A Fundamental Change in Bodywork Education

By Shanna Warner, Natural Awakenings Magazine December 2020

Leigh Ankrum, the founder and director of the Ankrum Institute, is a bodywork practitioner with 34 years of experience in teaching and private practice. The Institute opened in 2016 as a way for Ankrum to share her decades of education and experience, training new bodywork practitioners for a new future of healthcare. Ankrum tells students that the coming future is integrative. She believes in and practices a new way of looking at bodywork; it is what she calls a “paradigm shift.”

This is a fundamental change in the approach to bodywork and the traditional principles that form the basis of the practice. The shift is about viewing the body as a whole, integrated system. This is the direction Ankrum believes the entire field of healthcare will be headed in the future. 

She is seeing that future unfold with clients and students, because many are looking for healthcare that is integrated and more sustainable. The traditional focus of bodywork practitioners has been managing pain and treating symptoms. According to Ankrum, that is important but it is no longer enough. Ankrum looks at the body as a whole to find the core issues that create pain patterns. Symptoms are seen as a map; they are not the end of the investigation into the cause of disease, but the beginning. 

Ankrum’s ability to bring decades of experience and education into a synergistic whole is the basis of the Institute’s curriculum. After training around the world - including studies in Germany, Canada, the United Kingdom and the USA - Ankrum brought together multiple systems and styles into one comprehensive program. Her knowledge of anatomy and physiology is deepened by her holistic understanding of the body’s organizing principles. It all comes together with a passion for learning and teaching. 

 Ankrum focuses on learning from each client and student. She does this by intense listening. Her life philosophy is that “listening is key, it allows for communication and connection to come forward.” Her business philosophy is one of less ego and more cooperation. She tries to listen and connect with each student and client, leaving ego out. Ankrum explains it this way, “Ego says that I know what you need better than you do. But instead, I listen to your body because it will tell me what to do.” Ankrum teaches these philosophical perspectives to students, showing them how to listen, understand, connect and collaborate.

Because of Ankrum’s deep passion for learning and teaching, interactions with students are fully collaborative. It is a way to treat the learning and practice of bodywork as a partnership. She believes that learning at the Institute should be fun. When she talks about teaching, you can hear the excitement in her voice, “I love teaching so much. I wake up and jump out of bed and cannot wait to get in front of students to share, laugh and learn. This is what I am meant to do.” Ankrum wants to mentor and share as much as possible in the goal of empowering others to make positive life changes; she says that to her students at the beginning of each training and watches it come true with each class and each student.

Students experience the founder’s passion and energy during lectures, where they are part of the learning process. Their life experiences and ideas are used as a way to understand the core principles. Through lectures, classwork, videos, groups and clinic practice, students are immersed in learning and understanding every system of the body in just over two years. By focusing on the interconnections between the body’s many systems students learn to find and understand the origins of dysfunction. They are taught principles to release the tensions and patterns that create the dysfunctions. This allows a natural healing process to occur, as the body comes back into balance between the systems, restoring ease, health and vitality.

By teaching manual therapy with myofascial work, visceral manipulation and craniosacral therapy, the Ankrum Institute trains students to become holistic, integrative practitioners. It is a fundamental change in bodywork that brings body systems together, practitioner and client together, and teacher and student together - fostering true partnership that leads to increased wellness. And this is what Ankrum believes is the future of healthcare.  

The program at Ankrum Institute is open and accessible to anyone with a desire to learn, whether a prospective student already has a career in the field (massage, yoga, physical or occupational therapy, nursing, personal training) or is a complete beginner. Enrollment is open now. The next class begins January 2021.

“Principles, not just techniques. Listening to the body, not applying formulas. Empowering, not fixing.” - Leigh Ankrum

Location: 3331-A E. 31 St., Tulsa. For more information, call 918-212-4206 or visit AnkrumInstitute.com.