Mary Savva, IBMT Diploma Student shares her experience of the training. She describes the impact both personally and professionally.
“this training has enriched my understanding on a deeper biological and relational level, allowing me to further develop how I support others in their healing, embodiment and creative journeys.”
“It enriched my somatic vocabulary and reinforced me to slowly feel sensation again and to trust in my body as a primary source of insight and healing.”
A Journey of Deepening Somatic Understanding and Social Transformation
Embarking on the IBMT three-year Integrative Bodywork and Movement Therapy training has been a deep, challenging and meaningful continuation of my 10-year engagement with somatic practice. As an experienced practitioner in community dance and somatic movement, this training has enriched my understanding on a deeper biological and relational level, allowing me to further develop how I support others in their healing, embodiment and creative journeys.
IBMT has been a process of sensing, attending and awareness—biologically, sensorily, emotionally, and relationally. Throughout the training, I expanded my knowledge of how somatic patterns form and influence not only personal experience but also interpersonal dynamics. This awareness enabled me to refine my capacity to attune with others’ bodies and stories in ways that hold space for safety, expression, and transformation. The work asked me to bring more clarity to how the body’s systems—muscular, connective, fluidic—and concepts from somatic psychology and infant movement development interact in shaping lived experience, and how I can witness myself and others with care and a clearer understanding of where I am, and where others are – attending to these on multiple levels with therapeutic presence.
What IBMT offered me was an opportunity to land and expand my understanding of myself and others on a profoundly embodied level. Over the three years, I refined my awareness of how patterns held in the body shape our ways of relating, perceiving, and being. I met my organ body! The training encouraged me to remain curious, to listen beyond words, and to attune to what’s happening biologically and emotionally — in myself and in those I support. It enriched my somatic vocabulary and reinforced me to slowly feel sensation again and to trust in my body as a primary source of insight and healing.
Beyond the personal, IBMT illuminated how embodied awareness can be a catalyst for profound social change. By supporting individuals to reconnect with their bodies and integrate their experiences, the work fosters empathy, resilience, and authentic connection — qualities essential for building more compassionate communities. In this way, somatic practice is not only meaning making and healing on an individual level but also a powerful force for transformation within society.
Throughout my professional life, I have worked with diverse populations—children with additional needs, neurodiverse individuals, people with dementia, Parkinson’s, mental health challenges, refugees, and more. Many come with histories of trauma, overwhelm, and disconnection from their bodies. IBMT has deepened my capacity to hold these varied somatic landscapes with greater sensitivity and nuance, helping bodies find moments of safety, connection, and expression even amidst complexity.
A particularly meaningful part of my IBMT experience has been integrating theoretical study, practical hands-on bodywork, and movement exploration. Learning to trace the subtle flows of connective tissue, to sense cellular fluidity, and to map inner bodily experience has sharpened my ability to support others in rediscovering their bodily “home.” This is where healing begins—not only by working through patterns held in the body but by restoring trust in the body’s innate wisdom and its capacity for growth and resilience.
The training also invited me to turn inward and apply this work to my own somatic experience. Like many, I had developed habitual ways of shutting down sensation to cope with stress or trauma. IBMT offered a framework and tools to gently track these patterns and to begin slowly inhabiting my body with more presence and compassion. This embodied self-inquiry has become a continuing, evolving process—one that enhances my authenticity and attunement as a practitioner.
Working with groups and individuals in challenging settings—such as young people in mental health care or newly arrived refugees—has revealed the powerful potential of somatic work to create moments of relief, agency, and reconnection. IBMT’s emphasis on holding safe space, offering choice, and fostering “active initiation” in movement supports clients to reclaim their sense of self and capacity to engage with life more fully. These embodied shifts ripple beyond the session, influencing how individuals relate to themselves and their communities.
As I continue on this journey, I carry with me the layered knowledge from IBMT—its rich somatic frameworks, the wisdom of teachers and peers, and the lived experience of integrating body and mind. This is a path of ongoing discovery, a commitment to staying present with complexity and holding space for healing that is as much biological as it is emotional and social.
In essence, IBMT has not only enhanced my skills as a somatic practitioner but also deepened my understanding of the body as a vital site of transformation, resilience, and social connection. It is an invitation to work with the whole person—body, mind, and spirit—and to contribute to a more compassionate and embodied culture.
Mary Savva – Summer 2025
Birmingham Conservatoire Tutor And Staff / Mary Savva