Body-Mind Centering (BMC) is an ongoing, experiential journey into the alive and changing territory of the body. It is a system of body exploration where the body’s anatomical systems are explored to bring awareness and meaning to the qualities of each tissue and their power for body energy and support. BMC engages awareness of movement, voice, breath, perception and touch.
BMC is a changing framework of perceiving change, a state of mind that allows for spontaneous and open perceptions of our bodily mind. This gives way to fresh perception and ways of feeding a situation back to itself. The feedback brings transformation, opening the way for future development. This makes BMC an ongoing experiential journey and changing territory of the body. Through this journey, one begins to understand how the mind is expressed through the body in movement.
BMC is an innovative approach to movement re-education that explores the relationship between mind and movement. Based on the embodiment of anatomical, psychological and developmental movement principles, BMC is an approach to experience our living anatomy and a method of movement analysis that is beneficial in the creative process.
Body-Mind Centering was developed by the occupational therapist, Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen. Bonnie obtained a degree in occupational therapy at Ohio State University and then a dance major. She went to New York City to work with Eric Hawkins and to teach at Hunter College, combining her scientific and therapeutic knowledge with dance.
Bonnie began her explorations in the 1960s. Her students, teachers from release technique, dance therapy, yogis, voice coaches, physical therapists, doctors, movement analysts and aikido masters have informed her approach. Her experience in dance and Eastern movement forms are deeply embedded in her development of Body-Mind Centering.
BMC is an experiential study based on anatomical, physiological, psychological and developmental movement principles, leading to an understanding of how the thoughts and feelings of the mind are expressed through the body in movement. It applies principles derived from these fields of anatomical, physiological and developmental through movement, touch, voice and mind. It is a creative process using movement re-education and hands-on re-patterning. BMC states that every part of the body and every physiological system has its own uniquely patterned movement quality and spatial ranges that we can consciously access.
The study of BMC includes cognitive and experiential learning of the body systems:
· Skeletal
· Ligaments
· Muscles
· Fascia
· Fat
· Skin organs
· Endocrine glands
· Nerves
· Fluids
· Breathing and vocalization
· Senses and dynamic of perception
· Developmental movement
· Art of touch and re-patterning
In BMC, body systems are grouped according to tissue types: skeletal, muscular, nervous, organ, fluid and glandular. The first three body systems form the “voluntary system and explore anatomical concepts in dance classes. The next three systems brings awareness to the “involuntary” components of the human physiological experience. This is a unique attribute of BMC and distinguishes itself from other somatic movement education systems.
BMC is carried out in one-on-one or group sessions with certified practitioners and teachers by the School of Body- Mind Centering, founded in 1973, based in Amherst, Massachusetts. The school offered a platform for a creative, integrated approach to a transforming experience through movement re-education and hands-on re-patterning work. These methods aim to understand how the mind is expressed through the body and vice-versa. A student undergoing the certification program of BMC is required to study science and integrate the training into other movement contexts.
Much of BMC is carried out through the exploration of movement. Students who are comfortable with improvisation will find it easy to access the form of somatic inquiry. BMC has become relevant to dance injury assessment and interventions and has been used the formulating choreography, the teaching of dance technique, improvisations and in the development of contemporary dance.
BMC creates an environment of openness, and opportunity for non-judgmental self-discover. Principles of learning include developmental movement patterns as a foundation for social, physical and psychological growth and development and exploration for anatomical systems in the body. Developmental movement patterns include cellular awareness and breathing.
References:
Fitt, S (1996) Dance Kinesiology. USA: Schirmer Books.
Glenna, B (2009) Somatic Studies and Dance. International Association for Dance Medicine and Science. Available at: http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.iadms.org/resource/resmgr/resource_papers/somatic_studies.pdf [Accessed 8 January 2015].