Directory of Leaders

Meet Sensory Awareness Leaders Guild members from around the world who are actively offering classes, workshops, and private sessions.

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Alicia Saturio Silva

Spain
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Àngels Massagué Magriña

Barcelona
I was born in Barcelona in 1957. I hold a degree in Educational Sciences and am currently a Sensory Awareness Leader. I enjoy feeling integrated in nature and listening to and participating in life, learning moment by moment. I have worked with musicians, dance groups, expectant couples, and groups of all ages. I use Sensing as a working methodology in all my groups, including Conscious Gesture, and in the trainings I offer in Pelvis and Birth, Perineum—Integration and Movement, Synovia, and Respiratory Kinetics.

Anna Shemin

Berkeley, CA
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Cathy Edgett

Mill Valley, CA
I came to Sensory Awareness in 1993. I’d just returned from trekking in the Khumbu area of Nepal, and walked right into what I’d experienced there. I studied with Charlotte in Mexico, on Monhegan Island, and at Green Gulch. Wanting more ways to share, I became a Rosen Method bodywork practitioner as I immersed in a variety of somatic modalities including Essential Motion with Karen Roeper. When I went through chemotherapy and radiation in 2005 and 2006, Sensory Awareness saved me. I wrote about my experience in Breast Strokes.
Professional photo of Chester Howard

Chester Howard

Pasadena CA
Chester lives life with curiosity and advocates for others to do the same. He has been in private practice in Pasadena, California, since 1985 and is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and psychotherapist, a Sensory Awareness leader, and a certified practitioner/teacher of Integrative Body Psychotherapy. Chester also uses street smarts and the influences of race and culture on our senses with individuals and communities. Since 1995, Sensory Awareness has been foundational to his practice and life. It is a portal to our heart, essence, being, and to experiencing renewed balance and aliveness.
Portrait of Christine Rainer

Christine Rainer

Eberschwang
From 1986 to 1989, I studied Feldenkrais with Ned Dwelle and Eutony with Marianne Kjellrupp in Munich. In 1990, I participated in a study group with Charlotte Selver at Green Gulch Farm. Since then, I have been on the Sensory Awareness and Zen path, together with Hans Rainer, and guided by Peggy Zeitler, Krista Sattler, Anna Tardos, Vanja Palmers, and Brother David Steindl-Rast. I am the mother of four adult children. Currently, I offer Sensory Awareness seminars and individual sessions, as well as Pikler® training and consultation for caregivers and early childhood institutions.
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Claudia Caviezel

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Denise Gabriel

San Diego, CA
Denise was introduced to Sensory Awareness and the teachings of Charlotte Selver in the 1980s. This study also guided her to the practice and lineage of Suzuki Roshi and Soto Zen meditation. In 2008 she took formal Jukai at Hokyoji Temple in Fukui Japan with her teacher Taihaku Nichiren Priest. She became recognized as a Leader of Sensory Awareness in 2012 from mentorship with Lee Klinger Lesser. Currently living in San Diego California, she offers classes and is in collaboration with Pat Baxter and Micheal Richter for SALTI (Selver Awareness Leaders Training Institute) a two year, four module program.
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Dr. Krista Sattler

Frastanz

Edward (Ned) Dwelle

Wolfratshausen

Eli Gordoa

Spain
I came to Sensory Awareness at a time when my health was in a very fragile state, and this practice brought about a profound change in my life. Being present with my illness and listening deeply to my body and my being became the starting point for recovery. I am a Sensory Awareness leader, musician, music therapist, and experimental guitar teacher. In all the activities I offer, Sensory Awareness is present, with presence and deep listening as the point of departure.
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Elisabeth Lenzen

Andernach
She is a licensed practitioner for body-oriented psychotherapy (HPG) and a certified physical education teacher. The central focus of her many years of professional work is the question of movement as an art that supports personal development, healing, and the maintenance of health. Her work is grounded in the integration of diverse movement- and mindfulness-based approaches, including Feldenkrais, Eutony, Dance Therapy, Initiatory Therapy, Zen Buddhism, Sufism (Pir Zia), and the work of teachers who have been particularly influential to her: Peter Loomans (Personal Bodywork), Dr. H. Heinl (Integrative Body- and Movement Therapy / Thymopractice), I. Koch-Lauscher (Breathwork according to Middendorf & Vening), Seymour Carter (Sensory Awareness), S. Harper (Continuum Movement), Ute Strub (Hengstenberg-Pikler Work), H. Petzold (Gestalt and Integrative Therapy), R. C. Schwartz / S. McConnell (Somatic IFS), among others.
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Elisenda Vila

Sant Cugat del Vallès (Vallès Occidental)
I am a psychologist and psychotherapist, trained at the Erich Fromm Institute in Barcelona, and trained in Sensory Awareness with Krista Sattler. I accompany people in finding their path of awareness and their inner space of freedom—and whenever possible, I play and let my imagination and creativity take flight, creating small jewels.
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Ellen Lima

Barcelona
Ellen Lima has been a practitioner of meditation and somatic education for over 20 years. When she discovered Sensory Awareness nearly ten years ago, the feeling of “coming home” was so profound that she eventually became an authorized facilitator of this work, which—for her—helps us live with greater openness, trust, and kindness. Her teachers are Lee Lesser and Enric Briguera. Ellen is a teacher of Mindfulness and Compassion, Therapeutic Yoga, and a specialist in Somatics and Meditation. She is Brazilian and lives in Barcelona, Spain.
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Enric Bruguera

Palafrugell (Girona)
He began his relationship with this work over 25 years ago, driven by an interest in observing sensations and the perceptual possibilities of the human organism. He offers Sensory Awareness workshops in many cities across Spain and internationally, including the United States, Mexico, Chile, Italy, India, and Argentina. Since 2013, he has organized and directed online Sensory Awareness courses in Spanish. Together with his wife, Núria Vives, he co-directs the L’Eix Center for Body Pedagogy in Palafrugell (Girona). He currently serves as President of the Sensory Awareness Leaders Guild.
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Ephraim Williams

North Hollywood, CA
Ephraim has been practicing Sensory Awareness since 2017. With over 15 years of dance training under his belt, Ephraim has studied several different methods of using the body and Sensory Awareness brings them all together. Movement is life, and sensing – he believes – is the best way to fall into a deeper union with the physical world around you. Ephraim strives to offer invitations that guide the sensor into a deeper curiosity about their experience, leaving silence and space to explore with themselves and the environment around them. Ephraim offers one on one sessions as well as group sessions via zoom and in-person.

Eugene Tashima

Davis, CA
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Eyal Yona

New York City
Eyal Yona is a Chinese Medicine Practitioner with more than a decade of clinical experience. Fascinated by the co-functioning of the body and mind in health and dis-ease, Sensory Awareness was the gateway for Eyal’s deep dive into the mysteries of our organism. Eyal is trained in Body-Mind modalities such as Somatic Experiencing (SE) and Unified Mindfulness, which together with Sensory Awareness integrated into his practice to support and provide tools for health and wellbeing. Eyal is dedicated to bringing more from the Sensory Awareness experience to others – authentic, raw, immediate, and without pretending.
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Fanny Morell

Juriquilla, QRO
She is a painter, sculptor, and writer. She taught Sculpture at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) for 30 years. In 1981, she met Charlotte Selver in Barra de Navidad and continued working with her until 2001. She later worked with Lee Klinger Lesser and subsequently joined Sensory Awareness Foundation as a Sensory Awareness leader. She has led workshops in Barra de Navidad for 12 years, as well as in Querétaro, Valle de Bravo, other locations in Mexico, and in Panama City. She also participated in workshops organized by Ray Fowler in Querétaro and at Rancho 7.
Portrait of Fernando Gil

Fernando Gil Montañez

Sevilla
He is a practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism in the Karma Kagyu lineage, having taken refuge in 1989. He is the creator of the MAD meditation courses and regularly facilitates Sensory Awareness classes and seminars. He leads summer retreats designed to reconnect with what is present in our lives and to create a space for regeneration, combining Sensory Awareness, meditation, and yoga as skillful means of returning to oneself. He is a kinesiologist and osteopath, which gives him a deep understanding of bodily processes and allows him to bring embodied presence into his teaching.
Portrait of Francesca Khanna

Francesca Khanna

Toronto, ON
I discovered the deep value of sensing in 1983 working with Charlotte Selver. I developed leading through Lee Lesser’s offering of deep and reliable support, a long, amazing journey. Following her BLM work I am studying how systemic racism is embodied unawares. I’ve hosted several series with Miren Salmeron leading us in sensing on being, emerging refreshed. A bow of gratitude to my many treasured teachers and colleagues: among these, Ray Fowler, Stefan Laeng, Misty Hannah, Pamela Blunt, Michael Atkinson, Cathy Edgett, Anna Shemin, Steven Rhodes, Peter Honerlage, Patricia Garcia and Eyal Yona.

Ginger Clark

Hoersholm
I live in Switzerland. After completing my studies in music (piano), I began searching for ways to move more consciously and freely at the piano, and to support my students in the same spirit. In 1985, I met Charlotte Selver. Many years of work with her followed, especially during three three-month study groups in California. It soon became clear: this work is about much more than “natural movement”—it is about life itself. Since 1995, I have been passing on this very precious work through individual sessions, group classes, and in my music teaching—you are warmly welcome.

Giselle Sato

Brazil
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Gloria Lerin

Barcelona
I first encountered Sensory Awareness in 1991. I worked with Charlotte Selver and Charles Brooks. I also met Krista Sattler and Ute Strub and I participated in workshops with Carola Speads and Alice Aginsky. I did Holistic Gymnastics training in Dr. Lily Eherenfried’s center and I have been working with Lee Klinger-Lesser since 2004. I give Sensory Awareness sessions, Gestalt Therapy, and psychotherapy (“Liberation of the Cuirasses”). I accompany people who feel the need to know themselves, connect with their healing potential and reconnect them to who they really are.

Günther Bechler

Ostfildern

Haley Brantley

United States

Hannah Rausch

Vienna

Hannah Woods Stallman

United States
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Helga Hoenen

Rottenburg
Helga Hoenen studied pedagogics, languages and physical education and worked at different universities in teacher training mainly teaching dance, skiing and outdoor activities. She started to study with Charlotte Selver in 1983, completed a Feldenkrais training in 1997,  accompanied many training as an assistant, and participated till 2011 in an Embodied Life program. Her way of offering the "work" to individuals and groups is a blend of these paths and related practices she got involved in. I'm grateful to have come into contact with different approaches that open up possibilities to come home to our true nature, to become more flexible and responsive, to sense more fully life within and around, to stay centered, grounded in midst of changes and challenges, to be curious, to feel joy and happiness - a rewarding way to uncover, unfold and sustain the life giving forces.

Helga Wolf

München

Imma Mallarch

Olot (La Garrotxa)
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Ina Dunkel

Barcelona
She teaches and accompanies processes of body awareness, conscious and creative movement. A dancer, she has had Sensory Awareness present in her life and professional work for over 30 years, becoming an increasingly valuable ally. The deep respect for and trust in the human potential fostered by this practice led her to Authentic Movement and Craniosacral Biodynamics as important elements of her training and professional activity. She is deeply grateful to Lee Klinger Lesser, Krista Sattler, and the entire community of practitioners.
Photo of Peggy Zeitler smiling

Ioana Cisek

München

Jane Vogel Riley

Rohnert Park, CA
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John Vitell

Charlotte Selver asked me to lead sensing over 20 years ago. It has been a great privilege and an unending responsibility. I am very happy that this work asks us to experiment without any authority whatsoever. This includes our own past experiences. Thus, we work together to explore the unknown joy of each moment. I have worked at the Omega Institute and other centers around Rhinebeck, NY and currently in Philmont, NY.
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Judyth O. Weaver

Seattle, WA
Judyth began studying Sensory Awareness in 1968 and feels she is still continuing her study to this day. A multifaceted teacher and counselor, with Ph.D. in Reichian Psychology, she was creator and founding chair of Santa Barbara Graduate Institute’s Program in Somatic Psychology where Sensory Awareness was a basic teaching in all the levels. She taught at the California Institute of Integral Studies for 25 years; and was founding faculty at Naropa Institute, creating its T’ai Chi Ch’uan program. She is certified in Reichian Therapy, Somatic Experiencing, massage, Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy, Pre and Perinatal Therapy, and is a senior teacher of T’ai Chi Ch’uan, Rosen Method and Sensory Awareness.

Judyth O. Weaver

Cortes Island, BC
See Judyth’s bio above.
Portrait of Julie Jilani Esterly, Sufi teacher and spiritual guide

Julie Esterly

Santa Cruz CA
Julie Jilani Esterly weaves the awakening of Sensory Awareness into her teaching, healing work and daily life. She began studying Sensing with Charlotte Selver in 1982. Her root lineage is the heart centered Sufi Ruhaniat International, which she serves as a senior teacher and Cherag (minister). She co-founded the Natural Deathcare Initiative in 2018 to encourage compassionate, equitable, and environmentally sound end-of-life practices

Laurie Latner

United States
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Lee Klinger Lesser

Mill valley, CA
Lee Klinger Lesser has been sharing the practice of Sensory Awareness in English and Spanish for fifty years. Her teaching and facilitation extend to diverse and often demanding contexts, including trainings for wildland firefighters, retreats for climate activists, and long-term work with military veterans. Her work is based on a deep respect for our inherent connection with nature, the resilience of the human spirit, and the power of community. Lee lived at the San Francisco Zen Center from 1978 to 1983, and Zen practice has continued to inform and enrich her life. She is the author of the book Return to Our Senses: A Path to Stability in an Unstable World.
Portrait of smiling outdoors with trees and sky in the background

Len Shemin

Berkeley, CA
In 1969 I first experienced Sensory Awareness with Charlotte Selver and Charles Brooks at Esalen Institute. After ten years of foreign travel I reconnected with them and also began a lifelong practice of Tai Chi and Vipassana meditation while continuing studying with Charlotte until her death in 2003. Later I joined Lee Lesser’s Sensory Awareness leadership training for a decade. In recent years I’ve been exploring non dual teachings, investigating the interface between our separateness and our interconnectedness. Sensory Awareness is an important anchor for me in all these related practices.
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Leonore Quest

Berlin
She began her work with Ilse Middendorf through formal training and many years of assisting. This breathwork, together with the subsequent years of study with Frieda Goralewski and Charlotte Selver—both in the lineage of Elsa Gindler—has shaped her life path. From 1970 onward, she taught courses initially in Berlin at the Max Reinhardt School, the Fritz Kirchhoff Acting School, and at the Schaubühne am Halleschen Ufer (later Lehniner Platz). She worked for many years at the Goralewski Institute and in the psychosomatic department of the Brandenburg Clinic in Bernau. She is currently in private practice. Since 2003, she has been offering weekly classes at the Bewegungsraum am Lietzensee in Berlin, as well as longer workshops together with Thomas Niering.
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Leslie French

Toronto, ON
I have been working, practicing and studying in the field of movement/modern dance/sensory awareness/authentic movement for many decades. I was fortunate to have many wonderful teachers: Charlotte Selver (Sensory Awareness), Til Thiele from the Wigman School in Berlin, Judith Koltai (Syntonics, Authentic Movement ), Janet Adler (Authentic Movement). I taught for 30 some years in a Theatre School as a movement teacher for budding young actors, as well as coaching/teaching movement for professional actors at the Stratford Theatre Festival in Canada.

Luci Abell

United States
Luci Abell was introduced to Sensory Awareness and began practicing with Denise Gabriel in 2018, and through the Selver Awareness Leadership Training Institute (SALTI) became a recognized leader in 2024. She offers in-person and online workshops, as well as one-on-one sensing sessions. Her leadership often centers around personal empowerment and freedom, and the awakening of inner quietness so compassionate heart/mind may become forefront. Luci is also a multifaceted artist and engages all her mediums through sensing.
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Luz Ma. Ramirez

Ciudad de México
Many years ago, I began a wonderful adventure with Charlotte Selver and Sensory Awareness—an adventure that changed my life and helped me feel increasingly free and dignified. As I became aware of how the ground supported me, how the earth seemed to pulse in rhythm with my heart and lungs, as if we were one, I gradually gained confidence in myself and made changes that transformed my life in unimaginable ways. Since then, I have shared this path of light with others, understanding that “with a little, much can be done.”
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Marcela Ávila Guirette

Ciudad de México
She has been a Sensory Awareness Leader since 1994. Charlotte was a gift of life for her—carried from moment to moment by “staying open to whatever presents itself”—and the work transformed her life. Since then, she has continued to practice and lead Sensory Awareness workshops, including Awaken Your Senses (“When you awaken, you allow yourself to blossom”). She has participated as a leader with SIDDHA YOGA MÉXICO, completed therapeutic training at the Erich Fromm School, and pursued studies in Transpersonal Psychology with the Nebadon Foundation. She has also served the community as a leader with FHADI (Humanist Foundation for the Support of People with Disabilities). For the past 24 years, she has been offering consultations as a Humanist Therapist.
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Maria Antonieta Osornio Ramirez

San Juan del Rio, QRO
She is a Humanistic Psychotherapist and has been a practitioner of Sensory Awareness since 1996. She was a student of Charlotte Selver and Lee Lesser, who trained her as a leader. For many years, she has offered workshops and classes, including work with a group of people with disabilities at the foundation she founded in 1991 (FHADI). She integrates this practice into her psychotherapeutic sessions as well as into her personal life, considering it her main support. “For me, Sensory Awareness is presence—the ability to savor each moment just as it presents itself, embracing that everything is exactly as it is…”
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Mariela Valdez

Ciudad de México
Logo-therapist. Sensory Awareness practitioner since 1998. Student of Charlotte Selver and Lee Klinger Lesser. I found this practice full of opportunities of exploring who I am and how do I respond to what each moment is asking, and the most important discovery, where I am responding from. Offering this rich soil with others is something that I deeply honor and bow to.
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Marsha Glassey

St. Petersburg, FL
Marsha was fortunate to have studied with Charlotte Selver and Charles Brooks from 1974 till 2001, participating in several study groups and many workshops in Mexico, California, Maine and Germany. Her background experience as an occupational therapist and massage therapist blend beautifully with Sensory Awareness as well as in her offering of classes for Yoga students. Currently she is deeply involved in the compassionate movement to help preserve children’s bodily integrity and medical freedom in the U.S. and the world.
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Mayte Criado

Madrid
Mayte Criado is a yoga and meditation teacher, author of the book Yoga in Evolution (Kairós Publishing), writer, and musician. She is the founder of the International Yoga School. She considers Sensory Awareness to be the essential foundation of yogic practice, and its principles and pedagogy are fully integrated into the yoga teacher training programs she has created and directs. She began her Sensory Awareness work with Lee Klinger Lesser. She also accompanies people in the process of dying and offers Restorative Yoga and Sensing within this context
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Megan Oots

Brooklyn, NY
Megan has been practicing sensory awareness since 2009. Her journey in sensing has offered personal growth, and leadership opportunities in both the sensing community and her job. In 2018, by western medical standards, Megan’s body faced challenges that resulted in an influx of chronic pain. Sensory awareness became more than a life-practice, but a necessity. According to multiple neurological medical journals using a “sensory trick” can often alleviate pain and symptoms for her condition. Megan’s personal journey with Sensory Awareness became centered around using sensation to explore and alleviate pain.
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Mercedes Lopez

Mexico City
Mercedes Lopez lives in Mexico City. She attended classes with Charlotte Selver and Charles Brooks on a regular basis since 1979 until they passed away. Mercedes has a Master’s degree in Psychology and has incorporated the practice of Sensory Awareness, as well as the studies on Buddhism that she has done for the past 10 years, into the model that she uses in her courses and her private practice.
Portrait of Michael Atkinson

Michael Atkinson

Michael Atkinson took his Ph.D in Phenomenology and for decades has explored the psychology of perception and the construction of meaning, literary and lived, as a university professor and a Sensory Awareness leader.  Michael began his study of Sensing in 1974, and was President of the Sensory Awareness Leaders’ Guild from 2014 to 2018. He is an ordained Buddhist Dharma Teacher, interested in the relation of Sensing to the deep seeing of contemplation, exploring how we are transformed as we meet life’s invitations more fully.
Portrait of Michael Richter

Michael Richter

La Paz, BCS
Michael Richter MA is an artist, teacher, community builder, coach/mentor, performer and researcher who helps individuals and organizations learn and grow via creative process and Sensory Awareness. He has developed and currently teaches in multiple online dance and somatic certification courses, including the Curriculum in Motion® Institute at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, the Language of Dance® Master Practitioner in motif notation, the Dancing Reading Online Group, and the Selver Awareness Leaders Training Institute. Michael also volunteers on the Board of the Sensory Awareness Leaders’ Guild.

Mireia Segura Gremme

Spain
From a very young age, I felt the impulse to find my own way of learning how to live. Dance was my first teacher—I learned to inhabit awareness, the body, and the present moment. Later, I explored other paths more deeply: Dance Pedagogy, Postural Re-education, Zen Shiatsu, Chi Kung, Visual Re-education, and Anthroposophy. When I began practicing with Krista Sattler and later with Lee Klinger Lesser, two life teachers for whom I feel deep gratitude, it felt like coming home—to the essence. Sensory Awareness became the pillar supporting all my work and my life path. I researched and developed the Gremme Method, a conscious practice for visual improvement, cultivating sensory observation and reconnection with the twelve human senses through movement, to revitalize and open perception to a more vivid and free experience. I offer group sessions and retreats, individual sessions for children and adults, and professional training for bodyworkers, health practitioners, and educators.
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Miren Elisabet Gordoa

Legazpi (Guipuzcoa)
Llegué al Sensory Awareness cuando me encontraba en un estado muy delicado de salud, y esta práctica supuso un gran cambio para mí. Estar presente en mi enfermedad y la escucha a mi cuerpo y a mi ser fue el punto de partida para la recuperación. Soy líder en consciencia sensorial, músico, musicoterapeuta y profesora de guitarra experimental. En todas las actividades que ofrezco la consciencia sensorial está presente y el lugar de partida son la presencia y la escucha a uno mismo.
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Miren Salmerón

Legazpi (Guipuzkoa)
I hold a degree in Physiotherapy (license no. 148) and am a certified osteopath (D.O.), with over 20 years of experience in private practice, specializing in pediatric and obstetric osteopathy. I am a member of the Sensory Awareness Leaders Guild and a student of Lee Klinger Lesser.
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Misty Hannah

Edinburgh, Scotland
Misty feels Sensory Awareness as a living practice. She is the founder/director of Compassionate Accompaniment CIC, a not for profit helping individuals and communities create compassionate care practices through Sensory Awareness and somatic movement. She is a qualified, registered, insured Somatic Movement Educator and Qi Gong/Taiji practitioner. She holds a Masters Degree in Dance and Somatic Well Being from University of Central Lancashire and is a registered professional member of ISMETA. Misty is a Sensory Awareness Leader and an End of Life Companion with a focus on grief support.
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Nicole Wache

Schlegldorf/Lenggries
In 2018, I attended a Sensory Awareness conference on Frauenchiemsee and was deeply impressed by the presence, calm, clarity, and wakefulness that the work brought me—and still brings me today. From that time on, I worked with Lee Klinger Lesser and have been part of the Leaders Guild since 2024. Professionally, I work in my own private practice as a (licensed) craniosacral therapist, teach yoga, and offer Sensory Awareness classes. My heart also lies in herbal medicine, mindfulness (Thich Nhat Hanh), energy medicine, and alternative women’s health. Sensory Awareness forms the foundation for all of this—and for my life.
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Norbert Erez Lyonn

Berlin
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Núria Martí Lluch

L’Ametlla del Vallès (Barcelona)
I discovered Sensing through Gloria Lerin and began to experience a different way of being and living—enjoying pauses and becoming more attentive to my perceptions. I trained in Holistic Gymnastics with Dr. Ehrenfried. Later, in 1997, I met Krista Sattler, and in 2011 Lee Lesser—my teachers, to whom I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to immerse myself more fully in what is essential within me. I manage a multidisciplinary center dedicated to serving people, where I lead body awareness sessions.
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Núria Vives

Palafrugell (Girona)
At the age of seven, I began dancing and later trained as a ballet teacher. I am a pedagogue and psychomotor therapist and worked accompanying children with difficulties. I studied and worked with Blandine Calais-Germain, author of Anatomy of Movement. Together, we co-authored Giving Birth in Movement, which has been translated into eight languages. I offer training in various countries on this subject. I discovered Sensory Awareness through Charles Brooks. For more than 30 years, together with my teachers Krista Sattler and Lee Klinger Lesser, my life and work have been forever transformed. Together with my husband, Enric Bruguera, I co-direct the Center for Body Pedagogy in Palafrugell.
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Olga Requena

Barcelona
Trained as a massage therapist and psychocorporal therapist, I encountered the work of Elsa Gindler and Charlotte Selver in the early 1990s through a book by Charles Brooks. In 2009, I began facilitating groups in conscious body practice, including Muscle Chain Stretching and Work with Bodily Potential. I connected with the practice of Sensory Awareness through Lee Klinger Lesser, whom I consider my teacher, continuing to explore how to live as a truly human being. It is an honor to accompany and support others on this path.
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Pamela Blunt

Bisbee, AZ
I joined the SALG in 2014 and acted as Director of the SAF in 2015 and 2016. I began the study and practice of Sensory Awareness in 1980. This work deepens and permeates the experiencing of everything, so all that has followed in my life has been profoundly enriched by it. I hope that has spread out to serve others. Now retired from an Intermodal Expressive Arts therapy practice, I live in the beautiful, high desert of southeastern Arizona with my husband, where we enjoy art making and quiet hikes.

www.pamelablunt.com

Pat Baxter

United States
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Pat Meyer-Peterson

Charlottesville, VA
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Peggy Zeitler

München
She is a U.S. American who studied Indology and has lived in Munich since 1967. Her background includes Gestalt therapy and Sensory Awareness, and she maintains a private practice for Sensory Awareness. She is associated with the Peggy Zeitler Publishing House, a founding member and board member of Wege der Entfaltung e.V., a founding member of Pikler Verband Europa e.V., and serves as a Pikler advisor.
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Peter Honerlage

Ciudad de México
I have been practicing Sensing since 1987 and for some years I have been a leader and I regularly give face-to-face and zoom workshops. Sensing has changed my life.
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Ray Fowler

Winchester, VA
I have been a student of Sensory Awareness since 1970 and studied with Charlotte Selver for thirty-two years. The practice of Sensory Awareness continues to show me a potential in living which I did not know existed until I became deeply moved by its simple power. It has had a profound influence on how I meet the world today. I continue to offer retreats each summer on Monhegan Island (ME). Previously, I gave sessions at The Gestalt Institute of New York, Ohio University and Johns Hopkins University. Furthermore, I have had an inspiring life as an orchestral conductor and a forever-surprised father.
Portrait of Richard Lowe

Richard Lowe

Alameda, CA
After many years of study with Charlotte Selver and Charles Brooks, and with Charlotte’s approval I began offering classes in this work in1988. I helped create the Sensory Awareness Leaders’ Guild and was its first president. I’ve also served as the Executive Director of the SAF and as the co-editor of Reclaiming Vitality and Presence. Now retired from a long career as a psychotherapist I now enjoy offering Zoom classes in sensing, gardening, writing poetry, taking care of my active grandson, and exploring the fascinating art of making three point basketball shots.

Robert Smith

New York City
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Ruth Kerr

Guelph, ON
Hi, I’m Ruth, a version 3.0 Leader, trained by trainees of Charlotte Selver, and thereby benefitting from their continued refinement of ‘The Work’. Nature, human and otherwise, fundamentally influences the individual and group sessions I offer, while my tendency towards quirkiness and creativity adds a certain ‘flavour’ to our experiments! The aliveness I glean from this practice infiltrates many aspects of my lived-experiences, and my desire is to support this ember of vitality in other humans 🙂B.Sc., Gestalt Psychotherapist, + Mom
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Sara Bragin

Santa Monica, CA
My journey to Sensory Awareness began the moment I was born and promised never to lose the gift of being fully alive. Life happened, living became life and four decades passed before I would meet Charlotte Selver. I wanted the vitality I saw in her. She was 91. I followed her everywhere. After she died, I joined a study group with Lee Lesser, which led to my becoming a leader. Committed to passing on the beauty of living aware, I work with writers, individuals and small groups. Ray Fowler insists that my memoir, The Living In Her Dying, is packed with sensing.+

Sascha Rimasch

Hesse, Germany
I came to Charlotte Selver by chance in 1996. With Charlotte, I found what I had always been missing, and this is what I try to pass on. Over time, a number of people have gathered around me who have been working with me for many years. It is beneficial for all of us, and if you would like to join us, you are very welcome. We also work by phone, so anyone can participate from anywhere.
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Shelley Hainer

New York City
Certified in anti-gymnastics/Therese Bertherat (1984-86) in the lineage of Elsa Gindler; with Carola Speads, Gindler teacher who wrote Ways to Better Breathing. Since 2015, Shelley joined Sensory Awareness Foundation conferences: New York City, Mexico, California, Monhegan Island, and Germany. Dancer, actor, poet, photographer, performance artist, Shelley created Bamboo Jacket Banquet, (2008), an immersive sensory experiment enlivening the ubiquitous parable. A meditator since 1988, Shelley invited to teach at Dhamma Dena Meditation Retreat Center offers classes in New York City; BA/Theater, MS/Exercise Physiology, with extensive exploration of somatic therapies.
Portrait of Stefan Laeng photographed by Mathias

Stefan Laeng

Peterborough, NH
Stefan is a Sensory Awareness leader and a former executive director of the Sensory Awareness Foundation. He offers workshops in the USA and Europe. Stefan has studied Sensory Awareness and related practices since 1980. He worked closely with Sensory Awareness pioneer Charlotte Selver during the last twelve years of her life. His many years of study and practice of Buddhist meditation and philosophy since 1983 inform his work and life as well. Stefan is working on a comprehensive oral history and biography of Charlotte Selver.
Portrait of Susan Henning

Susan Henning

Mendocino, CA
My first workshop with Charlotte Selver and Charles Brooks was in 1970. I felt this was the true beginning of my life – my embodied life. I explored spiritual traditions and worldly occupations until I settled into the profession of Physical Therapy. My work took a quantum leap forward when I encountered the Postural Restoration work of Ron Hruska in 2002. This tri-planar, asymmetrical understanding of wholistic human function reorganized and integrated the respiratory and neurological drivers of our experience of bodies. Sensing and breath have become key components of rebalancing systems.
Portrait of Terry-Ray

Terry Ray

Boulder, CO
Terry Ray became certified to lead the work of Sensory Awareness through Charlotte Selver, with whom she studied for over 25 years. She is a licensed psychotherapist and was accredited through the first Community Dharma Leader’s program at Spirit Rock to teach meditation. Terry leads classes and retreats and teaches through the Insight Meditation Community and Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. She been leading Sensory Awareness Classes and retreats and teaching meditation for over 45 years. Terry is the author of Embodied Presence, A Spiritual Memoir.
Thomas Niering profile picture

Thomas Niering

Berlin
Based in Berlin since 1970, he worked as a lawyer until 1985. From 1983 to 1985, he trained with Gindler teacher Frieda Goralewski and Michel Benjamin, and participated in study groups with Sophie Ludwig. From 1988 to 1996, he studied with Charlotte Selver in Sensory Awareness, as well as with Charles Brooks, Seymour Carter, Ruth Veselko, and Marianne Haag. He also pursued further training in Gestalt therapy. Since 1985, he has worked in private practice, and since 2003 together with Leonore Quest at Bewegungsraum am Lietzensee in Berlin. From 1986 to 1999, he worked as a trainer at the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz in Berlin, and until 2017 as a lecturer in Camera Acting and at the Berlin Film Acting School. He is currently also teaching at various adult education centers (Volkshochschulen) in Berlin.

Vanessa Meade

Anchorage, AL
Vanessa E. Meade is an Assistant Professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) School of Social Work. She is a U.S. Army/Gulf War Veteran, a former Alaska State Trooper, and a licensed psychologist and clinical social worker in Alaska. She facilitates mindfulness-based retreats and programs, has studied Sensory Awareness with Lee Klinger Lesser since 2010, and is a recognized leader of Sensory Awareness.

www.vanesa.com

Zwyns Lilian

United States

From sensation to awareness, from awareness to life.