Rie Katagiri is a Los Angeles based conscious movement educator, somatic holistic healer, embodiment coach and choreographer as well as a spiritual embodiment facilitator that specializes in engaging the body's intelligence to access space and pleasure to integrate it as a new normal, a guiding light towards soothing anxiety, body shame and emotional triggers.

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With 20 years of formal training in bodywork, yoga, qigong and erotic/pole dance, Rie has expertly created workshops, teacher training programs and coached award wining artists to elevate their body and energy awareness.

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Rie started her own healing journey in 1996 after an injury that left her hospitalized. The lack of compassion and care Rie experienced turned from depression to inspiration. “People who need healing, deserve better." This traumatic experience set Rie on the path of healing and educating herself about conscious healthy living. Through her injury, Rie realized instinctually her body had built-in healing and regenerative intelligence. Through her own curiosity and life changes, she began to learn first hand what worked and what didn’t when it came to transformative healing models. Her first yoga teacher's training was with the internationally recognized pioneer in yoga and emotional healing, Ana Forrest. Ana offered her a teaching position at her highly regarded Forrest Yoga Circle in Santa Monica in 2002 where she taught until the studio closed.

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In 2004 during a pole dancing class, Rie discovered what she was missing. Although she thought she was “in her body” as a full time yoga instructor and bodyworker, she knew that she was not engaged with all of her creative juices. So a few pole dancing classes later, in this intimate room full of women, she realized that her inner dancer and sensual femaleness had been in a deep sleep. This new love affair with sensuality + pole dancing led Rie to fully dive into dance classes at S Factor Los Angeles, where she began tending to another layer of self discovery and healing. At the urging of her instructor, in 2006 she became a teacher as well as a national teacher trainer; developing their anatomy curriculum.

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After many years of supporting someone else's vision, she followed her aching heart to start her own movement called Erotic Movement Arts ® (EMA). EMA is a multi sensory, pleasure based, conscious movement and fitness experience for women. Part sacred temple, part boudoir - every cellular matrix of EMA is from Rie's own body and all that she has come to understand about living well in a female body. EMA offers an open and brave space for women to journey into their inherent spiritual embodied wisdom which includes our erotic body & energy.​ EMA classes bring women from all over the world to explore through sacred dance, dialog, ritual, play and witnessing each other in their exploration of what it takes to choose to move from their liberated authentic self.

 

One of the greatest gifts of Rie's professional life is empowering students to realize how amazing their bodies are. Self care through nutrition, cleansing, exercising and stress management are topics Rie is pleased to cover during a private session.