How well you move, plays a roll in how well you feel.  Learning to move with greater ease isn’t always easy.  If you’re used to giving it your all or moving with more force than is necessary, chances are your over doing it unconsciously… and this could be the cause of your discomforts.

*Move with Less Effort*

A practice in moving easily is simply accomplished by dialing down your effort in moving.  Being more precise with your movements involves lessening your effort so your muscles work efficiently instead of shuddering with extra effort.

Noticing where you contract from or the area you are using during a movement may not initially be clear.  When you contract and shorten your muscles, take notice to the areas where your contract, the level of effort, the feeling, the sensations aroused or lack thereof.

As you contract your muscles, others are normally and naturally lengthening in response.  It’s not necessary to force the length, rather your observation of it happening, deepens your awareness and your coordination in what moves what and where and how it moves.

*Be Aware of your release*

If you can merely observe the release of your contraction, you’ll notice the resulting length is accomplished without force.

If you force the length, a signal is generated by your brain to re-contract the tissues afterwards.  Traditional forms of stretching actually produce tighter muscles according to the latest research.

To have the flexibility of a cat, the agility of a panther, and the ability to jump like a gazelle requires you to follow their lead.  Animals engage their motor cortex through the process of a series of pandiculations.

*First thing in the morning*

Since animals self-correct throughout their day, it would be wise once again to follow their lead.  When healthy, they engage the process first thing in the morning, every day.  There’s their key.

Who else is going to ready your muscles for you each new day? Animals are wise enough to do it first.  They are not checking the emails nor will you find a way to ready to yourself in your emails, unless of course, you happen to be receiving the Somatic Classes via email.

The natural process of engaging your motor cortex is always available to you… I know you have other things to attend to.  

It’s just a process and as far as I know most of us have the ability to engage in the process since it primarily activates your motor cortex, which has been called your highest learning center.

You can continue to learn and generate new brain cells.  Neurogenesis and neural plasticity perhaps becomes of interest as you age, unless you already engage the process everyday.  If you are, yoohoo, you’re way ahead of most people as the mass understanding of this process hasn’t reached them, yet!

Somatics is merely applied neurogenesis.

*Pay attention to how you move*

Practicing Somatics is a matter of paying attention to how you manipulate yourself in the field of gravity.  How you contend or float in the field of gravity is known to you by the signals your body generates.  You can become more One with the field of gravity.  No this isn’t airy fairy stuff, I mean you can continually fight gravity and keep kicking yourself in the pants, which would naturally lead to tighter hamstrings and a sore back.

*Use your self-correcting brain and mind*

The power lies in your brain to self-correct, adapt accordingly, merely by spending some time in your self.  When you practice the variety of movements which are offered in the Somatics classes or through your understanding and application of Somatics, your brain feeds off of these differentiated patterns to present you with possibilities of change in your habit of movement.

Your habitual and repetitive patterns lead to some of the negative results you encounter over and over.

*Differentiate your movements*

Differentiation provides an avenue to more integrated, more coordinated, more balanced and efficient movement itself.  You’ll know how, when, and at what speed, in order to move more cohesively.

So as I said, learning to move with greater ease isn’t easy, but it’s very simple once you get the hang of the process.  

The antidote for discomfort, pain, aches, soreness, etc, lies between your ears.

Engaging the process is not under your nose, it’s in it.

Differentiated movement patterns provide a key to unlock yourself from whatever repetitive, compensated motions, exercises or the lack thereof you no longer engage in.

Since no two people have the same structure, let alone movement patterns, history of injuries, etc. we find ourselves subject to the very movement habits we’ve learned and continue to practice.

Without changing those patterns, you can just run yourself into the ground. Running or lifting more, doesn’t do anything to increase the intelligence of your movement. Challenging the diversity in your movement changes the nature of how well you can articulate your joints or move your spine.

Somatic Exercises work with your brain since your brain thrives on novelty. It’s in this novelty that we approach this system of movement with differentiation or diversification of your movement portfolio.

If you think of movement as a system, your brain needs different stimulus until it finally integrates the work or explorations of your movement into a more cohesive movement system.

Somatics moves into the specificity of your motor-sensory system so that you’re able to re-program your capacity and potential to move as effectively as you can.

At some point, you have to create and plan your movements, then you practice until they get stored as learned patterns… so you no longer have to think about it.

Think About this… if we stop playing in this natural realm of evolving our movement patterns, are we bringing the entropy and decline within ourselves at a greater rate? I don’t know but as children no one had to tell us to move. As adults, we are a nation of overweight, couch potatoes ever limiting our movements to a desk, office, room, automobile, sitting in front of a television set for hours at a time.

Your brain is getting wasted in terms of its capacity to grow via the motor-sensory system. You are putting the brakes on your own evolutionary process in terms of the revolutions of your joints, the movement of your muscles, and the usefulness of your bones.

How are you going to improve your movement portfolio?

You can’t get there by sitting there nor can you improve by repeating the same patterns over and over. OK, you could visualize movements or do them incredibly subtlety in the manner of many somatic traditions which focus on sensory awareness.

Each time you have to closely pay attention to your movements with awareness you are engaging the process of voluntary movement which is rather complex, though we may think we move in isolating ways, I beg to differ.

Look at how these muscles are grouped as a system.

This system and the overlapping systems need to used, refreshed, and rested appropriately for long term health. Injuries, the same posturing day in and day out continue to further your decline and decreases the value of your movement portfolio.

You can just keep moving the way you always have or you can pay attention to your movements with a keener awareness which affords you a glimpse into the many different ways you can manipulate yourself. If you don’t , your brain will just check out and leave the possibilities in the dust bin once again, leading to an eroding value in your movement’s funds.

Creating and recreating new neural pathways leads your brain towards health, vibrancy and it’s need to continue to learn. You’ve got 600 muscles which require their use.

Can you do it on your own? Yes, if you’re paying attention as you once did as a child by sensing your movements and being delighted by merely lifting your head off of the floor. It’s a shame and a sham that many adults can no longer even lie on their bellies comfortably for any length of time and just engage the cranium by lifting and lowering it comfortably a few times.

I often hear of the aches and complaints of why I can’t do this or that. After all, lying is nearly the same as standing in its relationship to Gravity. So if you go back to the well, that is on the floor and go back to the natural process, your brain will re-wire, re-adapt itself and you can continue your evolutionary process of well-being… who knows, you may even increase the value of your movement portfolio… otherwise you can remain sedentary, desk-bound, home bound, injury ridden and add to your own decay.

Evolve, Evolve, Evolve otherwise decay

However you can utilize your brain in a conscious differentiated manner so you can move unconsciously with patterns your brain is perfecting and changing…

There’s an obvious choice though many have abdicated at this level of self-care since the models around us seem to indicate we can’t do it for ourselves.

If you diversify your movement portfolio, can you imagine the wealth and vitality you can live with? Somatics, which uses a brain process in which you play with differentiated movement patterns, may be just the thing Fido and other healthy vertebrate animals do every day.

Move Well.