CLASS SERIES

Body and breath as sanctuary; Unwinding the long term effects of trauma
With Petra Pensky, MSMT

Series of six sessions: Thursdays, October 1 - November 5, 2026 • 12pm-2pm Eastern U.S. time
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The registration deadline is September 24, 2026.

PLEASE NOTE: You will receive a DISCOUNT COUPON CODE for a $50 off the cost of the Full Course by registering for the Free Introduction (INSERT LINK)!

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

DESCRIPTION:

Healing does not end in therapy; it continues a step at a time through embodied attention in daily life. A client’s transformation arises incrementally by cultivating their own daily personal somatic practice. Body and breath become a dependable sanctuary — a safe and steady place to return to again and again. Drawing from Somatic Expression® by Jamie McHugh, MSMT, participants explore movement, breath, sound, stillness, and touch as basic technologies for self-regulation and well being. Professionals learn to translate these somatic resources into their teaching and client work—helping others reclaim a sense of bodily authority and safety. The emphasis is not on intervention, but on cultivating embodied resilience and presence. By engaging their own bodies as instruments of awareness and empathy, participants strengthen their capacity to create trauma-informed spaces where students and clients can reconnect with the body as a source of stability, creativity, and connection. Weaving movement awareness into daily life practice, we go to the next step in trauma recovery: affirming the intelligence of lived experience through the power of embodied presence. By the end of this course, practitioners will deepen their capacity to perceive the quiet traces of trauma, empower clients in their own healing journey, and inhabit a compassionate presence in their professional and personal lives.

This course deepens professional practice by refining participants’ sensitivity to the subtle embodied patterns often present in trauma recovery. Through experiential learning and personal practice, professionals deepen their understanding of how the residue of trauma may emerge through movement, breath, and relational dynamics. Participants learn to recognize these traces with attuned perception in order to respond from embodied presence instead of only analysis or technique. The training cultivates self-regulation, co-regulation, and the capacity to hold a safe, responsive learning environment. Through the lens of Somatic Expression, practitioners gain tools to guide students and clients in developing personal somatic practices that foster autonomy, resilience, and post-traumatic growth. For somatic movement educators, this training strengthens their ability to facilitate safe embodied exploration and integration with clarity and compassion. For those in complementary fields—psychotherapy, yoga therapy, bodywork, and coaching—it offers frameworks for weaving somatic practice into existing modalities. Ultimately, the course contributes to a culture of embodied professionalism: one rooted in the intelligence of the moving body and respect for the body’s innate capacity to heal.

Participants will:
• Deepen their embodied understanding of how trauma residue can manifest through movement, breath, and relational patterns, learning to recognize these signs in themselves and in those they support.
• Explore somatic resources from Somatic Expression—movement, breath, sound, stillness, and touch—to support self-regulation, co-regulation, and the cultivation of safety in themselves and with others.
• Learn to apply somatic tools and frameworks that support students and clients in establishing their own daily body–breath practices, fostering autonomy, safety, and embodied presence in daily life.

Petra Prensky, MSMT, is a Registered Master Somatic Movement Therapist and a member of ISMETA for more than 20 years. She is a Tamalpa Life/Art practitioner, a twice certified yoga teacher, and a registered Kinaesthetics trainer with kinaesthetics.ch. Petra co-authored the 2017 book "Sanfte Bewegtheit" (Gentle Movement) about dancer and Anna Halprin’s early collaborator John Graham, who developed Gentle Dance. Petra grew up in Switzerland with a deep love for movement, practicing Yoga and Jazz Dance from an early age. She began teaching at 16, accumulating 40 years of experience in movement education. Her teaching style is clear, empathetic, and playful, creating a safe space for deep exploration. Having lived on Maui, Hawaii for 20 years, she brings the spirit of Aloha into her work. She has returned to Switzerland where she spent the last eight years and counting working in a nursing home, supporting caregivers and elderly clients (80+ years of age) dealing with dementia and end-of-life transitions.

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.