“Throughout my research and explorations, it always made sense to look inside the body—to consider it as a garden in need of nourishment and tending.”
— Founder & Director, BioDynamic Breathwork & Trauma Release Institute.
Interested in experiencing BBTRS® with its founder? Ready to reduce trauma and stress-related activation in your daily life? Then click below to learn more about private sessions with Giten!
BBTRS® creator Giten Tonkov shares a mastery of body-oriented therapies that has evolved from decades of learning and work with thousands of clients. A Licensed Massage Therapist and certified Breath & Body Oriented Therapist, he developed BBTRS® on a years-long personal journey of recovering his own body, which carried the impact of a childhood accident. His body “remembered” the accident in ways his mind did not, and the suffering was trapped within him. Throughout many years of working with different bodywork modalities, conscious movement, and meditation techniques, he identified a series of tools that came together into a single practice that he has been sharing with thousands across the world for nearly 20 years. Giten documented this work, and its origins, in FEEL TO HEAL: RELEASING TRAUMA THROUGH BODY AWARENESS AND BREATHWORK PRACTICE [Hyperlink to book page].
Since developing BBTRS®, Giten—along with former students who have become leading BBTRS® facilitators, Nisarga Dobosz and Prema McKeever— also began offering body-oriented trainings in Poland. These now include specialized Acute Trauma trainings for Ukrainian refugees impacted by war, as part of the Ukrainian Training Resilience Project (offered in collaboration between BBTRF and IBF).
A native of Ukraine, Giten makes his home in the Santa Cruz mountains in California, USA, and the Greek Island of Lesvos. He previously lived and practiced in New York City for 24 years, as well as India and Bali, Indonesia, for more than ten years.
“After working in physical therapy and medical massage, I developed my own bodywork practice in New York City. There, I found it fascinating to integrate different modalities, including Swedish and Thai massage, Shiatsu, lymph drainage, and the five elements in Chinese medicine. At the same time, I traveled each year to other countries to experience trainings in different modalities—especially resonating with the breath therapies and meditations taught at the OSHO International Meditation Center in India. Meditation then became a favorite area of study and eventually a daily practice; I also explored counseling techniques, Holotropic Breathwork, and hallucinogenic plant medicine and psychedelics.
“Releasing tension from deep within the body’s tissues makes organic sense to me, and led me to seek out somatic, or body-based, release modalities. With time, I added elements of breath, touch, meditation, body awareness, conscious movement, sound, and emotional expression to take my work to another level. The resulting modality—BioDynamic Breathwork Trauma Release System® (BBTRS®)—dramatically reduces the time needed for a person to transcend something that was deeply embedded in the body. I hope it changes your life as it has mine.”
• Developer of the BioDynamic Breathwork & Trauma Release System® (BBTRS®)
• Founder & Director, BioDynamic Breathwork & Trauma Release Institute (BBTRI®), the company that offers BBTRS® and related programming; Lead Facilitator of BBTRI® Trainings
• Co-Founder & Director of the nonprofit BioDynamic Breathwork & Trauma Release Foundation (BBTRF)
• Co-Founder & Director of the Integral Body Institute (IBI) in Poland, a sister organization to BBTRI
• Co-Founder of the nonprofit Integral Body Foundation (IBF)
• Co-Developer of and the Acute Trauma Online Training and Ukrainian Training Resilience Project, offered collaboratively by sister organizations BBTRF and IBF
• Author of Feel to Heal – Breathwork Book
Giten is pleased to offer individual sessions of approximately 75 minutes, via Skype or Zoom. His mission is to support you to focus your attention and identify:
1. Where and how past trauma (developmental as well as shock trauma) and traumatic stress are being stored in you physical body.
2. How trauma manifests itself in health conditions. This might include chronic tension, pain syndrome, or behaviors that are no longer serving you.
3. The connection between physical tension, pain areas, and trauma-related patterns.
4. How to utilize “felt sense,” internal and external “resources,” verbal support, focused breath, and movement exercises.
5. How to mobilize and release trauma and stress-related physical, emotional, and mental tension.
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Effective date: October 16, 2018
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By registering, I understand that I am required to maintain the confidentiality and privacy of demo clients and my fellow participant’s attendance regarding anything they’ve shared or processed.
By registering, I agree this will be a safe space of openness where cultural, historical, generational, societal, and personal differences are respected without verbal or physical judgment, criticism, or harm.
By registering, I am aware that recording equipment maybe be present during this workshop. If I ask a question my voice will be recorded and I may appear on video. This video may be posted on the Biodynamic Breathwork and Trauma Release™ website, YouTube, FaceBook, and other media outlets.
If I do not want to appear on video it is my responsibility to inform the course facilitators at the beginning of course. In this case I will not be videoed.
By registering, I understand that I may be presented with the opportunity to participate in a recorded demonstration session in front of the class. I understand that my participation is voluntary. We may pause or discontinue my participation at my discretion or the discretion of BBTRI course facilitator or another Faculty member. I acknowledge that demonstration sessions may include questions about my personal trauma history and/or my emotional and psychological states. My decision to reveal such information is entirely voluntary. I am under no obligation to share anything I do not want to.
II understand that the BioDynamic Breathwork & Trauma Release Workshop & Training can be physically and emotionally intense. By registering, I agree that neither Alexander ‘Giten’ Tonkov, Biodynamic Breathwork and Trauma Release™ Institute, nor any of its staff, coordinators, assistants, faculty members, technicians, affiliates, the venue, or representatives have any responsibility or liability for physical or emotional harm, property loss or damage that may result from attendance at or travel to and from the Workshop and I hereby release them from all claims in connection with my attendance of this workshop.
I acknowledge that I am required to inform the staff about relevant psychiatric history, infectious diseases, drug use, and all present health conditions before participation in the training. I understand that no refunds are provided under any circumstance after the beginning of the workshop. I understand that BioDynamic Breathwork & Trauma Release Institute (BBTRI) Staff reserve the right to request termination of my participation if I have not complied with all of the above guidelines, and/or if BioDynamic Breathwork and Trauma Release Institute’s staff deems it not suitable for me to continue at any point in the workshop.