Lael Katharine Keen, SEP

Lael Katharine Keen is a lifelong student of human nature whose explorations of healing and human wholeness have spanned more than six decades. Her earliest explorations began in the 1970s when she discovered Aikido in high school, falling in love with the Japanese martial art based on harmony and fluidity. She met her teacher, Koichi Kashiwaya Sensei, master of Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido (Ki-Aikido), at age 19 and moved to Colorado to study with him. She founded and ran a Ki-Aikido school in Belo Horizonte, Brazil — the Sociedade de Ki de Belo Horizonte — from 1987 to 1997, and currently teaches Ki-Aikido alongside her husband Russell Jones in Florianopolis, Santa Catarina.

Lael's bodywork training began in earnest in her early 20s, when she had the honor of studying with Milton Trager, originator of the Trager® Approach, becoming a certified Advanced Trager Practitioner in 1983. She also trained as a massage therapist at the Boulder School of Massage Therapy in Boulder, Colorado. At age 25 she completed her Rolfing® training — a natural path given that her stepfather Tom Wing was trained by Ida Rolf herself, and her mother Heather Starsong was one of the originators of the Rolf Movement Integration program at the Rolf Institute. Lael moved to Brazil in the 1980s, became a founding member of the Brazilian Rolfing® Association, and brought the first Rolf Movement® Integration Training to Brazil in the early 1990s. She trained as a Rolfing® teacher in the early 1990s and has since become a Certified Advanced Rolfer.

One of Peter Levine's direct students, Lael has been teaching Somatic Experiencing® (SE) internationally since 1998 across six continents. She is a founding member of the Brazilian Trauma Association and helped establish SE in South America. She and her husband Russell Jones operate a training center in the Atlantic rainforest on the Island of Santa Catarina in southern Brazil. Her practice also encompasses anthroposophic counseling and art therapy, the Bates Method of Vision, and a 6th-degree black belt in Ki-Aikido — an unusual and broad combination that deeply informs her approach to embodiment, trauma, and healing. She teaches SE at Beginning, Intermediate, and Advanced levels in the UK, Europe, and Brazil. Her blog addresses complex topics such as surgical trauma, anesthesia awareness, and the psychological dimensions of medical procedures.