HEIDI WILSON

About me:

I see my foundational training and support for this work to be my years of involvement with the expressive and performing arts of music and dance as well as Tai Chi and meditation. It has given me the ability to connect on the level of sensation, feeling, and listening, engaging with inner movement, stillness, and tonality expressed in the body and soul of the people I work with.

Some significant highlights of influences/trainings:

Music

I was born into a family of professional classical musicians in New Haven, Ct. I played violin as a child, later switched to the oboe, and as an adult, began playing the saxophone, finding this instrument the truest expression of my voice.

In the seventies I joined forces with Ajule Rutlin, a poet /drummer from BAG (Black Artist Group of St. Louis) to form a performing duo called Eneke-the-Bird (also to form a family -- two daughters and now two grandchildren). We explored the combination of music, poetry and dance in improvisational performances in downtown Tucson, Arizona from that time until the early nineties. Since 2001, I have been performing with Tucson Playback Theatre, an improvisational theater experience where the audience tells stories from their lives and the troupe plays it back in words, sound and motion. www.tucsonplaybacktheatre.org

click to  enlargeI am also a member of the sound healing group Padma Soundsystem. The Tucson based group performs Nada Yoga and sound healing, combining guided meditation, cello, harmonium, saxophone, Tibetan medicine bowls and other traditional instruments. Beautiful choral voices chant Tibetan Buddhist mantra and haunting vocal over-toning techniques blend with the instruments and heart intention to create a powerfully transformative sonic environment. Padma Soundsystem is a collective of musicians and integrative medicine practitioners who believe sound offers simple immediate relief from afflictive emotions and the stress of daily struggles. Visit our website and download free sound healing mp3s. www.padmasoundsystem.com

Dance

I studied modern dance as a child in New Haven, Ct. with Ernestine Stodelle, an early member of the Doris Humphrey dance company. I learned to jump and skip and leap and swing and fall. In my adult years I have explored African dance, contact improvisation, and Continuum.

Tai Chi

Continuing to dance as an adult, I discovered Tai Chi and it became my dance.  It was the cultivation and awareness of the experience of "chi" that led me to wanting to study energy bodywork. I have been studying/practicing Tai Chi since 1972. I began studying the Wu style Tai Chi with Dr. Wen Zee in 1997 (who passed away in 2002). My current Wu style teacher is Master Yan Yuanhua, who lives in Los Angeles. From him I am learning to cutivate my qi more than any teacher so far and am learning many subtle Push Hands concepts which is greatly nurturing my skills in bodywork. I teach Wu style Tai Chi and also a non-traditional class or workshop I call Qi Dance which utilizes concepts from Tai Chi and Qi Gong in a loosely structured format (more about that on workshop page).

Process Work

Also important in my path of discovery and influential to my bodywork style is my study of Arnold Mindell's Process Work through work with my teacher/therapist/friend Lane Arye and others. Process Work helps me drop my rigid identities and to be more present and whole. http://www.processworklane.com/

Meditation

How could I live without meditation? - without experience of stillness there would be no true appreciation of movement... without experience of center there would be no true experience of the whole... Much gratitude to all the wonderful meditation teachers I have been blessed to receive teachings from- Transendental Meditation, Tibetan Buddist Rinpoches, shamanic masters...

Bodywork

During a difficult and transitional time in my life, I began the study of Zen Shiatsu. I loved the dance of Shiatsu and blossomed with it. My background in dance and Tai Chi helped me embrace this form of bodywork that utilizes movement, stretching, breath, and pressure points to aid the flow of chi through the meridians. I emersed myself into the healing arts as a way of life.I graduated from a year long shiatsu certification program in 1993 at the Desert Institute for the Healing Arts in Tucson, Az. where I then taught shiatsu for seven years. I continue to take continuing education in shiatsu (with Pauline Susaki, Patricia Singer, Ping Lee and others) and other related bodywork modalities. I completed the Tuina program at the Arizona School of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (where I teach Tai Chi and craniosacral work). I now teach in the Shiatsu program at the Providence Institute (I teach shiatsu, shugyo, and craniosacral work).

My craniosacral studies began in 1994. I had been practicing Reiki for awhile, including this modality in my shiatsu sessions. In the stillness of the Reiki holdings, I began to notice subtle movements under my hands as I touched people. I came to realize that this must be the "cranial wave" that I had heard a little about and opened to the possibility of studying craniosacral work as soon as possible.

My first craniosacral teacher was Steve Swidler, a progressively-minded Tucson dentist with twenty-some years experience in cranial osteopathy, having studied with Viola Fryman, Robert Fulford, and Jim Jealous. I had once a week sessions with Steve for a few months, learning some profound basics that I was able to include in my shiatsu practice. Merging craniosacral work with shiatsu has been a natural and organic process. I  experience the movement of qi through the meridians and cranial wave motion as different ways of describing and interpreting the expressions of the same thing - the Breath of Life - that is the source of all healing that runs through us all.

I began studying with Hugh Milne of the Milne Institute in 1995. In that first workshop in Salt Lake, while Hugh Milne was unwinding my neck for about one minute, I experienced my emotional body reconnect with my physical body. It's hard to explain, but the experience was very healing for me and woke me up to the profundity of this work. I graduated from the Milne institute in 2002. I continue to assist classes for and benefit greatly from the connection with the Milne Institute.

Discovering the biodynamic approach to craniosacral work has been a profound deepening of this work for me. I've studied with Charles Ridley, assisted classes for Ryan Halford of Scottsdale, Az., am currently studying with Debra Meness, D.O.(who is a student of Jim Jealous), and recently spent a very nurturing five days studying with Franklin Sills. Every day is an opportunity to meditate while touching my clients as we witness the miracle of life.