Lang Maria Liu is a martial artist, dancer and healer. She has been teaching Brazilian capoeira in Toronto and running Filhos de Bimba Toronto, whose mother school is based in Salvador da Bahia, for over twenty years. She is a passionate advocate of community-based, transformative art forms.
Lang has a right-hip condition (FAI) from birth that limits her range of motion and creates imbalances in her body. Rather than give in to the doctors' prognoses that she would need a hip replacement in her forties and should drop any strenuous physical activity, Lang embarked on a journey to Asia in search of healing tools. During the two years that she spent in an osteopathic clinic in India, she learned a dynamic stretching technique from Manipur (northeastern India) and saw improvements for the first time in decades. She came across Esther Gokhale’s book, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back, and knew that she had found a crucial piece of the puzzle. Having lived both in Brazil and in India, Lang was already interested in the impact of Western lifestyles on posture and health. She was therefore eager to learn a method that provided lasting solutions to the epidemic of back and joint pain plaguing the West.
As a passionate advocate of healthy living and the environment, Lang bases her approach on the mind-body connection. She is eager to help others heal their bodies so that they can live more joyful and free lives. Lang offers Gokhale Method Foundation Courses in Toronto, Canada. She has completed a Bowen Therapy certificate and holds a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Toronto, where she focused on the field of holistic and transformative learning. Her book, Bimba’s Rhythm is One, Two, Three: From Resistance to Transformation Through Brazilian Capoeira, is available on Amazon.
