By Laura Bond and Company

In early March 2025, I had the absolute pleasure and honor to teach an Emotional Body® method workshop at the University of Pretoria in Pretoria, South Africa. The group participating in the workshop consisted mainly of graduate students from two universities in Pretoria who were studying film, theatre, and applied theatre studies. We also had participants who were college professors and teaching assistants, professional actors/performers, and one individual specializing in trauma counseling.

The workshop provided in person lessons and instructional content hours typically provided in an introductory level Emotional Body® method intensive training with approximately 22 hours of instruction within 4-5 days, plus supplemental online resources for self-study and continued practice. To learn more about how Emotional Body method intensives and other courses are taught, visit our website course page.

I was accompanied by my university colleague, Anne Slatton, a Professor of Film Studies, who not only participated in the workshop but also graciously offered to video record interviews during our time there. Upon our return to the States she worked with a team of editors to create a documentary about the Emotional Body® method and our experience in the Pretoria workshop.

During the months of January through May of 2025, I taught several Emotional Body method workshop intensives including the Pretoria workshop. I also taught an intensive in the South Bronx, New York and another in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Many of the photos we took during the 2025 workshops are included in this documentary, along with some photos from the last 20 years of my teaching the method.

Since 2006 I have taught in person intensive workshops, like the one in Pretoria, almost annually in my own region of western North Carolina, as well as many more in various cities throughout the U.S, in Mexico, the U.K., and in Canada. Now that I have officially retired from full time university teaching, it is my hope to teach more workshops like these, as well as customized small group specialty workshops for more people worldwide.

I wish to extend my heartfelt gratitude to all the Emotional Body® workshop participants who have graciously contributed their images and interviews for the purposes of informing and educating the public about this method. I am particularly grateful for the thoughtful commentary provided by the Pretoria, South Africa workshop participants and for the creative film design and editing work of the creators of the documentary. (Credits provided in the video)

The Video: The Emotional Body® method experience

Watch this brief, yet insightful, 26-minute documentary where Laura Bond, founder of the Emotional Body® method, an evidence-based approach to physical emotion regulation, is interviewed along with several participants from a recent workshop. Learn about what the method is, how it is taught, and the benefits gained by those who have taken Emotional Body® workshops and how it has improved their wellbeing and its potential applications for various professions.

To learn more about the Emotional Body® method visit https://emotionalbody.co/
and https://pureexpressions.substack.com/

The Video Includes the Following Content

Time Stamp Topic

0:00 The Emotional Body® method and how it works with the nervous system to manage and regulate emotions

1:36 How the method offers an objective base for our subject interpretations of emotions

2:18 Performer’s use of the method, and how they can use it along with other techniques they have learned

3:16 First Benefit: Self-discovery, emotional wellness use, and personal enlightenment about emotional habits & regulation abilities

4:32 Beginning of comments from workshop participants in Pretoria, South Africa

4:35 Participants explain the liberation gained by learning how to manage and release emotions

6:33 Participants recognize the benefit of learning about their Window of Tolerance, emotional self-regulation, emotional selfcare, and how to safely express their emotions

9:40 Second Benefit: Discovering applications to other areas of life such as its use within professions, personal craft, and relationships

10:05 Multilingual benefits of learning this method due to its universal qualities and unique number/letter system for instruction, as well as an excellent core actor training method

11:26 A trauma counselor shares how the method can be used within therapy due to its specific breathing patterns and their various results

12:23 How performers, actors, and all artists can benefit from the techniques taught in the workshop

14:49 Comparison of theatre & film acting skills learned in the workshop

17:30 Workshop participants express the elation and empowerment felt by learning how to quickly shift from one emotion to the next

18:33 Participants describe new insights and skills gained by taking the workshop including recognizing emotional habits, emotional tactics, an emotional lens, ability to tap in and out of emotions, emotional mixes, micro expressions and the need to express and honor our feelings.

22:11 Participants express the need for this method to be taught more often and why emotion workshops like this are important for all people.

26:33 Closing credits