What does “somatics” mean?

“If your spine is inflexibly stiff at 30, you are old. If your spine is completely flexible at 60, you are young.” - Joseph Pilates

I spent most of my life completely unaware if my spine was stiff or flexible. The truth is, there are parts of my spine that are overly flexible and areas that are overly stiff. It is a practice to cajole the wobbly bits to stop showing off and the parts that would rather stay home and read a good book to come out and play.

Most of us are wobbly in places and stiff in places. 

The remedy is the same. Movement. Neither stretching nor strengthening is enough, nor an adequate movement diet for humans, although marketing companies would have you believe, “if you just do this one thing,"…fill in the blank.

Over twelve years ago I completed Pilates Leadership training with industry thought leader Marie Jose Blom and she said “Motion is Lotion.”

For the stiff spine, motion is definitely the WD40 it needs and for the wobbly spine, movement is equally important to awaken the neural pathways between the brain and joints so that the sensory input coming from the joints going to the brain can reset the messages back out to the muscles.

While the word “Somatic” may be a word you see popping up in many yoga instructors’ vocabulary of late, its real meaning is not a series of shapes or exercises, rather it is a way of relating to yourself whether on or off the mat.

We have all too long focused on whether we are doing an exercise “right,” or whether we are keeping up with our neighbour in class. We have focused on whether we could go “deeper” into a stretch, or whether our legs looked toned or whether we could lift a heavy weight.

These are shallow benchmarks of human function. 

The real magic is when you can attend to the sensations in your body while doing your yoga asana, or swimming across a lake or pulling on a resistance band. This is the true meaning of “somatic”.

That’s why focusing on sensation is such a big component of The Heather Dennis Method. Stimulation in the form of movement helps to reorganise the body and calm the mind.

In a distracted culture, committed to having us pay attention to everything except ourselves, this act of sensing ourselves is a radical act. It also makes life more enjoyable and makes exercise more effective as a process of self-discovery.

What is sensory awareness?

Well, it’s noticing the weight of your bones lying on the floor. It’s noticing the smoothness of your arm moving in the shoulder socket. It’s noticing the gentle stretch of the inside of your rib cage when you breathe. 

Most of us equate sensation to the heaven and hell of its realms…pain and pleasure. But in between those two polar states there is an encyclopaedia  of sensory experience that as a human being we can develop. 

Enter the spine.

The spine has 364 joints. It is an amazing piece of architecture that every nerve, muscle and organ interacts with. That we know so little about our own spines and more importantly how to care for them ( we know how to care for our teeth why not our spines?)

Looking after your spine is not about glamorous backbends or contortions it is about making sure that you have a way of moving your spine into flexion, into extension into side flexion and into rotation.

Your spine is the superhighway of the back-and-forth exchange of information between brain and body.

While there may be some positive effects from doing traditional Yoga or Pilates classes, there is no direct instruction teaching you first and foremost what movements your spine makes and then how to restore the movements if they are lost.

PSSST…that’s what I do in my Myofascial Yoga and Evolved Pilates classes. Things that make a difference.

As people age, you will see a silent and immovable spine, and arms and legs that do all the moving. I always get a kick when people enthusiastically post videos of elders dancing and what I see is this pattern mentioned above and people think this is great! I don’t believe you have to give up being able to move your spine as you age, you just have to work smarter to maintain the movement.

Learning to move the different areas of your spine may keep you out of the chiropractor’s office and may even keep you out of the operating theatre. It will certainly improve how well your nerves communicate from brain to body and how your organs function.

In my courses, we’ll explore how to move the spine and learn how to use our somatic awareness to sense and improve flexibility in the stiff bits and control over the wobbly bits.

Check out all my courses and free materials at my online studio, and find something that will work for you.