Inside a sunlit studio in Montpelier, Amy LePage invites people to slow down, breathe, and notice. Through her practice, Emerge with Amy LePage, she helps people of all ages and stages discover tools for living in their bodies with more ease.

She offers somatic movement and bodywork for anyone seeking greater awareness, along with specialized support for people during pregnancy and postpartum.

Somatic movement classes have a class theme or are tailored to each person joining the class. Photo by Amy Modem. 

A LIFELONG LOVE OF MOVEMENT

Amy’s journey began with a lifelong love of movement. She trained in modern dance and contact improvisation, exploring what the body could express. Later, as a yoga therapy practitioner with a focus on functional movement, she found herself drawn back to anatomy and physiology.

That scientific curiosity, paired with her creative background, eventually led her to clinical somatics. “I do this work because I want to open up possibilities for people to move better, breathe better, and feel more comfortable and confident in navigating the loads of life,” Amy says. “My aim is to help people recognize what is happening within themselves and know they have skills to do something about it.”

 Amy LePage, founder. Photo by Abigail Feldman.

RETRAINING THE BRAIN

Her approach often begins with noticing small details: a clenched jaw during a hard conversation, a rib cage that will not expand, or a shoulder bracing against pain. With guided movement and breath awareness, clients learn how to release patterns of tension and shift toward greater ease.

For someone struggling with sleep, for example, she introduces practices that calm the nervous system and quiet the mind. For someone recovering from injury, she uses gentle pandiculations—active contractions followed by slow releases—to retrain the brain and restore natural movement.Somatic movement, Amy explains, is not about exercise or set poses. “It’s more an exploration of noticing the internal experience of movement, breath, and stillness,” she says.

The results can be surprising. She recalls a student who handed her a sticker after class that read, Do less with more intention. That phrase, Amy says, perfectly captures the essence of the practice.

CLIENTS GAIN NEW INSIGHTS

Bodywork is another thread in her work. Like traditional massage, it can involve passive touch, but Amy’s sessions often include moments when the client is an active participant.

“This is brain work,” she says. “We are literally rewiring and reeducating the nervous system and the musculoskeletal system.”

Clients regularly leave with new insights. “I hear all the time: ‘I haven’t felt my rib cage move like that before,’ or, ‘When I move my pelvis, my head moves.’ Those ah-ha moments are so powerful.”

RESET IN JUST THIRTY SECONDS

Her group classes bring similar discoveries. In a recent series focused on the shoulders, neck, and jaw, students were amazed at how much impact small movements could have. In her “Rest Well” and “Screen Time Reset” sessions, she emphasizes sprinkling “movement moments” into daily life. “Even thirty seconds here and there can feel like pressing the reset button,” she says.

Students find that approach doable and sustainable, especially when supported by recordings they can use at home. Over time, she sees profound changes in her students. “Softness and strength,”

Amy says, are the words that come to mind. She describes students leaving class with more fluid gaits, peaceful expressions, and less discomfort. One student told her, “I feel like the Tin Man when I walk into class and walk out with full range of motion and a clear mind.”

 Bodywork sessions combine a variety of modalities meeting each person's specific needs while encouraging personal agency in their health and well-being. Photos  by Amy Modem.

CHILDBIRTH CLASSES AND MORE

Amy’s work also extends to people during pregnancy and postpartum, a focus shaped by her own experience. She remembers struggling with what she now recognizes as postpartum depression when her children were young.

“I just wanted to help other moms not feel this way,” she says. Her movement background and improvisational mindset had supported her through her own births, and she wanted to share that support with others. Today, she offers childbirth education, prenatal and postnatal classes, and bodywork sessions that create a safe, compassionate space. Students describe her as encouraging, supportive, and grounding.

One participant shares, “Amy taught me valuable and profound wisdom with prenatal care and somatic bodywork sessions that I leaned on during labor and beyond. I practically floated out of my sessions with her.”

Another notes, “Classes with Amy have helped me gain insight into various ways to improve my postpartum strength, posture, and comfort. She is a wealth of knowledge and has a kind, warm way about her that immediately makes you feel comfortable.” Support people and partners are often welcomed into classes and bodywork sessions. “There is so much for them to learn and understand too,” Amy says. “It helps them feel more connected during pregnancy and birth.

“From surrogates and intended parents to grandparents attending a “Move and Breathe with Baby” class, she embraces the many shapes a supportive community can take.

 From pelvic floor birth prep to Spinning Babies® education to moving breathing birth classes, body-focused birth prep is Amy's specialty. Photos  by Amy Modem.

TURN INWARD AND HIT RESET

Her hope for everyone who works with her is simple but profound: that they carry forward the small moments of awareness. “Movement moments, even just for thirty seconds or a minute, are an opportunity to tune inward, shift your perspective, and hit the reset button,” she says.

For Amy, the human body is not simply an instrument to be used, but, as she quotes Thomas Hanna, “a realm of one’s being to be experienced, explored, enriched and, thereby, educated.”

For more information on offerings and

class schedule, visit www.emergewith

amylepage.com.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF AMY LePAGE