#59 – Keen on Yoga Podcast with Liz Koch

Liz is an international teacher and author with 43 years of experience working with and specializing in the psoas. Educating both laypersons and professionals around the world, Liz is recognized by colleagues in the movement, wellness, and fitness professions as an authority on the “core muscle” of the human body. Stalking Wild Psoas is her passion and changing the language of body is her mission. Liz Koch is the creator of Core Awareness,™ a somatic approach to deepening the experience of the human core. Beginning with the core muscle, the psoas, Core Awareness™ focuses attention on sensation as a means for maturing and developing the proprioceptive nervous system, which is responsible for skeletal alignment, balance, and orientation. Liz is the author of The Psoas Book; Core Awareness: Enhancing Yoga, Pilates, Exercise & Dance; Unraveling Scoliosis CD; The Psoas & Back Pain CD; and she is a contributing author to Maiden, Mother, Crone: Our Pleasure Playlist and Stalking Wild Psoas: Embodying Your Core Intelligence. Her writing has been featured in Yoga Journal, Positive Health, Massage & Bodywork, Massage Magazine, Yoga & Health International, Midwifery Today, Vegetarian Times, and The Doula as well as numerous small health and wellness publications. Liz Koch is approved by the National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork (NCBTMB) as a continuing education Approved Provider. The psoas is considered such an unknown muscle yet so important and powerful. Liz first discovered the psoas while attending a human potential class in Boston over 45 years ago. At that particular moment, the teacher, Robert Cooley, was fascinated with the psoas muscle. Having previously been a dancer, he was exploring how injuries and a lack of movement might be tracked back to the midline or core issues expressed in the iliopsoas complex. Between Liz’s in-depth inquiry and Bob’s encouragement, she eventually shifted my career from being a conceptual artist and sculpture instructor at the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts to the healing arts profession. While working with her psoas, Liz discovered that she had released years of back pain and emotional distress which awoke within her a deep sense of pleasure. She became passionate that people should know what an extraordinary role the psoas plays in recovering health and gaining a sense of wholeness. When she moved to California in the 1970s, her personal explorations of the psoas catapulted her into her current profession. She began by teaching courses on the psoas muscle for local community colleges, dance departments, and massage school programs. Her vocation not only evolved throughout the years but also expanded into wider spheres of influence which included being a keynote speaker at two international conferences as well as teaching both national and international workshops and retreats. What began as a personal journey has continued as the psoas is no ordinary tissue, but a profound segway into the rich interior and exterior world of awareness.