Somatic movement exercises

What is somatic movement? - Somatic Movement Center

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A somatic movement, generally speaking, is one which is performed consciously with the intention of focusing on the internal experience of the movement rather than the external appearance or result of the movement.

The term somatic has become a bit of a buzzword in the health and wellness industry.

The word somatic means “of or relating to the living body,” and it has long been used in medical terminology like somatic cell, somatic nervous system, somatic disorder, and somatic pain.

Due to its generic definition, the term somatic can be used to describe a variety of forms of movement and healing modalities. You may have heard of somatic yoga, somatic experiencing, somatic psychology, somatic therapy, or somatic dance therapy. You may have even heard of somatic education!

The term somatic education was coined by Thomas Hanna. Hanna used the term somatic education to describe methods of sensory-motor education that use somatic movement to improve motor control and sensation and change learned muscular patterns. Many people find somatic movement education methods to be highly effective in relieving chronic pain, improving bodily function, and recovering from common musculoskeletal conditions.

How exactly does somatic movement work?

In order to be most effective, a somatic movement should be performed as slowly as possible. The human nervous system, which controls our posture and movement, must learn new things very slowly. With practice, we are able to gradually speed up and perform movements more quickly while still maintaining form and control. When we do movements quickly, we are not learning anything new—we are simply reinforcing existing learned patterns.

A somatic movement must also be performed consciously, with our complete internal focus and attention. Conscious attention is key to the learning process; we can’t learn something new if we aren’t aware of what we’re doing.

Somatic movement is exploratory in nature. Even when we practice a somatic movement with the intention of improving our posture or movement in a specific way, we still need to be focused on the internal experience of the movement rather than on the end result.

Focusing on the experience and process rather than the end result can be a difficult concept for many people to grasp. It comes back to how our nervous system learns new things. If we practice a movement as if it is the first time we have done it, we will notice something new and learn something new each time, and the learning process will be most efficient and effective. Practicing somatic movements is quite different than doing situps or pushups; it’s not about the quantity, it’s about the quality.

In a general sense, any movement can be a somatic movement if it is performed slowly, consciously, and with the intention of focusing on the internal experience of the movement.

What is somatic education?

Methods of somatic education teach specialized somatic movement techniques in systematized ways that are specific to each method. Well-known methods of somatic education include Clinical Somatic Education (also known as Hanna Somatic Education), the Feldenkrais Method, and the Alexander Technique. Click here to read more about how these methods were developed.

Many methods of somatic education use both hands-on movements, guided by a certified educator, and self-care movements, which are practiced by the student on a regular basis at home. One of the tenets of all forms of somatic education is that students should be responsible for their own health and learning. The role of a somatic educator is to empower students to take care of themselves by teaching them the tools they need to stay out of pain and continue to improve their posture, movement, and function throughout their lives.

If you’re ready to learn Clinical Somatics exercises, a great place to start is the Level One Course.

Sarah Warren is a Certified Clinical Somatic Educator, Registered Somatic Movement Educator, and owner of Somatic Movement Center. She has helped people with conditions such as chronic back pain, neck and shoulder pain, hip and knee pain, sciatica, and scoliosis become pain-free by practicing Thomas Hanna's method of Clinical Somatic Education. Warren is the author of the book The Pain Relief Secret, which explains the science behind why learned muscular patterns lead to chronic pain and degeneration, and how Clinical Somatics retrains the nervous system, alleviating many common pain conditions.

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Learn Somatic Exercises at home

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What are Clinical Somatics exercises?

Clinical Somatics exercises work directly with the nervous system to release chronic muscular tension, relieve chronic pain, and improve posture and movement. The exercises are extremely slow and gentle, and are appropriate for all ages and fitness levels.

The exercises that I teach at Somatic Movement Center were developed by Thomas Hanna. Hanna used his background in the Feldenkrais Method combined with his knowledge of neurophysiology to develop a highly effective system of neuromuscular education that retrains the nervous system through an active learning process. Hanna’s method is known as both Clinical Somatic Education and Hanna Somatic Education.

Clinical Somatics exercises allow you to prevent, alleviate, and recover from many common conditions such as chronic muscle and joint pain, disc problems, sciatica, scoliosis, rounded posture, plantar fasciitis, temporomandibular joint disorders, and more. If your condition is being caused by the way you’re using your body—as most musculoskeletal conditions are—then Clinical Somatics exercises can help you.

How can you learn Clinical Somatics exercises?

You can learn Clinical Somatics exercises by attending private lessons or group classes with a certified Clinical Somatic Educator or Hanna Somatic Educator. If you don’t live near a certified educator, you can learn the exercises in the comfort of your home with online courses.

How you can get the most out of practicing Clinical Somatics exercises:

1. Set aside time and space to practice the exercises so that you don’t feel rushed or distracted. You should practice the exercises in a quiet, private space, especially while you are first learning them. If you live with people, ask them to not interrupt you while you are practicing the exercises. Focused attention is very important to the learning process.

2. Any amount of time is better than nothing. If you only have five minutes, take the five minutes to focus completely on just one or two exercises. Personally, I like to spend twenty to thirty minutes every day doing the exercises. Some days you will have more time than others. Make the most of the time that you have by moving slowly and focusing completely on the movements that you have chosen to practice that day.

3. Find space in your home where you can lie on the floor, on a carpet or exercise mat. You need to be comfortable, but you also need to be able to get sensory feedback from a fairly firm surface. A bed is too soft, and a bare hardwood floor is too hard. Make sure you can stretch out your arms and legs without restriction.

4. I recommend closing your eyes and having no background noise while practicing the exercises. Closing your eyes removes all the visual information that your eyes automatically take in. Keeping your eyes closed allows your brain to focus completely on your internal sensations, making the learning process more effective. Likewise, practicing the exercises in silence removes all of the auditory information that your brain would otherwise have to process.

5. Clinical Somatics exercises should be performed as slowly as possible. If this is the first time you’ve practiced Clinical Somatics exercises, you’ll notice that the movements are probably much slower and more gentle than other techniques you’ve done. The magic of these movements is in the slowness. The slower you move, the more effectively you can retrain your nervous system to release chronic muscle contraction and stand and move in a new way. Since the movements are so slow and gentle, you may not feel like you’re doing very much—but when you stand up at the end of your practice, you’ll feel the effects of what you’ve learned.

6. Remember that Clinical Somatics exercises are not stretches. You will be gently contracting and then very slowly releasing your muscles. It’s important to remember that the exercises are not stretches, and you should not be feeling the sensation of pulling in your muscles as you practice them.

7. Clinical Somatics exercises should be relaxing and comfortable, and they should not increase your pain. The movements are very slow and gentle. If you do experience any pain or discomfort, you can make the movement smaller, or you can adjust your position, or you can choose not to do the movement at all.

8. You’re in charge! Pay attention to what you’re feeling as you practice the exercises, and don’t overdo it. Even though Clinical Somatics exercises are extremely slow and gentle, it is possible to do too much. If you’re in a lot of pain to start with, a full class or lengthy home practice may be too much for you. Take it slow and try doing just one or two exercises per day until you become comfortable with the movements and the effect they have on your body.

9. Don’t do any intense or vigorous exercise right after practicing Clinical Somatics exercises. If you wish, you can take a slow, gentle walk afterward, and it will help you integrate everything you’ve just learned. But I don’t recommend doing any intense or vigorous exercise, because it will probably bring you right back into your old muscular habits.

10. Be aware of how other physical activities and therapies may be affecting you. I often recommend that people cut back or stop practices such as stretching, chiropractic, rolfing, deep tissue massage, and any other manipulative therapy while practicing Clinical Somatics. These therapies do not retrain the nervous system and can often cause muscles to become tighter, interfering with the somatic learning process. Also, any intense workout will likely bring you back into your old muscular habits, undoing the learning you have gained through your Clinical Somatics exercise practice. Slower, less intense workouts can give you the opportunity to integrate what you’ve learned from your Clinical Somatics exercises.

11. Always approach Clinical Somatics exercises in an exploratory manner. You will learn more effectively and make more progress if you do each movement as if it is the first time you have done it. Take the time to notice what you feel as you do each movement. Notice how it might feel different than it did the day before. If you do several repetitions, notice how each repetition feels different.

12. Enjoy the learning process—the journey—rather than focusing on the end goal. This can be the most difficult aspect of practicing Clinical Somatics. Improving the use of your body with Clinical Somatics is a life-long learning process. Some people feel the improvements that they seek very quickly, and for others it takes a longer time. The more chronic muscular tension you have, the longer it will take you to work through it. The process is much like peeling an onion. You will work through many layers—patterns of tension—along the way. You will have good days and bad days. Try to relax and enjoy the process!

Ready to learn Clinical Somatics exercises? Click here to start learning at home today!

You may also enjoy reading Unlocking Your Body: Your Personal Process of Releasing Tension and Pain.

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Somatic gymnastics ⋆ Vasily Skakun Health Academy

Somatic training is a system of neuromuscular training, mind and body training that helps to get rid of pain and gain freedom in body movements for the rest of your life.

Somatic education uses an active teacher-student approach rather than a passive doctor-patient approach. By studying and performing movements specially selected by the instructor, depending on the location of the pain, muscle clamp or posture disorder, the client concentrates on the sensations that occur in certain muscles or muscle groups. In this way, he develops a more vivid physical awareness and a better ability to control his own movements and control muscle tension. And thus gains the ability to stop painful phenomena in the muscles, restore comfort and gain freedom in movement. After the session, there is a feeling of balance in the body.

Half of the pain in the human body is muscle pain, and approximately 80% of back pain in people over the age of 30 is caused by chronic muscle strain. Most often, it is with such problems (pain in the back and neck, as well as headaches, inelastic or painful joints and muscles, fatigue, poor posture - scoliosis or stoop, breathing problems, limited mobility of the body) that clients turn to specialists in the field of somatic education. The cause of these problems is usually sensorimotor amnesia (loss of memory for sensations and movements) (SMA).
SMA is a habitual and chronic tension in muscles or muscle groups that is out of conscious control. This is an ingrained state of (motor/motor) forgetting, i.e. loss of memory about how certain muscle groups should feel and how to control them. This condition occurs most often as a reaction to repetitive stress or as a consequence of an injury or operation, when the brain cannot “turn off” the action of the mechanism that protects the injured area of the body.

A typical somatic training session lasts approximately 60-90 minutes, depending on your individual needs. While studying with you, the somatic teacher controls your position and guides you during the execution of certain, slow, light movements, specially designed for each situation. Also, your teacher can give verbal instructions as you perform the movements on your own.

Significant changes and improvement in physical condition (mobility, flexibility, pain relief) can usually be expected after 3 to 5 sessions, provided that you also do somatic exercises yourself at home.
Both tutoring and self-study change your body, awakening your inner awareness of yourself. You will learn to recognize the essence and perception of your movements, and thus move freely and without pain.

Manager: Galina Zavorotnaya.
Phone: 8-906-471-26-11

Indications for training

Somatic movements are designed specifically to reduce the effects of sensory-motor amnesia, that is, loss of memory for movements and sensations.

This program does not consist of physical exercises, but of somatic ones. It gives special opportunities to carry out changes in the sensory and motor areas of the brain.

Purpose - to provide control over muscle movements.
The goal is to relax your muscles.

You must be very conscious of every movement as you exercise both your brain and your body.

The program is built on the principle of gradual increase in complexity. It focuses on those areas of the body where sensory-motor amnesia occurs.

The first four somatic lessons will teach you to feel the muscles located in the middle part of your body, that is, in the area of the center of gravity. The next two lessons are aimed at training the muscles of the arms, legs and neck. The last two lessons focus on two important functions of your body: breathing and walking. Both are usually impaired in sensory-motor amnesia.

This program has no contraindications and age restrictions. By devoting quite a bit of time to it, you can not only get rid of a number of diseases, but also enjoy excellent health and body flexibility even at 40, 60 and even 80 years old.

The most important thing to remember is that somatic movement changes your muscular system by changing your central nervous system.

Indications for learning and further application of acquired skills:

- Chronic pain in the body (caused by a sedentary lifestyle, stress, injury.)
- Back pain.
- Headaches.
- Insomnia.
- Ischialgia.
- Scoliosis.
- Improvement of posture, gait.
- Chronic fatigue.
- Loss of sensation in certain muscle groups.
Prepare yourself for sports, yoga, dancing, etc.
- Injuries of the musculoskeletal system.
- Who wants to better manage their body, be graceful and flexible.
- Sciatica.
- Shortness of breath.
- Frequent urination.
- Impotence.
- Constipation.
- Carpal tunnel syndrome.

Somatic gymnastics reviews

[su_box title=”Ivzhenko Elena (Stavropol Territory)” box_color=”#0191da»] From the bottom of my heart I want to express my gratitude to the teacher of somatic gymnastics Alexander. After completing the course, I realized that doing somatics, you can come to the unity of the body - mind - spirit. I learned to concentrate on my external and internal sensations, making all movements slowly and consciously. I managed to remove muscle clamps, helping my body and it thanked me by the fact that pains, limited movements were gone, and inside I feel joy, calmness and strong delight of all organs. I learned to listen to myself inside and my body, tired of pain for many years, for the first time “clapped” my hands with joy and happiness.[/su_box]

[su_box title=”With respect Taisiya Simakova (Stavropol)” box_color=”#0191da”]I express my gratitude to the coach of somatic gymnastics Alexander! For the good organization and qualified conduct of classes. I am grateful to this coach for his attentiveness, professionalism, individual approach to each participant. I am very glad that I got to the courses with Alexander, because after the classes I feel a surge of strength, energy, good mood, an improvement in the general physical condition of the body, and a decrease in pain in the spine.[/su_box]

[su_box title="Group of students (Stavropol): Gorbunova, Fedoryuk, Fedorova, Mazikina, Simakova." box_color="#0191da"] We completed a course in somatic gymnastics, which was conducted by Alexander. The classes themselves made a great impression, in which they learned to relax various muscle groups, train the diaphragm and breathe correctly. This allows you to improve your physical condition and no doubt be useful in later life. Many liked the work with the diaphragm and breathing movements, as well as movements associated with the spine. And of course, the attitude of Alexander, who individually approached everyone, checking the correctness of postures and movements, treated everyone kindly, conducted the class clearly and attentively.[/su_box]

[su_box title=”Nikitenko Svetlana (Ukraine, Sumy)” box_color=”#0191da”]I want to express my deepest gratitude to the instructor of somatic gymnastics Alexander! This set is new to me. After the first session, I felt lightness and joy in my whole body. Evening classes perfectly relax the body, soothe all muscle groups. The dream became strong and deep. That's great. I also discovered new sensations, I began to feel and hear my body. During the classes, I was able to deeply, consciously immerse myself in the exercises. Somatic gymnastics is a way to realize yourself, your soul and body.

With all my heart I wish Alexander success and health! of its essence. Lightness and flexibility of the body after class, peace and harmony in the mind, excellent sleep and excellent mood.

Thank you for your attention and concern for each participant.[/su_box]

[su_box title=”Deep gratitude! Natalia (Krasnodar)" box_color="#0191da"]Full concentration on relaxation, immerses the body and mind in deep peace, consciousness spontaneously becomes meditative, just wonderful.[/su_box]

[su_box title="Margarita (Voronezh)" box_color="#0191da"]Somatic gymnastics is simply a miracle, the development of concentration on movement, the complete emancipation of the body and its recovery.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your attention, work, patience.[/su_box]

5️⃣ Somatics and somatic exercises of Thomas Hanna in the Elite Club 5 Element

044 495-95-55

Throughout life, the human body experiences a huge amount of stress, the consequences of which manifest themselves over time in the form of chronic fatigue, insomnia, and muscle pain. An innovative rehabilitation method known as Hanna's Somatics will help you get rid of unpleasant sensations, learn how to relax and relieve excessive tension, listen and hear your own body.

The essence of the Hanna Somatic Method

While studying neurophysiology, Professor Thomas Hanna noticed that many people have health problems due to sensorimotor amnesia - chronic muscle stiffness, which leads to pain, poor posture, limited range of motion, and subsequently and diseases of internal organs.

A special motor gymnastics developed by him, called Thomas Hanna's Somatics, is designed to improve the functioning of muscles and restore their sensitivity. And since sensorimotor amnesia is a direct consequence of daily stress, in fact, during exercise, the brain is retrained to be aware, relax and contract muscles properly.

Hanna's Somatics is an effective, mild and completely safe method to get rid of chronic muscle pain naturally, without surgery or pain medication.

Specifics of training according to the Thomas Hann method

Somatics involves active and conscious participation of a person in the process of performing specially selected exercises. It is necessary not only to make certain movements, but also to concentrate on the sensations that arise in certain muscles, giving the brain the opportunity to “remember” them at the level of reflexes. The teacher selects an individual training that involves certain muscle groups.

Work out at a calm, even relaxed pace; simple and slow exercises are performed in a comfortable position, lying on the floor. At this time, the areas of the cerebral cortex responsible for movement and the sensations associated with it are activated. Gradually, a person gains the ability to more clearly control the muscles of his body, and movements become smoother, more precise, faster and more graceful. The muscle clamp is removed, coordination improves, there is a surge of energy.

Who primarily benefit from Thomas Hanna's Somatic Exercises

Most people come to Hanna's classes to regain ease of movement and get rid of chronic muscle pain:

in the sacrum and lower back;
upper back and neck;
thighs, when knee ligaments are torn or deformed;
for scoliosis, whiplash.

In addition, somatic gymnastics effectively copes with:

with intervertebral disc problems;
"forty-year-old shoulder" syndrome;
osteoarthritis and scoliosis;
TMJ syndrome;
and even migraine.

However, you don't have to wait until problems arise to do Hanna Somatics: regular exercise increases flexibility and gives you a sense of confidence and control over your body, eliminating the discomfort that accompanies the body's natural aging process.

Individual and group lessons based on the Thomas Hanna method are held at the 5th Element Club. They will help everyone interested in their health to achieve quick and, most importantly, long-term results: get rid of chronic pain and restore muscle and joint activity. It will increase your level of physical comfort, improve your appearance and posture, and allow you to enjoy life at any age!

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Frequently asked questions about Hanna's Somatics

5️⃣ Hanna's somatics — why in the 5 Element club

Hanna's somatics in the 5 Element club is relaxation and taking care of your body.

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