Last month, Bonnie and Len went to Taitung, Taiwan where Bonnie taught at the 2012 International Somatic Movement Education Symposium at the National Taitung University. The Somatic Department was started by Professor Mei-Chu Liu and her husband, Professor Dah-Feng Lin. They both received their PhD degrees in somatics at Ohio State University. The somatics program there was under the direction of Sy Kleinsmith, who was a classmate of Bonnie’s when she was a student at OSU. Small world! During her PhD studies, Mei-Chu also completed the Body-Mind Centering® practitioner program and incorporates this work along with other approaches in her classes in Taitung. The department they created is impressive. They provide students with a wide variety of movement and exercise approaches grounded in the broader field of somatics.
Taitung is a small, relaxed city nestled between the mountains and the sea on the southeast coast of Taiwan. Very different from the bustle of Taipei with its three and a half million people, Taitung is easy going and exceptionally friendly. This was Bonnie’s fifth time teaching there. Two additional reasons Bonnie likes it there is because there is a wonderful tai chi teacher, Johnson Yu, a block from where she and Len stay and she also studies Chinese brush painting (another of Bonnie’s passions) with Jin-Lan (Mei-Chu’s sister-in-law).
Bonnie presented a one-day pre-conference workshop on the Dynamics of Senses and Perception. In it, she explored the interplay and integration of patterns of perception between our cellular consciousness and nervous system awareness. Her conference workshop was on Embodying Form and Flow which explored embodied anatomy from the perspective of development. Other presenters at the conference were Lara Liu (Feldenkrais Method) from France, and Sheryl Feniger (Five Rhythms) from Hong Kong.
Many thanks to Professors Mei-Chu Liu and Dah-Feng Lin for organizing another wonderful conference, to Mei-Chu for her many hours of translation, to Ms. Wong for administrative support and to all the students, staff and participants for welcoming us so warmly and enthusiastically.