Welcome

I sincerely hope that you will enjoy learning about Clinical Somatic Exercises and that you will soon feel the benefits of this powerful practice.  My personal experience with the practice is that they have made a wonderful improvement to my overall wellbeing.

If you have questions please check the FAQ or visit the FaceBook group where I or other students will be happy to help.

Most chronic pain, joint degeneration, and recurring injuries are caused by the way we use our bodies – the way we sit, stand, and move throughout our daily lives. Our nervous system is responsible for telling us how to use our bodies; it tells us which muscles to contract, when to release them, and how to hold our bodies when we’re just sitting or standing still.

As we grow up, our nervous system actually learns how to make us do these things. The more we repeat a certain posture or movement, the more deeply learned that muscular pattern becomes. After a while, our patterns become so deeply learned that we don’t even have to think about them. This is what we call muscle memory.

Muscle memory is a wonderful thing, because it allows us to get through our daily lives efficiently. But unfortunately, sometimes we learn patterns that damage our bodies–like sitting hunched over at a computer. The only way to change these deeply learned muscular patterns is to re-educate the nervous system.

And that is what Clinical Somatics does: it engages the nervous system in an active learning process that consists of very slow, focused, conscious (mindful) movements. The movement techniques used in Clinical Somatics teach the nervous system how to release chronic muscle tension and stand and move in natural, efficient ways so that you aren’t putting yourself in pain or doing damage to your body.

It works in two ways; it reprograms the brain as to what the neutral position of a muscle(group) is, and thereby releasing habitually contracted muscle tension and it uses active stretching. This active stretching technique is called pandiculation and uses eccentric contraction—the action of muscles that are engaged while they lengthen under load. This way of stretching is much more effective than static stretching, where our natural stretch reflex kicks in to protect our muscle fibre which usually causes the stretch to be transferred to our joints in an unhealthy way.

The effects of Somatics are long-lasting as the brain is reset to its neutral optimal posture and muscles are lengthened more efficiently.

Sessions Overview