Testimonials about the Global Somatics™ Practitioner Training

“I have been the supervisor required by ISMETA for Suzanne River's 2003-05 Certification Program. In my opinion, this program offers the highest professional standards. Every aspect of the program is well thought out and clearly written. Suzanne is an imaginative and innovative teacher, with deep knowledge of BMC and Somatic material. In each student I have observed growth, transformation, embodiment and confidence in their ability to offer this work to others. I highly recommend that ISMETA approve Global Somatics™ as an approved training program.”
Gale Turner
US -Program Coordinator and senior faculty member for the School for Body-Mind Centering and director of In- Motion

“I believe that the Global Somatics™ Program is an example of the very best somatic education. Suzanne has woven together physical, spiritual, and energetic principles in a natural and seamless way. She embodies them in herself in a sure-footed, light and grounded manner. I found the skills
of the certification students to be at the level of students at the School for Body-Mind Centering.
The students were able to work deeply and quickly, with great presence. During the Endocrine Competency Demonstration, the tone in the room was relaxed, confident and focused. The students demonstrated a respect and reverence for themselves and for each other. The Global Somatics™ Program is truly exceptional, modeling how to embody non judgmental support while evoking the highest standards.”
Kimberly McKeever
Certified Teacher of BMC and Guest Teacher for Global Somatics Business Competency and Senses

“Body- I feel transformed by this work. I feel I am returning to my true natural body. As a dancer, I worked endless hours to make my body stronger. This work has given me an acceptance of who I am without the constant judging that comes with being a dancer. This is a shift in my mind. I spend more time in internal rather than external knowing. The information I am gathering keeps me inspired as a dancer and movement teacher.”
Jane Shockley
Global Somatics™ Practitioner '05, Dancer, Teacher at Carlton College

“On a personal level GSPT gave me a deepened level of sensitivity in my body which allowed me greater access to my gut reactions, intuition, instinctual desires, and authentic expression of my whole self. Professionally, GSPT expanded my understanding of anatomy (physical and energetic) from an experiential and embodied place. This supported me in developing a heightened skill of perceiving other peoples bodies and energy fields and knowing the perfect remedy of movement, touch, breath, energy, or sound that they needed to realign and establish health on all levels of being.“
Amy Patee
Global Somatics™ Practitioner '05, Yoga Teacher, Thai Yoga Massage practitioner

“I have made a re-commitment to embodiment. I use new information in my bodywork practice. My Authentic Movement practice has become more focused. The program offers very lot- personal as well as future financial prospects.”
Damaris Jackson
Global Somatics™ Practitioner '05, Elementary School Teacher, Bodyworker and Artist

“Studying Global Somatics™ has brought numerous changes in all aspects of my life.
There has been continuous integration on all levels and I am finding myself happier and fuller in body, mind, emotions and spirit. Connections through the body has given me access to mind I was only subtly aware of - deepening fuller now to all that I am and all that is. I have a connection to purpose that I am working to fulfill.”
Lee Langer
Global Somatics™ Practitioner ‘06, Visual Artist, Poet and Mother

“Most of the 'changes' have occurred in my way of perceiving (mentally and physically) my environment (work and home), relationships and how I look/see others (students, friends, families) bodies. It can be difficult to not want to apply the practitioner work to everything/one. I have been teaching and making dance more and in a much more organized fashion and with more success than in previous years.”
Rosy Simas Guthrie
Global Somatics™ Practitioner '05, Dancer, Choreographer, Teacher and Massage Therapist

“I really don't know what training I would compare the program to other than a multidisciplinary major where you are looking at many dimensions of the same question or reality where you have a certain freedom in how you organize your inquiry. I think that in a whole I feel healthier in that I feel like I am finding my natural way of living in and being in my body, and in that sense, feel a direct and concrete relationship to the natural world.”
Dawn Strom
Global Somatics™ Practitioner '05, Actress, Dancer, and Masters Student in Philosophy

“There's a tension between the breath of material and the depth of bodywork. The classes are always well prepared and carefully planned. I have always liked multifaceted learning: movement, touch, voice, visual, auditory and cognitive. The Competency Demonstrations are very confirming of what we have learned! My body gets a weekly tune-up that gives me something to integrate and keeps me moving comfortably. I have lots of ways to work with problems and some hope for improvement.”
Elena White
Global Somatics™ Practitioner '05, Movement Educator, Athlete and Writer

“The Program has influenced my career as a “Movement Professional” offering bodywork to clients, teaching dance technique and creating choreography. It has opened up areas of untapped body knowledge through an honoring of intellectual, emotional, physical and spiritual experiences. The study of Global Somatics™ surprises and inspires as I continue my quest of movement research.”
Deborah Thayer
Global Somatics™ Practitioner '05, Choreographer, Dancer, Teacher and Movement Coach and Bodyworker

“I feel my participation in the Global Somatics™ curriculum is an invitation to the open gate between the physical and spiritual realm. My capacity to accept a full range of emotion has expanded. When emotions surface from release of suppressed and stored experience, I am able to feel the carrier organ, the process of travel through the fluids, and the necessity for movement of mind, breath or body to facilitate the leaving. Being in different minds- of breath, fluids, reflexes etc… has contributed to the gift of meeting people at their tone. This has improved the quality of my movement therapy classes, parenting and relationships."
Britta Hallin
Global Somatics™ Practitioner ‘06, Visual and Performing Artist, Teacher and Mother

"I continue to be marveled with the human body and the life around me. Through the GSPT, I am enriching my passion for dance, deepening an understanding of myself, and enhancing my relationship with the outside world."
Mandy Herrick GSP ’08 Dancer/Mover, Teacher, Nature Enthusiast, Mother

"My participation in GSPT allows me to listen to all the inner voices, to learn their tone and vibration, and to begin to understand how they harmonize with each other and the whole of creation--I can't imagine anything better!"
Kelly Waterman GSP’08 Bodyworker, Vocalist

"Global Somatics is helping me continue my embodiment process and increase my vocabulary in movement, words, and touch. It is refreshing to put experiences behind my intuitive knowledge of the body; a homecoming in many ways."
Mary Clare Lindsley GSP’08 Dancer, Teacher, Grad student, Mother

"I enrolled in the GSPT program to learn more about myself and my environment. I have reached a level of self realization that I have been striving for all of my life. I gained the skills to become a somatics practitioner, movement educator, and leader in the authentic healing community. I have the ability to help others who desire to reach their full potential. I believe that embarking on this journey has positively influenced the choices I will have and will make through the rest of my life."
Connie Tommerdahl GSP’08 Business Owner, Counselor, Farmer

"I look forward to writing books relating how the Global Somatics Practitioner Training has improved the quality of my everyday life. Through embodiment practice and GSP curriculum, I now have access to incredible intelligence that informs key choices around work and relationships. It is actively influencing every income-producing project and commitment. I have the language and practical tools to help my fitness clients. I now teach to the bodies of my middle-school students, in addition to literacy, theater, and critical thinking. I have more of my body as a resource for performance. I am mentoring to become a GSP Teacher because of my deep appreciation of the art of teaching demonstrated during my training.

My personal embodiment-- guided by Green River Dance-- has so painted my foundation that I think it a tall house I will build of my dreams and accomplishments in this lifetime.  My heart breaks open in gratitude."
Alejandra Tobar Alatriz GSP’11 Activist, Fitness Consultant, Teacher, Performer

"GSPT has been a transformative process for me.  Learning how to tune into myself has made it possible to tell what is my vibration and what is from someone or something else.  This is truly the basic requirement for being a self-directed human being!  Learning how to be myself in a group of others, how to do the group dance as well as my own individual patterns is a lifelong process and I learned some unique and ongoing lessons in my group.  I learned what it is to be recognized and valued for my own talents, abilities and strengths as well as weaknesses and how to value myself!"
Louisa Keleher GSP’09 Landscape Business, Bodyworker, Teacher

"My focus area was on, and remains on, forwarding the field of somatics to move from its inward focus on physical anatomy and individual coaching, towards mapping the social and collective body. I worked at this in my final project at GS, [and while co training in Biodanza, another movement repatterning method that was explicitly socially focused]. The final work for GS culminated in a 4-part community dance class. It implicitly addressed conflict and diversity using the elements as non-archetypal movement options. Participants were welcomed to diversify their movement options and play in the energy field created via the group and me, as facilitator.

What this now 3-year investigation is all culminated to, can be summarized in a quote by Alice Walker – it’s all in the “welcome”. And GS offers this. Unconditionally."
Zea Leguizamon ‘GSP 09 Social-Somatic Movement Therapist, Mother

"I do not have words to convey how my life has benefited from this training. Not only has it supported me as a teacher and a leader in my community, but it has improved how I live my life day to day. I am now able to call up resources within me that I did not know existed before and can use them to navigate any situation more smoothly. I have used the concepts I learned in this training in so many ways, ranging from teaching choreography to High Schoolers to parenting my daughter. My professional life as an instructor has grown in three dimensional leaps and bounds and only continues to expand as the material unfolds for me. It has reached every corner of my life!

Whole Body Ballet - a sequential curriculum for ballet that uses Global Somatics as a framework for teaching healthy ballet to any body. Principles from the Global Somatics curriculum are used to support the natural progression of ballet training. Using this method builds a common vocabulary with the students and helps ease them in to some of the more difficult movements in this form of dance."
Shari Setchell GSP’09 Dance Teacher/ Choreographer, Actress, RSMT

"The GSPT Program was challenging, affirming, enlightening, and inspiring. I learned things about the body that enabled amazing insights and stimulated profound desires. I was provided a monthly support structure within a small group of women led by an extraordinary teacher who all accepted me as I was; and exposed to resources that opened totally new levels of passion and understanding. My talents for dancing, singing, touching and writing, were given space to be seen and heard and felt. I processed a deeper layer of emotional grief that I was not aware needed to be released, and as a result was able to fill that space with more of my authentic soul being, which in turn has magnified my imprint on the world.

"Professionally, while my vision for segueing from my landscape design business into leading movement and voice classes and workshops will take longer than I had hoped, the reality is that the personal growth experienced during this training facilitated an important maturing of my landscape business, and attracted many new clients."
Rebecca Wainscott GSP’11 Landscape Design Business, Teacher, Bodyworker

"The Global Somatics training was a joyous 18-month workout for my brain, heart and spirit.  I changed because of the training -- old habits fell away, new commitments crystallized.  As a teacher and researcher, my skills deepened because of the methods introduced in GS; as an artist, my horizons widened through the experiential and collective activities, and the sheer creative variety of Suzanne's teaching methods.  My GS training led to the creation of a new course in performance research and training at my college. Global Somatics also has supported my yoga teaching, and has inspired several special workshops linking the GS experiential activities with yoga practice."
Beth Cleary GSP’09  Associate Professor, Theatre & Dance, Macalester College, freelance director; playwright, Yoga Instructor

"My life-long desire to dive into and learn more about the workings of this human body I inhabit has been nurtured in a most transformative and supportive manner. GSPT has offered me the confidence to begin trusting and interacting with that knowing part of myself called Intuition. My ability to communicate with the cells and the energetic life force of the body in myself and others has been increasing. My self-awareness and ability to 'self-heal' with the assistance of Source energy has been amazing!

"The firm foundation of experiential anatomy and physiology has given me the vocabulary AND the 'knowingness' to improvise as needed while teaching to provide the most embodied experience possible for the students. I also have a much deeper understanding of the interaction of all of the systems in the body and how the form of yoga I teach works with them as a community to affect changes in the body."
Catherine Liska GSP’11 Yoga Teacher, Middle Eastern Dance Artist and Teacher, Energy Healer

"My research project examined the embodiment of race in three different ways. First, I read more deeply into the nervous system, genetics and epigenetics as a way of understanding how we are formed - individually and through our genetic lines - by social contexts. The second part was, through voice and movement, to explore my own racialized experiences, gaining a deeper understanding of how I embody my own race and releasing content or material ready to be released. The final part of my research project was the co-creation and piloting of a workshop based on this learning called More than Skin Deep: Uprooting White Supremacy One Cell at a Time."
Susan Raffo GSP’09 Activist, Writer and Bodyworker

"My wish is to take what I gleaned from the Global Somatics program and weave it together with my studies of psychology/psychotherapy to one day have a holistic therapy practice that recognizes healing and wholeness as an individual expression of creativity, one that keeps the dance of our collective macrocosm alive and well.  In detail, this practice will examine and utilize awareness and movement of:  the inner and outer body, thought patterns and desire systems, the creative impulse, the art of relating, spiritual contemplation, meditation, nutrition & fitness, ecology and the sustainability of our connection to all that is."
Corynn Stoltenberg GSP’11 Business Owner, Student, Teacher

"Global Somatics has been one of the most challenging experiences of my life so far...  Every new unit reveals whole chapters of my body's experience, as I consciously explore areas previously hidden, masked, buried, and ignored.  Integrating all this information has led to a near-to-complete overhaul of my worldview.  I've never felt more lost, confused, or disoriented.  That said, I feel more whole, more honest, more real, and more present than I've ever felt before.  The Global Somatics Process truly leaves no stone unturned.  I turn myself inside out so I can reintegrate into a form closer to my highest self.  Thankfully, the program also gives a tremendous amount of support, counseling, and contact-time, so that throughout this intense process, I have felt nourished, understood, cheered-on, and inspired to continue this work."
Malia Burkhart GSP’11 Community Artist and Arts educator, Songwriter and Performer, Herbalist , Environmental Activist

"I came into the GSP program seeking new tools to facilitate healing and transformation in myself and others. Through the program I am developing my capacity to embody my own change, and to engage and transform post traumatic stress and other social and culturally influenced illness at the locus of the human body."
Maryrose Dolezal GSP’11 Cultural Worker, Facilitator, Educator and Organizer

"My studies in Global Somatics brings together in one my longtime interests in both arts-based and body-based therapeutic work. I am interested in how the body “knows” and in exploring how the intersections between personal, interpersonal, and societal healing can be approached through embodied and artistic avenues. I have grown exponentially due to the program’s supportive atmosphere of loving rigor. It continues to challenge me to undergo my own process of personal embodiment, self-reflection, responsibility-taking and healing, so that I can with integrity facilitate healing processes in others on both an individual and societal basis."
Elisabeth Ellsworth GSP’11 Activist, Theatre Artist- Scholar, Professional Housecleaner

"I have wanted to study with Suzanne/complete the GSP for years.  When it was time for me to step away from dancing full-time, I began attending massage therapy school.  I love massage therapy- but I wanted a way to build a bridge between my love of improvisation/movement, and my fascination with bodywork/healing.  Global Somatics is helping me to build and navigate this bridge."
Megan Flood GSP’11 Massage Therapist, Dancer, Teacher

"I chose the Global Somatics program because it chose me.  In the end, I couldn't help but say yes to a program that is so supportive and thorough and teaches a way of working with people that is so effective. .  With experiencing the Global Somatics Process, I find that I trust my life path more than I ever have before.  With the supportive community of other students and graduates of the program, I have a safe container in which to explore not only this material, but myself as well."
Kate McDonnell GSP’11 Bodyworker, Teacher, Artist and Scholar