. Movement Practice, Gestalt Inquiry, breathwork and  targeted exercises will help us to gain access to our expansive, primal power and love of life, using it to fulfill our life purpose expand into all that we are meant to become.

“Working with the Inner critic and Rediscovering our Love of Life” (Red Energy)

Fourth Module Sept. 21 – 27, 2025 (7 days).

“Advanced Breathwork, Freeing the Pelvis, and Working with Trauma Survivors”
In module 4 we will focus on the interconnection between our freedom to breath and the mobility of the pelvis. The flow of our life energy and our rediscovery of our “love of life” reflect themselves in our somatic (bodily) relationship to how we breath and move our hips/pelvis. Specific techniques from Deep Bodywork will be taught for freeing both the chest and pelvis, and this class can be used as one of the five classes required for Deep Bodywork certification. A deepening of our understanding and skill in the application of Light Touch Modality Method will be emphasized.

We will learn important considerations for identifying and working with trauma survivors, and how to use breathwork and attuned touch appropriately for such clients.
Our mornings will begin with meditation and Hologenic breath practice, followed by breakfast and Movement Practice.

Register for “Advanced Breathwork, Freeing the Pelvis, and Working with Trauma Survivors”

To earn a certificate as an Integrative Somatic Practice™ Practitioner, students must attend all 4 basic modules and subsequently, give 20 sessions.
Johanna and Perry will be available as mentors for students who wish to become Practioners.

Certification cost: 100,- Euro

We are looking forward to this journey with you!

Namaste,

Perry and Johanna

Cost: 1st module 550,-Euro plus accommodation and meals
Cost: 2nd module 950,-Euro plus board and lodging
Cost: 3rd module 950,-Euro plus room and board
Cost: 4th module 950,-Euro plus room and board

or 3100,- Euro for all 4 modules together plus board and lodging
plus costs for certification: 100,-Euro

Registration Integrative Somatic Practice™ 2024:25

Registration: eva.maria.leve@me.com / Mobile: +49179209396

The training will take place at Seminarhaus Hollerbühl (Southern Black Forest).