Contact Sonja
for individual
and group sessions
Phone: 415-661-1852
San Francisco California
Bio
Events / NewsBlog
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I have had hundreds of bodywork sessions with dozens of practitioners. I find that Sonja has some of the most healing hands that I’ve had the pleasure to enjoy. She/they seem to know just how to touch/heal. I feel more whole when I leave her sessions.
Phillip Brooks, Psychotherapist, Core Faculty California Institute of Integral Studies
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I had an arm injury and was desperate for relief. From one 1-hour Functional Integration Feldenkrais® session with Sonja, my arm felt completely better. I was really impressed and intrigued (I had no idea how she did it, but knew she'd done something amazing).
She is a gifted practitioner with exceptional understanding and perspective because of her background as a lifelong dancer. Her training in different modalities makes her work unique.
Jennifer Love |
Working with Sonja Riket, has been a tremendously rewarding experience. Her teaching, which gracefully blends the somatic method of Body-Mind Centering® with elements of The Feldenkrais Method®, has begun to integrate within me a level of dynamic body balance and awareness which I had never known existed, and which I am convinced can greatly benefit any music student, teacher, or professional performer. I am finding myself playing with more fluidity, ease, and comfort than ever before, and can finally begin to look beyond my history of music related injuries toward an optimistic future previously difficult to imagine. But far more than just injury prevention, Sonja’s “Embodiment and Expression” course at SF’s Community Music Center opens up creative and physical resources which can positively affect nearly every aspect of one’s life. The overall experience has been nothing short of a complete personal paradigm shift.
Peter Lee, Bachelor of Music, Classical Guitar, San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
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“Very few experiences in my sixty plus years have been as rewarding and productive as the Body-Mind Centering® therapy, information, explorations and exercises I have received from Sonja Riket. This for me has been a very powerful healing experience, restoring mobility to my playing (53 years of moving notes on a saxophone) and generally improving my quality of life as I deal with my age related issues and past injuries. No risk, exceptional personal gain, the best and most productive health related sessions of my life.”
Bill Fiege, Senior Faculty SF Community Music Center
Teaching & Performing in San Francisco since 1968 |
"Sonja Riket is an unusually accomplished, versatile, and gifted teacher, performer, expert and movement therapist. I have seen her teach, blend and weave together very skillfully concepts from her training, education, life experiences and personal passion. Her Tango classes are unusual and refreshing. They provide a student like me a space to explore movement in its soulful essence and the art form of an intricate graceful dance. The reflection of living life in the practice of tango dancing (sourced in the restorative medium of somatic movement) as taught by Sonja is unprecedented."
Saraswati Chandramouli |
"Sonja's different approach to Tango, unlike any other teachers, summons the spirit of mind and body into one. Her warm personality and integrity in her art, as well as her diverse movement therapy abilities, make her one of the best teachers available. The Intimate Embrace Tango experience is one that has enriched my life in more ways than I can count. Sonja's weaving of the dance with one's emotional state has brought me to a new awareness of how movement can touch and heal the body, heart and soul. Sonja's contributions have allowed me and many of my friends who have attended the workshops to know a different way to express and live."
Debra Varner |
This is the most brilliant introduction to a dance that I have ever experienced, hands down. Sonja is really special. Bringing Feldenkrais and Mind-Body (Somatic) techniques to her Tango dance training, she has a unique style all her own for getting beginners and advanced beginners to love, learn and stay with the dance. Her secret?... She teaches you the inner dance. Her introduction spoke of how to be in your body, what the dance was about from connection to yourself, your own body, your partner, and the room. She brought a brilliant felt-experience of the body, drew awareness to how we walk, the alignment of our spine, and the energy moving through us and with another person. Then she showed us how to walk in sync with another person by feeling it, which is the beginning and end of this dance. Something else special happened in the room: rarely do you get to have such an intimate exchange from the heart with a room full of people. Most didn't know each other, but by the end, even if we hadn't met, we felt connected. We left feeling there was a beautiful sense of heart connection in the room. That was really special. I've tried a class here and there with other teachers in town, but this one is something all its own. If you are seeking to learn Tango, this is the place to start.
Jessica M. |
"It is rare to find someone so skilled in Aquatic and Somatic Movement Therapies. Without this kind of treatment, my son Keith would possibly face a life on prescription muscle relaxants and surgeries."
Gail Kingston, Parent |
I have taken tango classes before and Sonja Riket teaches from the heart and soul. Her style of teaching is very honest, gentle and direct. It is more than just a dance class - it is a meditation and spiritual journey for the body!
A.T. |
I did Sonja Riket's pre-beginner tango workshop during National Dance Week. It was an experience unlike anything I've had in a dance class. Rather than focus on the moves and the mechanical technique of the dance her focus was on the somatic aspect --- How one learns by experiencing. As we progressed we started working with a partner and paid attention to where they are in their movement with us. She outlined concepts like yielding, listening for where your partner is, trust, connection, and fingers of awareness vs. fingers of correction among others. By the end of the partner exercises I was in sync with my partner at a level I had never achieved in any of the partner dance classes I had taken before. I came away with a new found appreciation and gratitude for the act of movement in everyday life. I highly recommend Sonja's classes for anyone looking for an extraordinary movement and dance experience.
Raj P. |
I’m in awe of Sonja's array of skills and how she combines them to perceive and correct unconscious patterns that have long blocked me in dancing Tango. Simple balance had always eluded me, and in just a few weeks my center of gravity has dropped from my upper back into my pelvis, giving me more stability. The "extra work" that I did unconsciously -- and which resulted in tension in my arms, in my frame and in the pressure with which my right hand met my partners’--has been re-educated out of me.
Sonja's sensitivity in catching my errors and tweaking my awareness has given me something that I’d just about given up hope of achieving and for which I’m deeply grateful. More and more, I’m staying present in my own body, lingering long enough in the moment to feel the nuance in the lead. Out of this new-found centeredness is arising a new tenderness, a new intimacy in my embrace.
Lisa Dollar |
Working with Sonja has helped me to cultivate a profound internal awareness. I now see that my injuries are not isolated ailments that occur when I perform but they result from how I hold, carry and use my body in everyday life. Judgment, fear, and tension have been replaced by somatic techniques and tools I can use to help move through tension and discomfort. My overall movement when I play and write music has greatly improved. I highly recommend working with Sonja, she's an excellent teacher and an incredible joy to be around!
Emily Jane White singer/songwriter/guitarist |
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Body-Mind Centering® is registered service mark of Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, used with permission.
Feldenkrais®, Awareness through Movement® and Functional Integration® is a registered mark of the Feldenkrais® Guild of North America
Web design: Alejandro Alvarez – Photography: Alejandro Alvarez and Sonja Riket
Copyright: ©Sonja Riket – All Rights Reserved – 2013 |
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