What is Somatics? How Can Somatics Help me?
The lineage of Somatic Study I practice and teach is that of Thomas Hanna.
Somatics works with your somatic nervous system, also called the 'sensory motor loop'. For example, you put your hand near a hot surface and a chain of events is set into motion. The sensory side of this loop receives input "hot surface" and sends that information to your brain. Then your brain, via the motor side of the loop, sends a directive "pull your hand away." This all happens, if things are working as they should, in a fraction of a second.
As we grow up and become more involved in the external world around us, many of us begin to lose the ability to be sensorially aware of our bodies. We develop patterns (through injury, mirroring others in our lives, poor body mechanics, etc...) that when repeated enough times become ingrained, unconscious and eventually involuntary. In Yoga we call these "Samskaras". Many people today stand and sit in a forward rounded position due to many long hours of sitting at a computer or looking at a personal device. When we catch sight of ourselves in a mirror or see our reflection in a window, we might see the pattern that now exists and make a conscious effort to "stand straight", and as long as we are thinking of it, we can exert the effort to combat the slouching and stand tall. But once something else takes our attention, our involuntary pattern (the Samskara) takes over again and we slouch. We cannot voluntarily release the contractions that are pulling us into the forward slouch because they have become involuntary and unconscious.
With Hanna somatics, we work slowly, and mindfully to reset the resting tone of our muscles as well as develop our internal sense of ourself (our soma). In moving in a special way we shift motor control away from the part of the brain that directs us in unconscious movement to the part of the brain that can reset resting muscle tone, the voluntary motor cortex. From here we release unconscious contractions and come back to balance. We were not designed to slouch!
Working Somatically you are educating your brain and creating lasting change in how your nervous system is organizing you. While therapies applied by someone else and from the outside may provide short term relief from the stress and discomfort that accompany contracted muscles, the relief is short terms because there has been no education and the resting tones of the muscles has not changed.
Resources to discover more about Hanna Somatics:
Website for the Association of Hanna Somatic Educators. Find information about trainings, practitioners, Thomas Hanna and much more.
“Somatics: Reawakening the Mind's Control of Movement, Flexibility, and Health”, by Thomas Hanna
“Clinical Somatic Education: A New Discipline in the Field of Health Care”, by Thomas Hanna
“Why Hanna Somatic Education Works”, by Lisa Tatham
Direct experience is the highest form of knowing, so If you would like to experience a short guided session of Somatic Exercises please click on a video below.
This is a group of Hanna Somatic Exercises called "The Daily Cat Stretch". Thomas Hanna designed this series to help release contractions that occur in us each day in the course of living life.
“The Daily Cat Stretch” done in a chair.