The Body, Movement and Somatics
“The human body is not an instrument to be used, but a realm of one’s being,
to be experienced, explored, enriched and thereby educated.”
The reason why yoga made such an impact on me was because my body had become a place of discomfort and pain, and yoga fixed this. Many years of being stressed and working behind a computer, had left so much tension in my body that it became misaligned; I had hunched shoulders and my head moved forward, causing pain in my back and neck. I was permanently compressing my chest and abdomen, which was impacting my breathing and I’m pretty sure it also played a role with my digestive issues. Then when I had major surgery in my abdomen, I couldn’t sit up straight anymore and I was in constant pain. I tried many things, but the three months of private yoga lessons (twice a week), were transformative. I really wish I had taken before and after pictures as it would have just told the story. Yoga was amazing in opening up my body and reconnecting my mind, body and breath, to feel whole again. It was so amazing that I just had to learn more and share this practice.
While studying yoga therapy at Kripalu I was introduced to Somatic Exercises; slow, purposeful movement, effectively restructuring of the alignment of the body (posture) by retraining the brain.
When we first learn to make movements (sitting, walking, etc) the brain learns which muscles to contract in order to make the movements, it will then release when we relax. When we start introducing habits, postures we hold for long periods of time (for instance hunching over a desk, looking at a screen, wearing a bag always on one side), it causes the body to hold the muscle tension in on certain muscles for a period of time (with hunching the abdominal and chest muscles are engaged, the bag causes one shoulder to elevate) and the brain starts to think this is the norm. In other words this is the relaxed state. It doesn’t know what the actual relaxed state is anymore, because you spend so much time in your habitual shape. This ‘forgetting’ of the brain is called Sensory Motor Amnesia.
So it’s not just that muscles get short and tight, the brain keeps engaging the muscle as it thinks this is the normal state. So you cannot just stretch the muscle longer, you need to retrain the brain to reset the relaxed state. Somatic Exercises, they do just that. By slow, purposeful short practices, relearning what the neutral position of a muscle is and therefor improving posture and removing pain.
Stretching will not retrain the brain and as the stretch reflex will ensure the muscle fibre is not overstretched, the stretching usually is transferred to the connective tissue – it is also just a short term result. Enter pandiculation; the body’s natural way of stretching; you see animals do it (cat stretch) and you probably do it instinctively when you wake up in the morning. It is an active stretch, a full body yawn.
It starts with a voluntary contraction, followed by a slow, and controlled lengthening (using gravity as weight), followed by complete relaxation of the targeted muscles. Giving the brain time to integrate the new feedback – it’s the reprogramming of the brain to note where a muscle is relaxed.
Somatics consist of a number very slow and purposeful practices, all done without any props on the floor. The only thing you need to ensure is that you do it very slow and every day. From personal experience I am certain you will start feeling the impact very soon!