An indispensible resource for those interested in all forms of
movement education, including yoga, pilates, dance, and more
Somatic educator and writer Liz Koch has spent decades studying the
principles of Core Awareness--a body-based approach to movement that
utilizes attention to inner sensation as the key to increasing strength,
gaining flexibility, preventing injury, and improving resilience. In
this book, she shares her vast knowledge of Core Awareness with readers,
providing movements, stretches, and mindfulness explorations that she
developed herself. Her exercises are designed to enhance sensory
development and shift readers from the standard paradigm of the body as
an "isolated object" to a holistic paradigm of the human being as part
of a living process of dynamic expression. This shift in perspective
offers practitioners and teachers of movement, yoga, pilates, bodywork,
exercise, and dance an empowering model for self-healing and the key to
becoming stronger, more flexible, and more resilient.
As Koch describes the practice of moving from one's core, she highlights
the importance of engaging the psoas muscle--located on either side of
the spine--to integrate the body, mind, emotion, and spirit. Koch also
discusses how the pelvis is the foundation of our physical core, the
vital connection with our bones, and crucial in gaining a sense of
support, nourishment, joint integrity, skeletal balance, and healthy
muscle tone.
Rewritten with updated information, this revised edition includes 247
new photos and 25 new Core Awareness explorations--with 64 in total. A
suggested reading list at the end of the book provides resources for
continuing the development of the ideas presented within the book.
