Body Tales: In Depth Training

In-Depth Trainings

In-depth programs include:

Monthly Program
Performance Training
Teacher Training
Teacher Certification

Body Tales Monthly Group

with Body Tales Founder Olivia Corson

Within this intimate and respectful group, we weave skill and confidence in navigating the places of body and soul that hold our challenges and our treasures, our losses and our liberation. We follow and commune with our inner-directed movement, sound, embodied memories and storiesinviting and receiving support to sense, feel and express; to supportively witness ourselves, one another and our world; and to encourage and contribute our particular gifts. We wrestle with and learn from issues, events, and patterns which touch and engage us, and call us to respond, to learn and to grow. Respectfully incorporating imagery, writing and drawing, we follow inner directives; sharing, healing and creating from, and for, our real lives.

Meets one Saturday a month, 1 to 6 pm in Berkeley. See dates, location, cost, and other details on classes page.
Group is limited to 12 participants, by application.
Each commitment cycle is usually for 7 consecutive sessions across 6 months: 6 Saturdays plus one Sunday informal performance/sharing. Performing is always optional! No one is pressured to perform. Everyone is supported to participate at the level that works well for them. These are wonderful events - valuable to our human communities!

Call Olivia Corson for info and registration: 510 532-1020

Particular places of focus and training include:

Receptivity & Discernment: Caring for the core of our creativity and healing: Shifting from over-stimulation, over-doing, and overwhelm — into communing, learning and renewing within our individual Body, and our larger Earth Body's vital wisdom and re-generative powers. We strengthen our discernment and practices around contacting, valuing, and actively receiving what is helpful, wanted and needed — within the wealth of our earth/body experience and intelligence.

Imagery & Allies: Inviting, communing and learning with Earth allies; embodied memories, creatures (including humans!), plants, elements, places — that often generously come forward in our inner world to share guidance, kinship and resources, and to offer mutual support, healing and inspiration. We practice allowing and witnessing what shows up; letting them be themselves — where and how they are. Using image intelligence, drawing and writing, along with BT, we contact and commune with particular, wise, and often quite surprising Earth Allies.

Movement & Dance: Working without music — and with movement, sound (and sometimes with words), conscious touch, (touch is always optional) and low and slow contact improvisation, we practice encouraging and allowing ourselves to explore, feel, and express, and to receive helpful information. We notice, learn and gain skill and capacity for re-balancing our energy flow, releasing binding energy, and receiving renewal, inner guidance, love and healing. Touch in Body Tales is always optional — everyone is encouraged to check in with, and respect, their changing needs, desires and capacities around touch, contact and weight sharing.

Family & Culture: Encouraging and Respecting Diversity, we explore and share our embodied lineage stories, navigate challenges and mobilize resources. We practice recognizing, respecting and repairing our internalized patterns of relatedness, and our familiar ways of being, reacting, and responding within our family, and our culture of origin, and with our chosen family/close humans. We practice re-claiming and strengthening access with our body, and with the larger earth's, needs and resources; bringing calming, inclusion and deep listening to our creature self; and strengthening essential kinship with the larger Earth. We develop and practice supported and supportive witnessing of ourselves, one another and our world.

More information about Body Tales
Download application in Microsoft Word

See dates, location, cost and other details on classes page.

ONLINE REGISTRATION AVAILABLE (upon acceptance)

Body Tales Teacher Training

Offers ways to:

Develop essential new leadership skills
Learn Body Tales teaching methods and theory
Gain practice in teaching and assisting Body Tales classes
Strengthen your inner teacher and positive self-witness
Cultivate strategies for self-care and effective sustainable teaching
Nurture your own style and focus for teaching Body Tales
Learn to create and maintain sacred space for communication, artistry and healing
Clear pathways and mend past blocks around teaching and leadership roles
Set realistic teaching goals and receive guidance in reaching them
Build a vital network to support you in offering to offer your passion, vision and commitment out to the world

"Body Tales moves me to a new level in my own creative process. It frees my energy and opens me up to express myself more strongly and confidently. The exercises provoke deep investigation and exploration. I feel seen, heard and valued for who I am."
— Steve Adams, artist

Background: Body Tales Teacher Training

We have offered four Body Tales Teacher Training programs since 1996. Past teacher trainings have included comprehensive lectures and discussions on Body Tales form and theory; in-depth experiential Body Tales work; and focus on core relationships to leadership — both internal and external. Participants taught open-to-the-public Body Tales classes and attended classes taught by fellow BT student teachers. Each person received specific instruction, support and individualized feedback about their student teaching.

The program's curriculum was guided and supported by the Body Tales Teacher Training Workbook/Manual; which included detailed components and foundations for teaching Body Tales and worksheets designed for personal inquiry relevant to teaching Body Tales. BTTT participants have gone on to integrate Body Tales into their personal and professional lives.

Body Tales Teacher Certification

The Body Tales Teacher Certification Program began in 2003. It is designed for people who have completed Body Tales Teacher Training and want to continue on to become certified instructors.

This process involves further Body Tales training and apprenticeship, individual meetings with core faculty, and student teaching with observation, supervision and support. Once certified, new teachers become a part of the Body Tales teachers' network, which shares organizational resources and responsibilities including participation in an annual certified teachers retreat.

"Body Tales has helped me weave together the flowing feminine side of myself with the clear practical side. These two aspects — the mystical and the direct — now dance together."
— Judi Williams, holistic skincare salon owner