Somatic Foundations of Therapeutic Touch and Movement – CE Course – Boulder at Boulder School of Massage Therapy – Boulder, CO

Stop "Leaning In" and Start Getting Results. Do you ever find yourself physically exhausted, waiting, and hoping, for a client's muscle to finally release? Have you been gradually shrinking your avaialbility and/or increasing the time you spend on self-care?

You know that massage can be incredibly valuable, but it's hard to predict when it will work and when it won't because so much of your results rely on something shifting within your client. This course will help you understand why it is that sometimes your clients can't let go and how to more consistently and reliebly get them to melt on your table; without force, strain, over unnecessary effort.

In this 2-day intensive, you’ll move beyond "chasing pain" and learn a repeatable, neuro-based framework to unlock chronic tension from the inside out.

• Predictable Results: Stop guessing. Use clinical somatics to address the root cause of tension.
• Save Your Career: Reduce the physical toll on your hands and back by letting the client’s nervous system do the heavy lifting.
• Deepen Your Practice: Bridge the gap between traditional massage and neurophysiology.

What's covered in the course

20% is lecture and information on Somatic Philosophy and the neurophysiology of touch and movement. We will discuss how to flip your perspective from working on bodies to working with somas. We will explore the duality of structures and functions rather than mind and body to understand how somatic practices create physiological, emotional, and cognitive transformations.

10% is somatic practices for your self-care. You will learn simple practices to resotre your own myofascial integrity that you can also teach to your clients.

70% is learning and practicing somatic techiques, both how to modify your current massage techniques and how clinical somatic techniques out of the Hanna Somatic Education Lineage

This continuing education course is approved for 16 CEs by the NCBTMB.

Your instructor, Gabriel Posner, Ph.D., is a Certified Hanna Somatic Educator and Licensed Massage Therapist with 2 decades of experience working with people suffering from musculoskeletal pain and movement dysfunction. By bringing somatic concepts and techniques into massage therapy sessions, he have discovered that clients can unwind much more quickly, deeply, and lastingly. Instead of leaning in and waiting for someone's muscle to relax, these techniques will help you activate your clients' own powers of self-regulation to unwind from the inside out.

Imagine how easy your jobs would be if your clients released their own muscles.

Participants will learn to:

• Work smarter, not harder
• Invite clients to actively participate in their healing process
• Engage clients' motor and sensory centers to unwind from the inside out
• Apply clinical somatic techniques within massage session
• Use traditional massage therapy techniques to help clients develop greater awareness of and control over their bodies.
• Use simple, somatic self-care practices to help maintain and improve their own musculoskeletal health.

In preparation for this workshop, I am hosting two online information sessions. Attendance is not a prerequisite for registering for the CE course but highly encouraged.

Info Session #1 Tuesday, September 29th, 7:00-8:00 Mountain Time.

This FREE Zoom meeting dives into the "Mind-Muscle” connection; how behavior and experience shape the body.

We’ll explore how integrating somatic work into manual therapy sessions allows you to work with the nervous system rather than just on the muscles — leading to deeper releases and longer-lasting effects with less effort.

This will be an experiential presentation, followed by a Q&A session.

Registration in advance in required for this meeting:

https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/DrJTGdiFR2O6OWoCXPqKoA

Info Session #2 Tuesday, October 20th, 7:00 PM Mountain Time

This FREE Zoom meeting dives into the topic "Understanding How Trauma Shows up in the Treatment Room and What You Can Do"

Sometimes our clients will tell us about the trauma they have experienced, but often they will not, and yet it is something we deal with in our sessions. In this presentation, we will explore how trauma can be identified during assessment and how you can be better prepared to guide your client through a healing experience when their past suddently shows up during your session.

This will be an experiential presentation, followed by a Q&A session.

Register in advance is required for this meeting:

https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/jiGXLLsPRleBXM204pg3nQ

*DISCLAIMERS* : This workshop is designed for Certified or Licensed massage therapists. Are you a wellness professional who uses touch therapeutically but not a massage therapist who still wants to attend? Physical Therapists, Personal Trainers, Yoga Therapists and others are also welcome. Message me first to discuss.

While the location of the course is the Boulder School of Massage Therapy, it is not being offered by BSMT. This is an independent CE course.

Meet Your Facilitator:

Gabriel Posner PhD, LMT, RSMT/E, NCBTMB Approved Provider

Gabriel Posner, PhD, is a Certified Hanna Somatic Educator and Licensed Massage Therapist living and working in Denver, Colorado. Gabriel has 20 years of experience working with people suffering from musculoskeletal pain and movement dysfunction. Gabriel is a trainer with Essential Somatics and is the current President of the Board of Directors as well as Director of Research for the Association of Hanna Somatic Education. He studied psychology at Ithaca College, then immediately enrolled in massage school at the National Holistic Institute, the same school he taught at for six years, later down the road. While he found a love for bodywork, Gabriel also developed chronic musculoskeletal pain and stumbled onto Hanna Somatic Education during his journey to alleviate his pain. Finding this clinical somatic work to be effective for his own pain, Gabriel completed a 3-year training program at the Novato Institute to become a Certified Hanna Somatic Educator. In 2006, Gabriel opened up his private practice and, since then, has been developing a blend of Hanna Somatic Education and neuromuscular therapy. In 2015, he went back to school to earn his master's and then a doctorate in Mind-Body Medicine from Saybrook University. His dissertation was an observational study of current-day Hanna Somatic Education practice. He has presented internationally and published multiple articles on the topic of Hanna Somatic Education. When not teaching, writing, researching, or practicing, Gabriel can be found skiing, mountain biking and generally playing all throughout Colorado with his wife and three children.

Learn more about Gabriel + his practice