"Movement education isn’t just about training the body—it’s about awakening the neural pathways that shape perception, expression, and skill. What emerges is the untold story of you."
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Ben Hemmer Liu is a somatic movement therapist, actor, and educator whose work bridges physical recovery, adaptive conditioning, and embodied performance.
Drawing from martial arts, somatic therapy, and physical theatre, he helps artists, athletes, and seekers refine coordination, reclaim agency, and rediscover the body as a source of power, play, and poetic intelligence.
He is the founder of AOM – Anthropology of Movement, a cross-disciplinary pedagogy for resilience, creative exploration, and transformation through motion and the language of gesture.
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I was born in India to a French-Italian mother and a Chinese-American father—a photojournalist who documented the world’s upheavals, from Tiananmen Square to the fall of the Soviet Union. My childhood unfolded across cultures, languages, and revolutions.
My parents fleeing wars and revolutions growing up imparted in me a deep understanding of resilience, change, adaptability and a global perspective.
In martial arts, dance, theatre, holistic care you adapt to the given circumstances —to be raised in motion and adaptation was part of my heritage I put it practice what I knew to be essential that had been stripped from educational institutions.
I grew up between New Delhi, Seoul, Moscow, Hong Kong, Paris, Beijing and New York, surrounded by stories, displacement, cultural and physical traditions that became parts of me—from my grandmother’s athletic practice, my mother’s qigong and yoga dedication to my father on the run documenting wars, revolutions and transforming empires. Everyone was busy practicing what they felt gave an edge, learning languages and skills to thrive in a transforming world.
These influences laid the foundation for what would become a lifelong inquiry into movement arts and science. Those practices, pedagogues, artists, researchers I emulated helped shape my identity, but more than that I realized they formed an immaterial global heritage, a human anthropology of cultural practices and lineages. This experiential wisdom is the embodied bedrock for all cultures. The language of gesture is the foundation of who we are, our awareness, miming and interacting with the world around us, it is the foundation of all verbal languages, the development of skill and education itself. Through embodied practice of forms, gestures and training I found a source of empowerment, experiential wisdom, memory, narrative medicine, somatic healing, holistic health, vision and creativity. It is the passion that steers my body.
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AOM is dedicated to fostering creativity, discovery, and a deeper understanding of what it means to be alive as a developing human being.
My work is shaped by 3 founding pillars and a constellation of teachers and lineages
Moshe Feldenkrais – Awareness through movement
Michael Ryabko & Vladimir Vasiliev – Breath & adaptability under pressure
Jacques Lecoq – Gesture, rhythm, physical storytelling
With my special gratitude to the masters, teachers, researchers, performers who have planted seeds, passed on the torch and given me legs to find my way through this world: through formal education, personal research, or the wisdom passed down through generations, these figures represent a vast universe of knowledge. I apologize for any I may have overlooked.
Jean Pierre Barral, Andrew Taylor Still, William Sutherland, Ida Rolf, Thomas Myers, Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, B.K.S. Iyengar, T.K.V. Desikachar, Joseph Hubertus Pilates, Eugen Sandow, Max Sick, Alexander Zass, Charles Atlas, Jack LaLanne, Pavel Tatsouline, Francois Delsarte, Jean Louis Barrault, Jacques Lecoq, George Hebert, Marie Overlie, Richard Crawford, Norman Tailor, Amy Russel, Suzanne Bing, Etienne Decroux, Antonin Artaud, Marcel Marceau, Jerzy Marian Grotowski, Augusto Boal, Viola Spolin, Anton Chekhov, Konstantin Stanislavski, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Lee Strasberg, Sanford Meisner, Molière, Shakespeare, Rudolph Laban, Pina Bausch, Martha Graham, Ohad Naharin, Steve Paxton, Gabrielle Roth, Keith Johnstone, Charlie Chaplin, Guy Laliberté, Anne Bogart, Bruce Lee, Yip Man, Morihei Ueshiba, Kano Jigoro, Zhang Sanfeng, Master Zhang, Wang Zhi Peng, Wong Shun-leung, Nino Bernardo, Hélio Gracie, Antonio Damasio, Immordino Yang, Daniel Wolpert, George Lakoff, Andrew Huberman, and many others have laid the foundation for our culture and education of embodiment, storytelling, and the cultivation of mind-body-spirit awareness.
I dedicate my work to my ancestors, family and friends
Through AOM, I strive to honor their legacies and continue building a rich, inclusive, and holistic approach to education and growth in movement.
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I believe embodied movement is a language of gesture—one that expresses who we are before words can.
More than just muscles and mechanics, the body carries memory, identity, tension, and truth. Healing is not simply individual—it is relational, communal, and creative. There is a method, a system, a pedagogy that drives this process.
My mission is to reconnect people to their bodies—not just for function, but for freedom. Through AOM and embodied coaching, I help others reclaim the body as a site of clarity, creativity, and resilience.
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1:1 somatic sessions (virtual or in-person)
Workshops for artists, movers, and clinicians
Digital programs, training films and poetic storytelling
Retreats & community events
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My work supports:
Individuals with neurological or physical challenges (Parkinson’s, MS, chronic pain, stroke recovery, spinal injuries), suffering from emotional and physical trauma.
Artists, athletes, and performers seeking physical refinement and creative integration
Children develop embodied wisdom, confidence, focus, and coordination.
Professionals building mind-body resilience in daily life
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While rooted in somatic tradition, my work is evolving toward scientific validation. I am currently documenting outcomes with clients and exploring ways to integrate movement science, anatomy, and psychology into a grounded, data-informed somatic framework.
Ben Hemmer Liu is a somatic movement therapist, actor, and educator whose work bridges physical recovery, embodied performance, and adaptive conditioning. His teaching synthesizes years of training across martial arts, theatre, somatic therapy and holistic health—guiding individuals toward strength, awareness, and expressive freedom.
Raised between cultures and disciplines, Ben began training in martial arts at a young age, drawn to how physical practice—through breath, rhythm, and form—could shape the nervous system and cultivate resilience. This early training became a lifelong inquiry into how the body learns, remembers, and transforms through skill development and embodied learning.
He studied the Feldenkrais Method, learning to retrain movement through neuroplastic pathways and subtle sensory awareness obtaining certification as a practitioner. He trained in Russian Systema —a modern military combative approach to physical & psychological conditioning becoming a certified instructor. A lifetime of teaching how to weaponize the human body with softness, breath, and adaptability under pressure drawing from all the styles he practiced, became the core of his martial approach. He explored Somatic Parts Work to support trauma recovery through embodiment obtaining certification. And through the Lecoq school of physical theatre, he discovered rhythm, mask, and gesture as tools for both artistry and integration continuing to follow teachers and pedagogical training in all the above methodology Benjamin also became a national academy of sports medicine certified personal trainer with multiple continuous education courses and is also a certified yoga instructor with the Yoga Alliance.
Drawing from a lifetime of practice, research and teaching experience he helps artists, athletes, and seekers refine coordination, reclaim agency, and rediscover the body as a source of power, play, and poetic intelligence.
These threads converged into AOM: Anthropology of Movement—a cross-disciplinary pedagogy and educational effort to document the roots, lineages, anthropology of embodied form, transmitting the wisdom and practice that shaped Ben’s appreciation of embodied cognition, somatic experience, creative play, and martial conditioning. AOM honors lineage, embraces modern research, and strives to address the educational needs of the 21st-century. AOM invites each body to become more than functional—to become articulate, intuitive, and free.
Today, Ben offers 1:1 somatic sessions, movement coaching, group workshops, and digital programs—designed for artists, athletes, and seekers navigating injury, transition, or creative thresholds. His work invites each body to become more than functional—to become articulate, intuitive, and free.
