What is a licensed Body Mapping Educator?
Licensed Body Mapping Educators (formerly Andover Educators) are trained and accredited through the Association for Body Mapping Education (ABME) – an organization committed to saving, securing, and enhancing musical careers by providing accurate information about the body in movement. There are numerous Licensed Body Mapping Educators practicing worldwide in private studios and music programs in colleges and universities.
What is Body Mapping?
Body Mapping is based on the discoveries of Alexander teachers William Conable and Barbara Conable. William Conable, professor of cello at the Ohio State University School of Music observed that students move according to how they perceive the structure of their body rather than the actual truth. When the students’ movement is based on a clear conception of the anatomical structure along with a heightened kinesthetic awareness, the movement is more coordinated, natural, and musical.
Body Mapping is a pedagogical practice that corrects and refines musicians’ body maps. By accessing and comparing current body maps with accurate illustrations and anatomical models, musicians understand how the body is designed to move. With the help of teachers, video, and sensory awareness, musicians learn to move more naturally to reduce the risk of playing-related pain and injury. The added bonus is that they overcome technical limitations and play more musically.
Why Body Mapping?
Musicians move to make music. This movement is very refined, it is very complex, and it is movement that we want to make throughout our whole lives. Often this movement is based on an inaccurate or incomplete understanding of the body’s anatomical design and can lead to technical limitations, playing-related pain and injury. Musicians with an accurate and clear understanding of their anatomy can learn to make music freely with an awareness of the whole body, and ultimately, with more artistry and spontaneity.
What is a body map?
A body map is the brain’s neuronal representation of the body’s size, shape, structure, and function. A body map is not a metaphor and is a term that is used by neurophysiologists. It gives us information about where we are in space, the quality of movement —whether it be tense, free, easy, difficult, small or big. Our brains literally have thousands of maps that cover every point of our body and the space around it. We build maps over time with most of the activity happening during childhood and adolescence. We now know that body maps are plastic. We can change our body maps to change the way we move.