Why the Leopard?

Imagine…being in a state of ease and integration from head to toe, like a Leopard!

My name, Leopi, was given to me as my birth name and it comes from the word Leopard, Leoparda or Panthera pardus. I feel very happy to have been named after a Leopard!

Ortho-Bionomy® is a unusual sounding word for a name that represents a vast spectrum of an osteopathically-based elegant and healing art and style of body therapy. Ortho-Bionomy is deeply effective and safe and combines the western techniques of Osteopathy and the eastern philosophy of Judo. Ortho-Bionomy is gentle and therapeutic for people of all ages from newborn infants to the elders.

Ortho-Bionomy can offer you a new relationship with your body, emotions and mind. A simple example would be how pain signals are ways in which our body is communicating to us to pay attention. Pain evokes us to change a certain action we are repeating in our lives. We can learn to cultivate a new relationship with our body before it has to get our attention through pain.

“The ART of BEING of ME”
Being at ease with who I am

Who can benefit?

Ortho-Bionomy can accompany women throughout their pregnancy and postpartum and is especially gentle for babies just after birth and during their first year. Athletes and dancers may improve performances with this therapy through increased balance and flexibility and relief from injuries and pain due to physical exertion and stress on the body. It is equally beneficial to people with stressful desk jobs and problems stemming from a sedentary job or life style.

Other forms of holistic bodywork such as chiropractors, psychologists, acupuncture, physical therapy and conventional healthcare can be easily integrated with Ortho-Bionomy. Ortho-Bionomy is effective for physical and emotional pain

History of Ortho-Bionomy

Ortho-bionomy: Ortho means "correct", bio means "life" and nomy means "pertaining to laws". So "Ortho-Bionomy" means the correct application of the Laws of Life.

 Ortho-Bionomy® is rooted philosophically and scientifically in a 125-year-old health-care system known as Osteopathy, which recognizes the body’s self-healing and self-regulating capacity. In 1964, American Osteopath Lawrence Jones developed the “positional release” technique using exaggerated body positioning to release pain and tension. British Osteopath Arthur Lincoln Pauls followed with the principle of “non-force corrections.” By 1976, he had developed the “Phased Reflex Techniques” of Ortho-Bionomy, integrating positional release and energetic methods enabling clients to consciously participate in their body’s ability to self correct. Pauls believed that Ortho-bionomy is the "Homeopathy of Bodywork".

Pauls was also a 3x’s black belt Judo Master and understood something very refreshing and profound through eastern philosophy: To follow the path of least resistance. Pauls found that by exaggerating the body’s preferred postures, the body’s self-healing process was stimulated to create greater balance and alignment. He discovered that by working with the body and not against it, the body could find balance on its own without having to use force to correct it. Dr. Pauls began teaching this work in the United States in 1976 and it is now taught throughout the world.

How I discovered Ortho-Bionomy

I discovered Ortho-Bionomy through Osteopathy. I have always been inspired by and a faithful client of Osteopathy and its range of therapeutic techniques from physical and structural adjustments, to the lightest and energetic touch of craniosacral.

After having a wonderful smooth and quick birth to my first son, I realized I had injured my pubic bone from his speedy descent through my bones and I needed a structural adjustment.  However, I missed something very important about my baby! He had a very misshapen head from his birth and I believed it had unfolded back to normal, but as my little boy grew and was able to tell me things more clearly, he expressed that he had a "painful head" (headaches). We went back to the Osteopath and discovered that his cranial bones had never completely unfolded and one side was quite a bit flatter and more compressed than the other, just as after his birth.  My poor little boy! After several sessions, his headaches went away.

Again, after the birth of my second son, I began to have constant burning, painful sciatica down my right leg, all the way to my toes. Again, I returned to my Osteopath and felt great relief. Yes, this is still an osteopathic story and a story about the foundations of our structure and how it affects our lives when we are out of alignment. 

Then, I found Ortho-Bionomy. I first realized how deeply therapeutic Ortho-Bionomy is when I was having an emotional crisis in my life. I had no where to turn because it seemed no one could understand or reach the place I needed touched and it felt like an emergency…so I went to my Ortho-Bionomist. The mystery of the terrible pain in my heart and body gently released and unfolded in the caring hands of my practioner. I felt as if I had a midwife who trusted me as I trusted her and I released an old story gracefully and thoroughly. I felt protected and respected and nurtured in that vulnerable moment.

I fell in Love with Ortho-Bionomy because of the wide vocabulary it holds and its exploration of physical, structural, energetic and emotional experiences that are contained within our bodies. I love its simplicity, logic and gracefulness, which bring us to our own self-awareness at our own speed.

Being a midwife and Ortho-Bionomist

The act of birth is a time when we are present in a very pure and primal way. I like this. I am allowed to witness an utterly human moment of intimacy and to be a guardian for mama and baby in the safe and comfortable space of home. There, I witness, over and over again, the organic wisdom of the primal body in complete surrender/control and alignment with its very own intelligence. I also witness the intelligence of the unborn child knowing how to be born, because it takes two to be born, not one.

Because of my respect and love for this delicate and thriving vessel to our soul, the body, I am also a figure painter. I paint the experience of what I feel and observe as a midwife and I believe our body is the Temple to our Soul.

Now that I am also a practioner of Ortho-Bionomy, I feel I am still doing the work of a midwife. I still have the delight and gift of trust, to be a guide for my client as we re-discover the endless abundance of deep resources that are within us. Then to heal what is ready to heal, so that we can enjoy our bodily vessel and be more present to Life.

Now, I hope to be a midwife to all people in all stages of life.

 

When grapes
turn to wine,
they long for
our ability to change.

When stars
wheel around the North Pole,
they are longing for
our growing consciousness.

Wine got drunk
with us,
not the other way.
The body developed
out of us,
not we from it.

We are bees,
and our body is a honeycomb.
We made
the body,
cell by cell
we made it.

Rumi
(1207 - 1273)

The enlightened Heart, ed. By Stephen Mitchell

My Story

As a child, I was given a wonderful gift - fully enjoying being inside this body! I thank my parents for this - my mother, a modern ballet dancer and my father, a champion diver and gymnast. They taught me the joy of movement, dance, my senses, flexibility, strength, and my structure. Later, while living in Los Angeles, I was interested in various forms of dance, including Flamenco and Russian ballet. I studied modern ballet at the school of Gene Marinaccio. This was a major influence in my life as a young woman. Marinaccio’s school taught me to actually visualize and feel the anatomy and structure of my body through dance and movement.

The combination of Judo and Osteopathy which Arthur Lincoln Pauls had organically brought together in his life as an osteopath fascinated me. The dialogue with the body through self awareness and exploration of movement resonated with my own experience as a dancer.

With Ortho-Bionomy, I experienced an absolutely new sense of what flexibility really could be!  I noticed immediately the gentleness, even playfulness, and ease which lead me towards a deep self awareness. Ortho-Bionomy was completely magical to me.

This is my father preparing for a diving competition.