‘Movement is life. Life is a process. Improve the quality of the process and you improve the quality of life itself.”

Moshe Feldenkrais

Hanna Somatics

Hanna Somatic Education is a scientifically-based series of movement exercises to re-educate the brain how to relax and move the muscles properly. Most chronic pain comes from the brain. How can your brain fail to recognise that the muscle has not been released?

Somatic Movement Education is a mindfully gentle yet powerful movement practice. Using small movement exercises you learn how to release and relax tight muscles, reduce muscular tension and restore muscles to their optimal resting length without stretching. The classes are designed to be educational and enjoyable. Class participants are encouraged to move slowly with ease and no discomfort whilst feeling relaxed and taking time to breathe.

The best part is that you can retrain your brain yourself. You can practice Somatics anywhere, anytime.

Somatic Movement Online Group Classes

We start each session in a relaxed, warm comfortable position and do what we call a ‘Soma Scan’ this is an assessment of our bodies. You are then guided through a series of gentle, easy mindful small movements.

At the end of the session, you will be sent a 10-minute recording that will consist of one or two movements for you to explore each day.

This daily practice will reinforce the re-education of the brain to let go of tight muscles.

Somatic Movement Pop-Up Live Classes

I also offer pop-up classes live in various venues. This will give you an opportunity to come along and spend time before and after class to ask questions and delve deeper into the work of Dr Thomas Hanna.

Keep an eye out on this website, or contact me to find out when the next live class will be.

Benefits of Somatic Exercises

  • Releases chronic muscle tightness
  • Improves posture and movement
  • Reduces stress
  • Improves sleep
  • Improves breathing
  • Enhancing athletic performance
  • Preventing and recovering from injuries
  • Effectively warming up and cooling down from workouts
  • Increasing flexibility and range of motion
  • Improving balance and coordination

What is Hanna Somatic Education?

Hanna Somatic Education is a scientifically-based series of movement exercises to re-educate the brain how to relax and move the muscles properly. Most chronic pain comes from the brain. How can your brain fail to recognise that the muscle has not been released? Well, when you repeat a movement time and time again the brain eventually does that movement in auto-pilot without you really having to concentrate. Think back to when you were learning to ride a bike for the first time. To begin with you really needed to be aware of all your movements to stay balanced, steer and look where you were going. Over time, you perfect this and eventually, you could ride a bike with very little concentration as your brain had learned how to do it. This learned behaviour can happen if you repeat any movement over a period of time. If you sit at a computer all day with your upper back rounded, chest muscles tight and head thrust forward this becomes a habit. You go home in the car, sitting in the same rounded position and even once you’re home you might sit and watch the TV still in that same rounded position. Repeat that for days, weeks, months, years and your brain will consider this position as “normal”. Even when you think you are standing up straight your brain will hold onto tension in the muscles which have been shortened all day and your posture will look stooped or rounded and this could give you chronic pain. If you massage out those muscles or stretch them they soon revert back to the posture that your brain considers to be “normal” and you will be back to square one. Your brain can no longer let those muscles relax, they are no longer under voluntary control.

Who Created Hanna Somatics?

In the mid-1970s Thomas Hanna developed a system for releasing chronically-tight muscles throughout the body after years of studying neurophysiology and movement. He discovered that by retraining the brain to let go of unnecessary tension in the muscles and focusing internally on the sensations of these active movements you are able to really feel the changes taking place.