Schedule of upcoming classes
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Read about the Certification Training Program at PMTI here.
Somatic Foundations of the Trager® Approach
Somatic Foundations of the Trager® Approach
Dates: January 9-12, 2025
Location: Blueberry Gardens Healing Center, Ashton, MD
Instructor: Roger Tolle
Language: English
Contact: workshops@PMTI.org, (202) 686-7046
Cost: Regular Registration $660. Early Bird registration: $599. (Both include $100 deposit.)
Notes:
This 4-day class is open to everyone!
It prepares students for and is included in the Certification Training Program that runs May 2025 through December 2026. For full program details see: www.pmti.org/trager-certification-2025-26.
It is offered with stand-alone registration and includes 24 hours of training:
Thursday, January 9th - 10:30-1:00 / 2:30-5:30
Friday, January 10th - 9:30-1:00 / 2:30-5:30
Saturday, January 11th - 9:30-1:00 / 2:30-5:30
Sunday, January 12th - 9:30-1:00 / 2:30-4:30
24 CE hours credit for professional bodyworkers.
The Trager® Professional Certification Training: Mentastics is the title recognized by NCBTMB. If the participant registers by the end of this class for the whole program and pays the $100 Student Membership fee to the USTA, it counts as the required Mentastics class in the program.
Class Description:
Somatic movement experience is at the heart of Dr. Milton Trager’s remarkable life work, teaching new, positive body experiences through informed, intuitive touch and movement. The remarkable potency in his enveloping hands was often described as “light as a dancing cloud.” Those of us who studied with him and applied his Approach to working with a wide variety of clients in different settings discovered that behind the apparent simplicity was an integrated application of essential somatic movement principles.
He coined the term “Mentastics” (contraction of mental and gymnastics) to refer to a wide variety of movement and awareness processes, explorations, and movement experiments at the heart of his work. These have informed, structured and given meaning to the practices of thousands of students around the world since 1975.
Those who spent years studying with Dr. Trager, including Master Somatic Movement Educator and Therapist Roger Tolle, recognized a body of work in which every touch provides both safety and meaningful challenges to unconscious habits, where a wide variety of innovative movement coaching invites clients step by step into new, more playful and functional life patterns, and where movement discomfort dissolves as the body’s simple, natural, graceful design takes over. At the heart of this work is the joy of coming from a deeply peaceful inner state while leaning into aliveness and connection in all interactions. Roger brings an enthusiasm and passion from 40 years in private practice and teaching the Trager® Certification Training Program in 16 countries on 5 continents.
This class focuses on the somatic movement foundations of Trager’s presence, touch, and movement through integrated practice of the essential principles, including:
Fully embodied presence
Softness in attention, intention, contact and movement
Weight - sensing lightness and groundedness
Fluidity in tissue and movement patterning
Balancing floating in the sweet center with playing at the edges
Artful transitions in speed, size, density, intensity
Taking out the slack in the three-dimensional biotensegral web
Integrating meaningful movement into both professional and personal life activities
Connecting to ourselves, our partners, the earth, and to the life forces of the universe
The class also introduces the benefits of studying the Trager® Approach
Replacing restrictive movement habits with natural, graceful movement patterns.
Reframing daily self-care exercises as opportunities for mindful embodiment and self-development.
Equipping participants with practices to better navigate stress and cultivate resilience.
Integrating somatic practices into spiritual exploration and creative expression.
Addressing the somatic dimensions of trauma, depression, and anxiety, offering pathways to healing and transformation.
Enriching both professional and personal relationships (platonic and intimate) through embodied presence and attuned connection.
Transforming Touch
Transforming Touch
October 5-6, 2024
Location: HeartMind Resiliency, Richmond, VA
Registration deadline: Sept 20, 2024
Register at RogerTolle.com/TransformingTouch
Instructor: Roger Tolle
Language: English
Contact: Wilfred at Wilfred.Trager@gmail.com, 434-962-6642
Or Roger at RogerTolle@gmail.com, 434-227-6934
Class Description:
This two-day workshop illuminates the transformative experiences you bring to your clients when your touch pays more attention to sensing than doing – when your intention focuses less on resolving symptoms and more on freeing the body from unhealthy, unconscious patterns.
In the tradition of somatic movement therapy pioneer Dr. Milton Trager, you’ll learn to touch with full-body presence, ease, curiosity, delight, and depth. You’ll discover the power of softness and potent listening in your hands. You’ll witness the deep letting go that occurs when your clients feel their weight supported by the earth and their liquid body awash in pleasurable waves and quiet floating. You will be moved by your capacity to connect authentically. What will it be like to become as vast and effortlessly transformative as the fingers of the ocean reshaping a beach?
Prerequisites: None. Designed for anyone who touches as part of a health supportive professional practice, and also valuable in personal relationships, both platonic, familial and intimate.
Cost: Sliding Scale $250-500
12 NCBTMB CE Credits Available for this Trager Introductory Workshop
Transforming Touch
Transforming Touch
September 28-29, 2024
Location: YogaJoint, Provincetown, MA
Registration deadline: Sept 13, 2024
Register at RogerTolle.com/TransformingTouch
Instructor: Roger Tolle
Language: English
Contact: Chase Alexander, info@yogajointptown.com, (508) 413-9563
Or Wilfred at Wilfred.Trager@gmail.com, (434) 962-6642
Class Description:
This two-day workshop illuminates the transformative experiences you bring to your clients when your touch pays more attention to sensing than doing – when your intention focuses less on resolving symptoms and more on freeing the body from unhealthy, unconscious patterns.
In the tradition of somatic movement therapy pioneer Dr. Milton Trager, you’ll learn to touch with full-body presence, ease, curiosity, delight, and depth. You’ll discover the power of softness and potent listening in your hands. You’ll witness the deep letting go that occurs when your clients feel their weight supported by the earth and their liquid body awash in pleasurable waves and quiet floating. You will be moved by your capacity to connect authentically. What will it be like to become as vast and effortlessly transformative as the fingers of the ocean reshaping a beach?
Prerequisites: None. Designed for anyone who touches as part of a health supportive professional practice, and also valuable in personal relationships, both platonic, familial and intimate.
Cost: Sliding Scale $250-500
12 NCBTMB CE Credits Available for this Trager Introductory Workshop
Transforming Touch
Transforming Touch
September 14-15, 2024
Location: Belmont Studio, Charlottesville, VA
Registration deadline: Aug 31, 2024
Register at RogerTolle.com/TransformingTouch
Instructor: Roger Tolle
Language: English
Contact: Wilfred at Wilfred.Trager@gmail.com, (434) 962-6642
Or Roger at RogerTolle@gmail.com, 434-227-6934
Class Description:
This two-day workshop illuminates the transformative experiences you bring to your clients when your touch pays more attention to sensing than doing – when your intention focuses less on resolving symptoms and more on freeing the body from unhealthy, unconscious patterns.
In the tradition of somatic movement therapy pioneer Dr. Milton Trager, you’ll learn to touch with full-body presence, ease, curiosity, delight, and depth. You’ll discover the power of softness and potent listening in your hands. You’ll witness the deep letting go that occurs when your clients feel their weight supported by the earth and their liquid body awash in pleasurable waves and quiet floating. You will be moved by your capacity to connect authentically. What will it be like to become as vast and effortlessly transformative as the fingers of the ocean reshaping a beach?
Prerequisites: None. Designed for anyone who touches as part of a health supportive professional practice, and also valuable in personal relationships, both platonic, familial and intimate.
Cost: Sliding Scale $250-500
12 NCBTMB CE Credits Available for this Trager Introductory Workshop
Transforming Touch: Becoming the Ocean
May 20-21, 2023
Location: Blueberry Gardens Healing Center, Ashton, MD
Registration deadline: May 5, 2023
Instructor: Roger Tolle
Language: English
Contact: Jennifer Brennan, workshops@pmti.org (202) 686-7046
Class Description:
This two-day workshop illuminates the transformative experiences you bring to your clients when your touch pays more attention to sensing than doing – when your intention focuses less on resolving symptoms and more on freeing the body from unhealthy, unconscious patterns.
In the tradition of somatic movement therapy pioneer Dr. Milton Trager, you’ll learn to touch with full-body presence, ease, curiosity, delight, and depth. You’ll discover the power of softness and potent listening in your hands. You’ll witness the deep letting go that occurs when your clients feel their weight supported by the earth and their liquid body awash in pleasurable waves and quiet floating. You will be moved by your capacity to connect authentically. What will it be like to become as vast and effortlessly transformative as the fingers of the ocean reshaping a beach?
Prerequisites: None
Washing Out the Fascial Sweater
Washing Out the Fascial Sweater
April 15, 2023
Location: Blueberry Gardens Healing Center, Ashton, MD
Instructor: Roger Tolle
Language: English
Contact: Jennifer Brennan, info@pmti.org (202) 686-7046
Class Description: What happens when bodywork sessions speak eloquently and listen deeply to the multi-dimensional, multi-planar fascial sweater that weaves around and through the torso?
Through discussion, demonstration and practice, we share the role of skillful touch and mindful movement on body shape, posture, sensory connection and graceful movement.
Perspectives and stories are drawn from study with the pioneers in the bodywork and movement education fields and my own decades-long personal explorations and clinical applications.
Please wear loose, easy-to-move-in clothes and bring your smartphone. You will have the option of being videoed on your own camera at the beginning and end of the day.
Introduction to the Trager Approach
Introduction to the Trager Approach (ITT)
March 12, 2023, 10am-5pm
PMTI, 8701 Georgia Avenue, Suite 700, Silver Spring, MD 20910
Roger Tolle, Instructor
For students enrolled in the PMTI massage training program
Contact: Brenda Rayner, info@pmti.org (202) 686-7046
The Trager® Approach to Somatic Movement and Manual Therapy is pleasurable, gentle, nurturing and non-invasive. Integrating principles of this work helps you address your clients’ specific concerns, whether to bring more joy into life, to enhance athletic performance, explore and release emotional constriction, or to address the functional limitations of pain, medical conditions, aging, disease, or injuries.
Movement Perspectives in Bodywork
Movement Perspectives in Bodywork (MPB)
March 11, 2023, 10am-5pm
PMTI, 8701 Georgia Avenue, Suite 700, Silver Spring, MD 20910
Roger Tolle, Instructor
For students enrolled in the PMTI massage training program
Contact: Brenda Rayner, info@pmti.org (202) 686-7046
Movement: the essence of being alive. Your individual unique way of moving reflects not only your level of wellness, but your entire personality, the way you feel yourself taking your place in the world. It is your birthright to move naturally with ease and comfort. Whoever you are, in whatever condition, with whatever personal history, you can always learn to improve the quality of what you do.
In this one-day workshop for second level massage students, we use movement to increase sensation, body awareness, and proprioception. We explore grounding, sensing, elongating, freeing and enlivening as tools for preparing to touch intelligently and with nuanced awareness.
Feet
Feet
January 14, 2023
PMTI, 8701 Georgia Avenue, Suite 700, Silver Spring, MD 20910
Roger Tolle, Instructor
Contact: info@pmti.org (202) 686-7046
Class Description:
The feeling and function of our feet has an effect on our entire body. The Trager® Approach offers great ways of working effectively with foot related issues brought to us by clients. Self-care Trager practices also bring refreshed levels of sensitivity, support and comfort for our own feet, legs, pelvis, back and beyond. In this interactive workshop, Roger shares his experience and understanding of how positive feeling fuels and restores natural function, as well as insight into the deep, long-lasting impact of grounded presence. Walk away with a new spring in your step!
Prerequisites: None
Hands
Hands
December 10, 2022
PMTI, 8701 Georgia Avenue, Suite 700, Silver Spring, MD 20910
Roger Tolle, Instructor
Contact: info@pmti.org (202) 686-7046
Class Description:
The Trager® Approach offers great ways of working effectively with hand related issues brought to us by clients. The work also offers excellent practices for developing new levels of sensitivity, skill, quality and comfort for our own hands, arms and shoulders. Drawn from decades in practice and teaching, Roger shares his understanding of kinetic physiology and the interdependent influences of mind and body in movement, as well as insight into the deep, long-lasting impact of potent softness. Touching your clients will never be the same.
Prerequisites: None
Transforming Touch: Becoming the Ocean
Transforming Touch: Becoming the Ocean
October 8-9, 2022
PMTI, 8701 Georgia Avenue, Suite 700, Silver Spring, MD 20910
Roger Tolle, Instructor
Contact: info@pmti.org (202) 686-7046
Class Description:
This two-day workshop illuminates the transformative experiences you bring to your clients when your touch pays more attention to sensing than doing – when your intention focuses less on resolving symptoms and more on freeing the body from unhealthy, unconscious patterns.
In the tradition of somatic movement therapy pioneer Dr. Milton Trager, you’ll learn to touch with full-body presence, ease, curiosity, delight, and depth. You’ll discover the power of softness and potent listening in your hands. You’ll witness the deep letting go that occurs when your clients feel their weight supported by the earth and their liquid body awash in pleasurable waves and quiet floating. You will be moved by your capacity to connect authentically. What will it be like to become as vast and effortlessly transformative as the fingers of the ocean reshaping a beach?
Prerequisites: None
Movement Perspectives in Bodywork
Movement Perspectives in Bodywork (MPB)
August 28, 2022, 10am-5pm
PMTI, 8701 Georgia Avenue, Suite 700, Silver Spring, MD 20910
Roger Tolle, Instructor
For students enrolled in the PMTI massage training program
Movement: the essence of being alive. Your individual unique way of moving reflects not only your level of wellness, but your entire personality, the way you feel yourself taking your place in the world. It is your birthright to move naturally with ease and comfort. Whoever you are, in whatever condition, with whatever personal history, you can always learn to improve the quality of what you do.
In this one-day workshop for second level massage students, we use movement to increase sensation, body awareness, and proprioception. We explore grounding, sensing, elongating, freeing and enlivening as tools for preparing to touch intelligently and with nuanced awareness.
Contact: info@pmti.org (202) 686-7046
Introduction to the Trager Approach
Introduction to the Trager Approach (ITT)
August 27, 2022, 10am-5pm
PMTI, 8701 Georgia Avenue, Suite 700, Silver Spring, MD 20910
Roger Tolle, Instructor
For students enrolled in the PMTI massage training program
The Trager® Approach to Somatic Movement and Manual Therapy is pleasurable, gentle, nurturing and non-invasive. Integrating principles of this work helps you address your clients’ specific concerns, whether to bring more joy into life, to enhance athletic performance, explore and release emotional constriction, or to address the functional limitations of pain, medical conditions, aging, disease, or injuries.
Contact: info@pmti.org (202) 686-7046
Working from your Strengths and Leaning into your Growing Edges
Investigating what you already have developed that serves as you base from which to lead clients in online Somatic Movement Therapy (Mentastics) sessions. And discovering what skills or awareness you need to develop to feel confident in an online environment.
