|
We were delighted to have the highly esteemed Eleanor Criswell Hanna, Ed.D participate in the Amazing Babies Moving® 2012 Training Program. I have included selected excerpts from Eleanor Criswell Hanna, Ed.D. and President of The Somatics Society informative and thoughtful review published in their Winter 2013 Newsletter.
"Last summer I attended Beverly Stokes' Amazing Babies Moving Professional Training Program. I had been interested in Stokes's work for many years. In fact, I bought her Amazing Babies Moving in the First Year DVD and Book (which features adult movement explorations to mirror the baby's movement patterns) for everyone I knew who had a first baby, including the parents of my grand-niece Belle who is now over a year old. Belle shows every sign that her parents responded to her meaningfully during her first year.
Having worked somatically with thousands of adults and taught human development, child development and lifespan developmental at the university level for nearly 46 years, my purpose for attending this course was to gain a fresh experience of infant developmental movement patterns, which are the foundation for adult movement sequences. I wanted to go back to the beginning. What I got from the experience was much more than I expected: I rediscovered the babies' developmental drive, and a personal sense of renewal.
 ....The class was a very rich experience. We engaged in experiencing theDevelopmental Movement Patterns and Baby Observation Analysis sessions with parents and babies led by Beverly Stokes (founder and program director) and movement sequences from Warren Lamb's Movement Pattern Analysis (MPA) led by Janet Kaylo a Laban/Bartenieff and somatic studies professional.  The babies and mothers visited every day and served as our primary teachers. I say primary because the experiences that they provided were deeply and memorably informative. We observed babies for about an hour each day. The babies were scheduled by age in the first year. This scheduling made it possible to watch the infant motor developmental tasks evolve over different stages of development and we observed many developmental achievements during our hour-long interactions. We saw rudimentary movements attempted at one age and later the same movement more fully developed by an older baby.  Stokes' pointed out to us the babies' developmental achievements either during thebaby's visit or while we were watching selected DVDs at other times in the class. We were clearly able to see the babies as self-motivated learners. We were also able to see the movements leading to social interactions with the parent or with us. Since attending Beverly's training, I have been observing babies everywhere. As I travel, I have seen babies from many cultures going through their developmental sequences, encouraged by parents and others. I have also become more aware of the primary developmental movement patterns in the adults with whom I work. Stokes's main theme is that there is a natural development of the baby that needs to be appreciated and encouraged. Movement and social/emotional development happen at the same time. The developmental drive is present throughout life. You can see it clearly in infants. Having seen it again in infants, I am more aware of the age-appropriate developmental drive in everyone, including myself. It is a drive that we all had, and still have, regardless of our age." For information about: Eleanor Criswell Hanna please visit the Somatics website: http://www.somaticsed.com The Somatics Journal: http://www.somaticsed.com/magJournal.html | 
