The term somatics, coined by author Thomas Hanna, has been described as the body experienced from within.
What Somatics means to others?
When asked the question of what Somatics mean, I wanted to know what our class participants thoughts were. Below is a recording of one answer.
“It’s a fabulous method of healing and releasing muscles and tissues that are tight so they function more normally again. I had a lot of injuries that are resolving now. For me, it’s about releasing in a deep state body of relaxation that you get into when you do it.”
How Somatics Works, Against or With Our Mind
She then went onto to describe how she thinks somatics works at a physiological level.
“So every muscle has receptors that are constantly monitoring its length and its shortening. And very often when we get in tension patterns or have injuries, the muscles really shorten. Then this little feedback loop goes on and its shortened.
Somatics is a way of releasing that. So its really about working with the brain as much as it is working with the muscles. Then these stretch receptors in the muscles let go of that setting and begin to reset themselves to a more normal relaxed one. So… and it works!”
One of the guys in class had this to say: “For the first time in 5 years I had more spring in my step”.
Another woman chimed in: “It’s as if this is going against what our mind would think would work. We’re trained in yoga and every thing I’ve done before. Just gentle stretching is all we need to do. You know that’ll lengthen the muscle.
My experience is my body got tighter and tighter doing that. This morning I woke up and felt like I got run over by a truck because I had not been doing my somatics since I had been gone. It’s a way I manage discomfort in my body. Everything kind of crept back in again.
And I did it this morning. It’s like, it’s suddenly not everything is perfect but I feel perfectly fine. I can move again.”
Somatics, the Fountain of Youth
From one of our dolphin lovers in class…
“One of the things I say to people is… it’s the fountain of youth. It feels on every level to me.
One of the many things I love about it is I have memories what it feels like… and memory isn’t really the word… when I skied or swim with the dolphins… feeling that again, it’s so important and freeing to me.”
If you’ve experienced somatics, what does it mean to you? Please post your comments, let me know or heck even make a video and we’ll take a look at what you have to say!
If you haven’t experienced yourself somatically, you can join us for certain movement patterns we play with to free our hamstrings and back to discover deep relaxation. Find out more at our sister site how somatics can be the other side of exercise to set us free.
