Instructor: Mary Reis

Time: 9AM-6PM (with 90-minute lunch)
Workshop Price: $600 for new students / $300 to repeat / $200 deposit
Location: Gainesville Retreat Center
CE Hours: 24 Florida and NCBTMB

Suggested Reading: 

An Osteopathic Odyssey by James Jealous
Engaging the Movment of Life by Bonnie Gintis
Interface by R. Paul Lee
Stillness by Charles Ridley

Students will need to bring a massage table, 2 flat sheets, two pillows, and a blanket.

To Register: Contact Mary Reis at mary@touchofpresence.com or 352-246-6280 ph/txt

Classes will take place at the Gainesville Retreat Center, located on over 100 acres of conservation land on the eastern edge of Gainesville. Onsite lodging is available. To make lodging reservations, please contact Dan Smith at the Gainesville Retreat Center:

https://gainesvilleretreatcenter.com

352-316-6696

This course is an introduction to the Biodynamic Craniosacral Approach, which can be offered as a pure hands-on practice, or incorporated as a primary disposition that integrates and informs any other modality, as well as daily life. It is followed by a deeper dive opportunity in the form the Intensive Course which spans four 4-day weekends over the course of 1 year.

The Biodynamic Cranial Approach Introduction allows students to learn directly through felt-sense-experience by feelingly inhabiting the inner body space.  Rather than focusing on an outside-in model of learning (like focusing on craniosacral anatomy or treatment protocols) this course allows students to learn directly via supervised session exchanges and group discussions.  Embodiment and centering practices lay the foundation for the work, and the “teaching” comes from the “inside-out” via the students’ direct experiences.

During the Introduction Course students learn to touch from a grounded sense of present awareness in a way that is non-efferent (meaning ‘I don’t leave here to go over there’), non-doing (being practice, not doing practice), and in tonal resonance with primary respiration and the natural inherent Health and Wisdom of the body. Great care and emphasis are made to cease all efferent activity and intervention, encouraging students to stay with the feeling-tone (or felt-sense) of what is, as it is.  Without the symptom-treatment overlay, students rest in silence, stillness, and their natural state of presence and being to directly access primary respiration in their inner bodies.  This approach & teaching method mirror one of the instructions of Dr. William Sutherland – to “trust the tide”.  By allowing the inherent physiological forces within to guide the sessions and the learning, the natural world and the Breath of Life begin to reveal themselves.  

This course is Open to anyone wishing to develop personally or to investigate pursuing a committed professional track.  The Introductory Course is for all health practitioners, psychotherapists, movement therapists, and bodyworkers new to cranial work.  It is required for all craniosacral practitioners or other biodynamic practitioners who wish to learn more about the type of biodynamics we teach before undertaking a committed yearlong study of Biodynamic Cranial Approach ~ Touch of Presence® Intensive.

This course is the required prerequisite for the next Intensive which begins the following weekend. The courses will run:
August 1-4, 2024
December 5-8, 2024
April 3-6, 2025
August 7-10, 2025

Contact Mary Reis with any questions regarding the class or to register: mary@touchofpresence.com or 352-246-6280 ph/txt

Mary’s 30 year career in the Massage Therapy field spans 3 decades of private practice and teaching. As an instructor at the Florida School of Massage since 1995, she continues to support the mission of the school — to improve the quality of life through the vehicles of touch and awareness — in all of her classes.

Mary began her study in the Cranial Field in 1998, and has been studying with Giorgia Milne since the early 2000’s. Her experience with 3 different schools lead to developing her own CE course — “An Introduction to Craniosacral Work: History, Foundations, and the 3 Main Approaches”. Mary has been working closely with Giorgia Milne and the Biodynamic Cranial Approach since 2011, and now teaches the BCA Introduction for Giorgia’s school — Touch of Presence® School for Biodynamic Studies.

Massage Therapy drew Mary into the bodywork field in 1993. Most recently, it is her study and practice in the Cranial Field that she finds most nourishing and enriching. It reveals and makes tangible the mysteries of life and love, and deepens her appreciation for being in this world.

For information about Touch of Presence® School for Biodynamic Studies other courses (Craniosacral Anatomy, The Brain, Embryology, and Navigation Skills, Fulcrums: Portals of Wholeness, and Fluids & Space: Explorations Between & Beyond) please go to her website www.touchofpresence.com.