Class Series

Postural Awareness & Embodied Attunement for Helping Professionals: Dances of The Living Spine with Maria Luisa Diaz de Leon, MA, MSME/T, REAT 

May 1, May 15, and May 29, 2026 • 12-3pm Eastern U.S. time
Find your local time here. 

The registration deadline is April 24, 2026.  

Live participation is strongly encouraged. However, if you are unable to attend as session, the recordings will be available to all who have registered for the course. 

This course is designed for somatic movement practitioners, counselors, coaches, facilitators, and other dedicated helping professionals who are seeking embodied approaches to ground and refine the quality of their work.  

This course fosters professional development by expanding participant’s capacity to integrate somatic movement into their practice, moving beyond verbal instruction or mere application of techniques to embody presence as a core intervention, living dance, and sustainable practice. Professionals will learn practices to notice and respond to their own soma during interactions enhancing clarity, attunement, and authentic connection within the flow of the interaction, so it is perceived as cocreating a dance.  

This course is grounded in the Tamalpa Life/Art Process®, an intermodal expressive arts approach co-developed by Anna and Daria Halprin that integrates somatic movement, dance explorations, art-making, and reflective practices and will be used to support the participants embodiment of soft skills such as presence, listening, and attunement. The main methods and models of the Tamalpa work that will be introduced are:body part mapping and movement metaphors, three levels of awareness and aesthetic feedback, psychokinetic imagery process, and life/art integration. In addition, a mythosomatic framework will underline the relationship between somatic tracking and mythic imagination. 

Emphasis is placed on the living axis of the spine as the anchor of postural awareness, exploring its connection to breath, facial expression, and lower body support. The course explores how the spine organizes postures, how facial expressions reveal and/or conceal emotions, and how heart and breath coherence strengthen agency and resilience. Through somatic movement, dance explorations, mythic imagination, archetypes, and expressive arts participants will gain practices to develop embodied attunement.  

Postural awareness and embodied attunement are key in: 

• mobilizing stagnant processes  
• lowering the risk of burnout  
• increasing the capacity to tune into self which helps in setting agendas aside and tune into the client  
• deepening the ability to listen which leads to greater compassion for their clients 

Participants will apply their learning directly to their current practice by implementing new techniques and tools and by developing their somatic sensitivity and aesthetic relational skills as embodied practitioners.

Marialuisa Diaz de Leon Zuloaga, MA, MSMT, MSME, REAT, is a Mexican-American somatic movement therapist and educator, expressive arts therapist, Tamalpa practitioner, performing artist, and independent scholar with other 25 years of experience integrating psychology, somatics, and the arts. Her work bridges education, private practice, and community intervention, and through her practice, Mythic Life, she guides individuals and groups using a forward thinking integration of somatic movement, myth, expressive arts and archetypal psychology. Marialuisa’s background includes significant leadership and teaching roles that reflect deep professional engagements with somatic movement education. She served as program director and core faculty at the Tamalpa Institute, where she continues to mentor and supervise advanced students completing certification fieldwork. As adjunct faculty at Southwestern College, she teaches within the counseling and art therapy programs, supporting developing professionals in strengthening relational, embodied, and imaginal capacities. She served on the ISMETA Board of Directors, including three years as Board President. Her work has been featured internationally in conferences, podcasts, and online summits in both English and Spanish. She is an active contributor to peace education initiatives and is a faculty member for a peace education certificate program through the National Peace Commission in Mexico (COMNAPAZ). 

Course Information

Cancellation Policy:
If a participant cancels their registration to any paid offering in the Professional Development Center,
they will receive the following refund:
• Full refund minus the PayPal fees, more than 4 weeks before the event begins
• 75% refund from 1 - 4 weeks before the event begins
• 50% refund from 1 - 6 days before the event begins
• No refund on the day that the event begins or while it is in progress
ISMETA reserves the right to cancel any offering in the Professional Development Center before the course begins due to unforeseen circumstances. In this case, a full refund will be given.