THE EMBODIED LEARNING METHOD FOR LASTING TRANSFORMATION
Become a certified somatic practitioner and bring embodied transformation into your coaching, leadership, and facilitation. This program is designed for those who want to guide others with integrity, presence, and skill and who are ready to embody the change they wish to create.
Lasting transformation requires more than insight and good intentions. Most coaching stays in the realm of ideas, but real change takes root in the body.
The Somatic Coach Certification Program trains you to guide clients into embodied learning, integrating body, mind, and emotions so they can act from presence, resilience, and authenticity. This is where breakthroughs happen and transformation becomes sustainable.
Somatic Coaching Program
Program Overview
This is a cohort-based, immersive training that combines in-person intensives with guided practice, mentoring, and community learning. You will:
- Attend four in-person workshops (4 days each) spread over 8 months
- Participate in live webinars and mentor coaching sessions
- Engage in small group learning with peers and mentors
- Practice with clients between sessions, supported by ongoing feedback
In-Person Session Dates:
- October 1-4, 2026
- November 19-22, 2026
- February 4-7, 2027
- May 6-9, 2027
Total training includes 150+ contact hours of experiential learning, skill-building, and practice.
Across the program you’ll explore:
- Core somatic practices for presence and resilience
- Somatic bodywork fundamentals
- Coaching skills integrated with embodiment
- Practices for conflict, trust-building, and generative conversations
- Assessment and feedback for your coaching presence
- Ethical standards and structures for somatic coaching
- Ways to link individual transformation with social and systemic contexts
Session 1 – Foundations of Somatic Transformation
Learn the core practices of centering, breathwork, and embodied presence. Begin applying somatic bodywork skills and explore how conflict and emotion can become generative forces in coaching.Session 2 – Coaching Foundations
Establish your coaching agreements, integrate ICF competencies, and learn to assess how shaping and history live in the body. Deepen your bodywork practice and coaching presence.Session 3 – Advanced Practice
Develop advanced skills for transformative conversations, assessment, and coaching structure. Continue refining bodywork and expand your relational range as a coach.Session 4 – Certification & Integration
Bring your learning together through supervised practice and performance evaluation. Graduate with a clear plan for continued growth and the confidence to embody somatic coaching with clients.Between sessions your learning continues through:
- Mentor coaching calls (group + 1:1)
- Methodology sessions
- Practice clients and peer coaching
- Somatic theory discussions
Expect to devote around 10 hours per month outside of retreats.
Graduates of this program earn a Somatic Coach Certification and are prepared to pursue International Coach Federation (ICF) credentials. Our curriculum aligns with ICF core competencies so you can meet professional standards while developing a uniquely embodied coaching practice.
Facilitators
Richard Strozzi-Heckler, PhD
Richard Strozzi-Heckler, PhD is the original creator of the Strozzi Somatics methodology. He has spent over five decades researching, developing and teaching Somatics to business leaders, executive managers, teams from Fortune 500 companies, NGOs, technology start-ups, non-profits, the U.S. government and military.
He was named one of the Top 50 Executive Coaches in The Art and Practice of Leadership Coaching, and in Profiles in Coaching. He is the co-founder of the Mideast Aikido Project (MAP), which brings together Palestinians and Israelis through the practice of Aikido. He is the Chairman of the Board of the Institute for Social Advancement (ISA) that is based in Ethiopia which brings Aikido and Embodied Leadership to East Africa.
Richard is the author of nine books, including The Leadership Dojo, In Search of the Warrior Spirit, The Anatomy of Change, Holding the Center and The Art of Somatic Coaching: Embodying Skillful Action, Wisdom, and Compassion, and Embodying the Mystery: Somatic Wisdom for Emotional, Energetic, and Spiritual Awakening. From 2002 to 2007 he was an advisor to NATO and the Supreme Allied Commander of Europe (SACEUR) General Jim Jones, who was also the National Security Advisor.
Richard has a PhD in Psychology and is a seventh degree black belt Shihan in the martial art of Aikido.
Pete Hamill
Pete Hamill is a consultant, facilitator and coach with an international background in leadership and organizational development. He is interested in leadership and personal development, including the role that conflict plays in organizations and society. Pete works on Roffey Park’s MSc in People and Organizational Development and their Post-Graduate Certificate in Coaching, as well as consulting with a range of organizations, including KPMG, BP, Barclays Bank, the Equality & Human Rights Commission, the Institute of Cancer Research, Lloyds Banking Group, AXA, Control Risks, and Virgin Atlantic.
Pete is certified as a Master Somatic Coach and has completed a Certificate in Humanistic Counselling with the Gestalt Centre in London. He has also completed an MSc in Change Agent Skills & Strategies at the University of Surrey, where his dissertation focused on conflict. He has published a book entitled Embodied Leadership: The somatic approach to developing your leadership.
Stephanie Meux
For over 25 years Stephanie Meux has been committed to the study of pathways and modalities that foster embodied awareness and somatic transformation. Her studies have lead her to become a licensed bodyworker, dance and movement facilitator and to develop and run her own equine guided education programs. She has also had the great fortune to produce educational programs and events in both the corporate sector and for organizations dedicated to personal transformation and leadership development.
Joining the Strozzi Institute team as a faculty teacher is an exciting opportunity to align her commitments to contributing to the field of somatics and supporting the cultivation and delivery of transformational programming to leaders and organizations, in service to a more whole and just future for all beings.
When not looking at a computer screen, Stephanie can be found spending time with her horse, playing out in nature or dancing.
Tyler Grillo
Tyler Grillo (Berkeley, California) is a Strozzi Institute Certified Somatic Coach, who is committed to partnering with people on their transformative journey towards deeper fulfillment and aliveness—a process he sees as inherently linked to broader social transformation. He knows that everyone has a gift to offer the world, and works to create a space where these gifts can be realized, wrestled with, and actualized. Grounded in an understanding of our diverse human experiences, he sees our shared desires for dignity, safety, and belonging as intimately connecting us. Having grown up in the mountains of Colorado, he also has a deep connection with nature. In his coaching work, Tyler offers a welcoming and trusting space for folks to explore what they most care about, what new actions they want to take in their lives, and the practices that allow them to embody their fullest selves. While engaging with clients, he is constantly wondering, “What’s trying to come to life? What’s trying to be expressed?” His coaching is also shaped by his shamanic practice and commitment to social justice. Tyler previously served as Course Manager and Program Manager for Strozzi Institute, bringing a depth of knowledge of the Institute’s somatic methodology to his coaching.
Tesfaye Tekelu
Tesfaye Tekelu is co-founder of two non-profit organizations: Aikido Ethiopia and Awassa Youth Campus (which works with youth empowerment, conflict-resolution, gender equality and HIV awareness in Ethiopia) and Institute for Social Advancement (which works in education, in the US and Southern Africa).
Tesfaye is responsible for introducing Aikido in East Africa, and currently holds a second degree black belt. Prior to moving to the US in 2010, Tesfaye served as Executive Director for AYC and as head instructor for Aikido Ethiopia (AE) for six years. He is still actively engaged in both organizations as a Board member and program coordinator. He also served as a circus and theater leader and Finance head from 2002-2005 at the Hawassa Children’s Center in Hawassa, Ethiopia, where he organized, performed and lead the circus and theater group tours throughout Ethiopia.
The Somatic Coach Certification Program was established in 2001 as the world’s first and most comprehensive somatic coaching program.
Somatic practices is understanding the body or the whole physiology as a source of intelligence, as a place that holds our history.
STACI K. HAINES
The Embodied Journey
How to Apply
Step 1: Complete the foundation course
Enrolment begins with successful completion of our in-person foundational course, Embodied Transformation. (If you are registered for this course but haven’t completed it yet, you may still begin the application process.)
Step 2: Submit Your Application
Fill out our online application form to share your background, experience, and intentions for joining the program.
Step 3: Schedule An Enrolment Interview
Once we receive your application, we’ll invite you to a one-on-one enrollment conversation to explore your fit and answer any questions.
Step 4: Confirm Your Place
If accepted, you’ll receive full enrollment details, payment options, and preparation materials to get started.
In this program you’ll learn how to:
- Build embodied awareness and resilience
- Support clients in shifting long-standing patterns
- Expand emotional range and choice
- Align commitments with purposeful action
- Cultivate presence and authenticity in relationships
- Facilitate growth in increasingly complex environments
- Deepened personal practice
- Proven methods for facilitating sustainable change
- A supportive cohort community
- Professional recognition and credibility
MORE INFORMATION
Whether you are curious about the course, wondering if the program is the right fit or you are ready to begin your journey, we are here to support you. Fill out the form and a member of our team will follow up shortly to provide details, answer your questions and guide you in the right direction.