Elsa Gindler (19 June 1885 – 8 January 1961) was a somatic bodywork pioneer in Germany.
[1][2] From her personal experience of recovering from tuberculosis (it is said by concentrating on breathing only with her healthy lung and resting the diseased lung), Gindler originated a school of movement education, in close collaboration with Heinrich Jacoby.
[3] What Gindler had called Arbeit am Menschen (work on the human being) emphasised self-observation and growing understanding of one's individual physically related condition.
During the Nazi-period of Germany, Gindler used these investigations and experimental exercises with her students to covertly help people who were persecuted by the regime.
Through Selver's Sensory Awareness workshops at Esalen and elsewhere, Gindler's work indirectly influenced most of the somatic teachers in the United States.