Moving Beyond Core

A veteran movement educator reframes the concept of the “core” as a dynamic, whole-body relationship rather than a set of muscles to control. The book’s strength lies in its synthesis. The author brings together a wide range of influences – embryology, fascial research, polyvagal theory, biotensegrity and the work of major somatic thinkers – into a cohesive, highly specialized worldview. This guide is a thoughtful and deeply informed work.

Wendy has gifted you and me with her lifetime search and practice of awakening to and embracing life from multiple embodied approaches and perspectives. This is a wonderfully engaging book if you also seek to navigate life with clarity of presence, ease of movement, and meaningful expression and communication with others. If that is you, you are in for a treat!

As a clinical anatomist and fascia specialist, I value Wendy's visionary work offering a profoundly wise, embodied invitation to move beyond mechanistic training models toward a living, relational understanding of human movement. This book invites readers into a relationship with the body's fascia matrix, where movement emerges through presence rather than performance. This book represents a vital contribution to somatic practice, fasciategrity, and whole-body awareness.

This book is the result of decades of dealing with, living with, and guiding people in the deep wisdom the embryo can teach us, namely, how to be human beings as we are meant to be: intelligent organisms that know how to orient, adapt, self-regulate, self-heal, and, above all, love. Thank you, Wendy, for helping people experience the spirit within themselves and realize their potential.

It has been an absolute joy to witness Wendy's journey and contribution to the world of somatic awareness. Already a longtime yoga practitioner, Wendy emerged from The Pilates Center's inaugural teacher training program with Romana Kryzanowska with a passionate resolve to discern and illuminate the unifying principles embodied in all the great bodymind disciplines. Her deep dive beyond Pilates into Continuum, Feldenkrais, Aston Patterning, Body Mind Centering, Rolf Structural Integration, etc., has culminated in a truly unique body of work that awakens us to the interconnectedness of our mental, physical and spiritual selves (just as Mr. Pilates taught). This book will be a staple for movement and bodywork practitioners for decades to come.

Moving Beyond Core takes us on an historical, multidisciplinary, multifaceted, and very personal journey, a deep dive, full of profound understanding and contagious enthusiasm, "beyond what we think we know". This book is more than wise. It is a treasure that can last!

Wendy LeBlanc-Arbuckle's new book is a wide-reaching foray into what might come to be called "movement hygiene", and with it the promise of a deeper relationship with your most intimate friend - your body. Instead of focusing on what needs "fixing" to "get better," this book meets you where you are and enhances what remains unbroken: the connection we have with the natural living world. 

In Moving Beyond Core, Wendy Leblanc-Arbuckle has given us a deeply meaningful invitation to "Behold", to change our perception, to undergo an entire shift in understanding about how our biointelligent, biotensegral bodies function. She transforms "functional excerise" into meaningful inner exploration of what it means to be alive and moving with purpose, engaged in relationship with gravity, with nature, with our loved ones. 

Wendy masterfully evokes the revolutionary idea that our inner cellular intelligence leads the way. Through the lens of somatic practice, fascial integrity, and whole-body awareness, she shows us how to tune in, trust, experience, and adapt to our inherent wisdom. 

Wendy LeBlanc-Arbuckle invites readers into a relationship with the body’s fascial matrix, where movement emerges through presence, not performance. Her book is a vital contribution to somatic practice, fasciategrity, and whole-body awareness. 

I read Wendy LeBlanc-Arbuckle’s “Moving Beyond Core” from cover to cover with increasingly keen interest. Over the course of the book, she develops both an intellectual framework and a movement framework for expanding one’s sense of inner guidance and relationship. Her expanded sense of “core,” detailed exploration of breath, compassionate, “wholehearted” listening, and keen sense of caring relationships combine into a cornucopia of insights and stories valuable for all movement explorers and teachers. Enjoy!

Thoroughly lived and deeply felt, Moving Beyond Core is a compelling narrative and a vital inquiry into how human beings can restore wholeness and vitality. An informative guide for those wishing to discover the body’s deep intelligence.