What is Somatic Movement (Somatics)?
The term ‘Somatic’ is everywhere at the moment: Somatic Mindfulness, Somatic Experiencing, Relational Somatic Therapy etc… all beautiful modalities in themselves, but let’s create some clarity here before we continue.
I practice Somatic Movement, in the tradition of Thomas Hanna Ph.D. (and developed by others including my teachers at Essential Somatics and Elizabeth Wakley MSc.) In 1990 Thomas Hanna wrote his classic book ‘Somatics’, after training with Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais (physicist, martial artist, engineer and somatic pioneer and developer of the Feldenkrais Method®). Hanna described himself as a philosopher that worked with his hands — “all my life I have been profoundly concerned with being free.”
Somatics is a gentle, mostly floor-based movement practice that enhances and improves our experience of living in our bodies. It can be learnt in a group class or in a 1:1 sessions.In simple terms: As humans we move out of habit. These movement habits can be far from ideal and lead us to dysfunction and pain (think sitting at a desk for long hours, staring at a cellphone, driving for long hours — the system can habituate actions that are harmful over time). Stress and trauma create patterns of holding and protection, often resulting in pain and a disconnection to what we feel. Our stress responses can become stuck, holding us in states of high alert or shutdown. In a Somatic Movement class we learn new, more efficient movement patterns, re-educating our nervous systams to find more ease and less strain and more freedom.
A Soma isn’t a body and it isn’t a mind; it’s the living process. In Hanna’s words “The Soma is not only the ‘body’ as perceived from within, nor only the ‘mind’,’ nor the emotions, nor another specific function of the somatic process. The comprehensive term for the content of first-person perception is experience. As humans, as Somas, we are a process of experience, we do not separate physical, mental, emotional, we are all one. Somatology is the study of our innate, first-person experience of our body; the idea that mind and body are separate is derived from a third-person, outsider perspective. As a Soma, our first-person somatic experience of ourselves from the inside is, when functioning optimally, fluid, integrated and whole.
Movement is the way in to softly changing our whole selves. Changing how we move directly influences how we think and feel — “habit has lost its chief support, that of the muscles, and has become more amenable to change.” (Feldenkrais). Modern neuroscience supports Feldenkrais’s findings, Professor of Neurobiology David Wolpert states that movement is THE number one reason we have brains!
In summary, Somatics re-educates our nervous systems to regain control over our muscles and relax them in order to reverse the effects of accumulated tension, stress, holding and protective patterns of trauma.
How can Somatic Movement benefit me?