#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.