About Mary Ann
Mary Ann Foster, B.A., L.M.T., was a licensed massage therapist for 43 years and a movement teacher who practices in the Denver-Boulder area since 1981. With a degree in Body-Mind Therapies from Naropa University in Boulder, she specializes in movement instruction for health care professionals, dancers, and active clients with an emphasis in postural muscle training, body mechanics, and movement efficiency.
For over 30 years, Mary Ann has taught movement classes to diverse populations, including children, seniors, nurses, dancers and massage therapists. She has taught program courses in anatomy, kinesiology, neuromuscular, craniosacral therapy, and movement at a number of massage schools and colleges, including the Boulder College of Massage Therapy and Naropa University. Mary Ann also traveled as a national presenter conducting Somatic Patterning seminars for the Health Education Network.
From 2012 to the pandemic, Mary Ann taught a dance kinesiology course in the Professional Training Program for the Frequent Flyers Productions, an aerial dance company and school in Boulder, Colorado. This course provides aerial students with a basic understanding of joint and muscles function with the goals of enhancing movement efficiency and performance skills with improved muscular control and precision.
Each dance kinesiology course began with private movement assessments for each student in which Mary Ann identifies personal strengths and chronic movement issues or injuries for each student. The movement assessments help students prevent injuries by addressing personal body challenges and developing their unique abilities.
As a recognized expert in her field, Mary Ann has written many articles and columns for the Massage and Bodywork Magazine, including "Somatic Anatomy," "Talk about Touch," and "The Science of Movement." She is a contributing author to the instructor textbook Teaching Massage, (ABMP and LWW, 2008); the self-publisher of Somatic Patterning, and the author of the award winning text Therapeutic Kinesiology (Pearson, 2012).
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Therapeutic Kinesiology (TK) provides practical and relevant applications of the study of human movement to the practice of massage and bodywork. One of the first kinesiology texts specifically geared to massage therapists, it’s actually three books in one: a kinesiology text, a palpation text, and a body mechanics text (ISBN # 978-0135077856, 768 pages ).
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Note: Pearson publishing discontinued their massage therapy line of products in 2019, so this text along with many other massage textbook they carried is no longer available.
Mary Ann calls her unique method neuromuscular patterning,
which integrates active movement exercises with hands-on guidance to engage curious clients and get better results. She developed her method out diverse somatic movement trainings Laban movement analysis, Rolfing® movement integration, Body-Mind Centering®, cranialsacral therapy, Hakomi, and graduate studies in somatic psychology.
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In both movement classes and private sessions, Mary Ann is known for her passion and delivery of easy-to-understand lessons. Her clients and students love her approach because working together gets synergistic results. They frequently comment on leaving private sessions and movement classes feeling rejuvenated, better aligned, and balanced in their bodies. Engaged clients love the immediate and longer-lasting results from her core movement and kinesiology-based exercises and find that they boost performance in all daily activities!