Learn with teachers who love what they do.
You are the reason we are here. With a combined experience of over 75 years we truly care about your learning.
The Soma Institute is a delightful place to learn and develop oneself. I feel very lucky to have learned Soma from these amazingly talented educators.
A.W. —Class of 2016
JESSE GUERRERO LMT, Advanced Soma Practitioner: ASP – has been in private practice since 2002. He began his connection with Soma Structural Integration when he received the Soma Series at the age of eight. Shortly thereafter, his Aunt, Karen Bolesky, took over the Soma Institute of Neuromuscular Integration®. He credits this work for helping him overcome severe asthma and rehabilitating multiple sport injuries and traumas. Through these experiences and years of watching students’ positive evolution, he was inspired to gain his SNI® certification.
He has taught continuing education classes in Slovenia, Croatia, Oregon and Washington to healthcare professionals and aspiring structural integrators. He is fascinated by all movement arts and has studied Somatics, 5-Rhythms, yoga, pilates, Gyrokinesis, skateboarding, Aikido and Laban/Bartenieff fundamentals. He infuses this knowledge into every aspect of his teaching. He is a core faculty member at the Soma Institute.
When Jesse is not teaching or running his practice he can usually be found playing with his daughter, roaming the landscape on a skate or snowboard or rummaging in the garden.
“I want my students to find themselves in this work, in their body, in their own essence. Structural Integration has to become your own expression, so you not only gain knowledge, but you awaken your own unique brilliance. From this place a student can create a practice with confidence and authenticity. Supporting the embodiment of an uplifting and joyous profession is more than my passion, it is my ethos.”
KELSI GISWOLD BFA, LMT, Advanced Soma Practitioner: ASP – has been practicing Soma Structural Integration since 2008 in Wallingford—Seattle and Langley—Whidbey Island, Washington. Before becoming an Soma practitioner she received her Bachelor of Fine Art and freelanced as a graphic designer. Kelsi views the body with sensitivity and wonder and a profound appreciation for the powerful union of the mind, body and spirit. She encourages her clients and students to be playfully engaged in their lives by being fully present in their bodies.
Through her active lifestyle Kelsi continually finds joy in physical expression and awareness— whether running, hiking, climbing, playing in her garden, skiing, traveling or mothering her daughter. She was a varsity rower in college, and has hiked, traveled, farmed and worked in South America, Europe, India, Japan and Antarctica.
A lifelong learner, Kelsi is constantly attending continuing education courses to deepen her understanding of the human body, mind and spirit. She believes that curiosity and lifelong learning are the fuels of a creative and fulfilling life.
“My desire is to empower my students to deeply trust themselves, bringing their wholeness and presence to the table. I delight in encouraging students to be creative, compassionate and critical thinkers who value continual learning.”
KIMBERLY LORTON, LMT, Advanced Soma Practitioner: ASP – Kimberly’s love of anatomy started via an accelerated program at her HS for observing cadaver dissections at UAA in Anchorage. She attended the University of Washington on an athletic scholarship for swimming and was a double major in bio(primate) anthropology and comparative religion. Her MA (Museology) thesis on auction theory started with interning at the Pilchuck Glass school where she assisted in their first auction event to raise $1M. She then organized the Burke Museum’s NW Coastal Art auction, which, at the time, set the UW‘s fundraising record for a single event.
For several years after college she competed in regional and national level triathlons and she helped run the Trek and DANSKIN Triathlons in Seattle as a way to promote women in sport. She also created a series of clinics for adult swimmers for efficiency and injury prevention as well as becoming a certified POSE running coach and a certified CrossFit coach to further her ability to help others realize their own potential. She coached the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Team-in-Training, raised tens of thousands of dollars for various cancer research and patient support organizations, helped build NUUN active hydration, and attended the Culinary Institute of America Boot Camps.
In 2012 her first child arrived and she was accepted into both the doctorate of physical therapy program at UW and the Soma Institute. Only able to do one, she followed her intuition and chose Soma for herself and her family!
She began her full time practice in 2015. She brings her athleticism, a level of empathy that only a lifetime of challenges and recoveries can impart, intuitive wisdom, and academic rigor to her teaching and her Soma clients. She has completed advanced trainings in breathwork, cranio-facial harmony, and advanced pelvic floor work.
Additionally, she recently completed a two-year program in Wild Medicinal Plants. Today, she stays busy camping/foraging for plants, making all manner of remedies, riding her bike, hanging with family, learning basketry/fiber arts, treating Soma clients, and teaching at the Soma Institute!
VANESSA WOOD, LMT, Soma Practitioner, Certified Advanced Equine Natural Movement Practitioner – Vanessa has worked in Structural Integration for the last 15 years. First with equines, soon adding in canines and other four leggeds. She then found her way to The Soma Institute to work with people. As a practitioner and teacher, she loves the transformation and happiness Structural Integration brings to humans and animals alike.
DENISE FOSTER-SCOTT LMT, Advanced Soma Practitioner: ASP – seeking a meaningful career, left the world of aviation to receive her training as a Structural Integrator at the Soma Institute of Neuromuscular Integration® in 2007. Shortly after graduation, she began a yearlong internship with Karen Bolesky in which she explored client relationships and delved into the heart of structural work. Denise has a deep fascination about how our individual facets (emotional, spiritual, intellectual) affect the structure of the body and how to use these connections in ourselves to create spaciousness and openness within. She has special interest in anatomy and structure and pays close attention to the relationship between form and function in her work with clients and students. Denise is certified by the Certification Board for Structural IntegrationSM and has devoted many volunteer hours to the International Association of Structural Integration®. She has published several case studies about structural integration.
Denise teaches Soma Advanced Trainings and continuing education courses.
“I want the students to leave with a tremendous sense of confidence that their work will create profound changes in the bodies and lives around them. Soma Neuromuscular Integration® opens the door to awareness, creating choices and the potential for change. It is my wish that the students take this opportunity to shed their self-imposed limitations that mask actuality. This way they are able to recognize and encourage these same changes in others.”
KAREN L. BOLESKY M.A., L.M.H.C., L.M.T., LAMP, Advanced Soma Practitioner:
March 9, 1941 – February 12, 2023
Karen was the Director of the Soma Institute of Neuromuscular Integration® and worked with Structural Integration for over 30 years. She was a psychotherapist, and licensed Mental Health Counselor from 1975 to 2019 with a broad scope of psychological and somatic training. In 1986 she became a practitioner and instructor of Soma Neuromuscular Integration® and owned the Soma Institute of Neuromuscular Integration® since 1986. Part sage, witchdoctor and rascal, she enjoyed working the farm that she has created. Rural Washington provided much insight into the rhythms of life and nature which she shared wisely with much tenacity and joy.
She studied Gestalt therapy with the Polsters, grief therapy in death and dying with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D., and drawing interpretation with Gregg M. Furth, Ph.D. Her B.A. was in Fine Art and she used drawing interpretation as a tool to enhance personal development. She learned nutrition and business practices by owning health food stores. Her powerful work with her clients and students, tapping their personal creativity and capacity to manifest their vision and wisdom, was aided by her own synthesis of the creative process and knowledge of somatic education.
Karen wrote a book entitled: Bony Landmarks-Making Somatic Connections
She will be missed, but her life’s work lives on through the many students she taught.
“I want the student to leave with a true and deep sense of their own self, to live the work they are providing, to have a powerful, experiential and academic knowledge of Soma to take forth as a creative act.”
