In a Somatic Education class, you’ll learn a series of self-care movements designed to release tight muscles in the front, back, and sides of your body. The primary goal is to increase awareness of habitual muscle tensions so that you can release them. On a deeper level, the practice also helps you become more aware of your general patterns of stress responses, including emotional reactions and habitual thought patterns when facing stressful situations. While movement is the starting point, the journey is ultimately about self-discovery.
The movements are performed slowly to allow the brain to experience them as non-threatening and novel, making them feel manageable and beneficial. You always move within your comfortable range of motion and never push into pain. This approach helps refresh your body’s representation in your central nervous system, making your sense of movement more accurate. Interestingly, multiple neural representations of your body exist in both the brain (sensory-motor cortex) and the spinal cord.
While Somatic Movement classes are relaxing, their primary focus is on learning about how we move, which parts of our body we can’t feel during specific movements, and how we can reintegrate those parts. The premise is that we can rediscover our sense of being whole and in control. This process takes time; Somatic Education is not a quick fix but rather a practice of developing our abilities in sensing and self-organization in movement.
In a group class or course, I take a general approach while adjusting to each person’s needs whenever possible. Ideally, you would start with some clinical sessions and continue refining your movements through ongoing classes and self-exploration.
I have trained as a Hanna Somatic Exercise Coach/ESMT under Martha Peterson at Essential Somatics in early 2014, building on a decade of professional movement teaching experience. My classes are pelvic floor-friendly and follow evidence-based best practices for clients with pain.
I also teach and mentor new Essential Somatics Movement Teachers throughout their training. The image on the right is of me teaching a student in training how to feel deeper into the backlift movement.
Online classes
Somatic Education works well when taught online – you don’t need to look at the screen during a lesson, as you don’t have to copy movements. A class or private lesson is guided verbally, and my instructions are adjusted to your movements, like in a live class. All you need is a laptop or smartphone with a camera and some space on the floor. Set up your camera so you can see the space on the floor and have some light and you’re good to go!
The next Foundations in Somatics course runs September 2024, online!
Do you want to find out more about the teacher training?
Have a look at the Essential Somatics training, which I co teach with my colleagues Colm and Karen! https://essentialsomatics.com/essential-somatics-movement-teacher-training/