Somatics Foundations for Q/T & BIPOC Practitioners

Somatics Foundations for Q/T & BIPOC Practitioners
(Module 1 - Earth) is a 30 hour in-person skills-based course grounded in Generative Somatics’ methodology.  This course is for practitioners who are queer and/or trans and/or BIPOC, and will develop practitioners’ abilities to introduce somatic practices in their client work.  Over the course of 10 weeks, participants will explore somatic theory, witness and participate in demonstrations of somatic skills, practice with one another, and deepen their embodied capacity to offer somatic work.

In this course we will explore:

• Generative Somatics’ theory of how healing happens through the body.


• Developing somatic declarations with clients.


• Practices for returning to a felt sense of self under conditions of pressure.


• Embodied allyship as a healing practice


• Embodied consent to bring more choicefulness into decision-making.


• Somatic ‘seeing’ - learning to see how the body physically holds trauma.



Where: In-person, at a location near Cambie & Broadway in Vancouver

When: Tuesdays, 9am - 12pm, from April 28 - June 30th

Who: Small Group. Maximum 10 participants, BIPOC-majority cohort. 

Access info: KN95 masks required.  Teaching space is up a flight of stairs (15 steps).

Investment: $2100 (limited sliding scale spaces available at $1650 for QT/BIPOC Practitioners, and $1250 for Indigenous &/or Black Practitioners).

Coming back into our own bodies, as practitioners, is a political choice. Knowing how to support clients to come back into their own bodies is also a political offer. There is a reason that a tactic of colonialism has been to separate people from their own bodies (and also the land, water, one another, and plant and animal life) - it is where our power, our courage, our connection to a larger sense of aliveness, is felt.

In this training, I bring 15 years of Generative Somatics training and teaching experience to teaching somatic skills to practitioners in community. So many of us are holding so much in our roles as political repression increases. Somatic work is one of the ways in which we can effectively support healing.

There are infinite paths to embodiment; all of our lineages have ways to move trauma through the body, and in many cases these knowledge bases were purposefully disrupted by colonialism, including in my lineage.  Generative Somatics is one methodology amongst many to return to our bodies, and aims to bring somatics to social movement.  We will look together at the tributaries of practice that fed into GS, named and unnamed, known and unknown, while also developing and practicing skills that cellularly, in our lineages and in our DNA, we have always known.

Embodiment of healing skills takes time and practice: this course is offered with the intention of being an introductory module in a multi-part series, with participants' own practice of the skills, in class and in their own practices, being the path on which embodiment can take root.  Module 2 - Fire, which builds on this course to continue practitioner development, will be offered in the Fall of 2026.

Course Outline
(subject to change and adjustment according to the needs of the group):

Week 1: Opening: Orientation to Generative Somatics’ Lineage & Theory of Change.
Week 2: Somatic Declarations: Centering Clients’ Longings
Week 3: Centering Under Pressure: Returning to a Felt Sense of Self.
Week 4: Blending with Safety Shape: Accompanying and Supporting the Ways We’ve Survived.
Week 5: Open Space / Integration.
Week 6: Embodied Consent: A Felt sense of Consent - Yes / No & Maybe.
Week 7: Somatic Allyship: Being with One Another.
Week 8: Somatic Seeing: How our Bodies Hold Trauma.
Week 9: Open Space / Integration.
Week 10: Embodied Completion.

Some past participants have been successful at applying for the BC Employer Training Grant for my past courses. I can make no promises about the success of applying to a government grant! But it’s worth a shot for those who are eligible, as if successful, it can cover up to 80% of training costs.

Collective Healing will be offering an unofficial info session on this grant on Wednesday, April 1st, from 9:30-10:30am. More info here. Sign up here.