Health and Wellbeing Investment: £20
Bookings are essential for workshops. Please pop in to The Button Warehouse to pay 50% deposit to secure your place (cash only and non-refundable)
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This workshop is about increasing our self-awareness, to learn to understand that bad postural and movement habits over many years have resulted in tight and inflexible muscles. These tight muscles diminish our ability to move freely and pain free. The workshop is practical and all about movement.
WHAT IS SOMATICS?
Thomas Hannah Somatics teaches us to regain our sense of awareness and control over our body. His simple movements can result in co-ordinated and pain free physical functioning.
THE BRAIN AND MUSCLE AMNESIA
Inappropriate movement over years, accident or trauma mislead the brain and confuse motor pathways of movement. The brain is the ‘hard drive’ that controls the entire muscular system. Somatics movements focus on disturbing the information train given by your brain to your muscles. This allows a new motor message to be sent to your muscles. It allows the muscles to fully lengthen and not over-lengthen
This is a technique which allows the brain to communicate with the tight muscle. The muscle is tightened – this confuses the brain – when the muscle is released it moves to its full and comfortable length. It is not over complicated.
Sensory Motor Amnesia occurs when muscles are chronically tight and they will not relax, the body becomes tight and can cause pain, restricting movement as the brain’s response to muscles become blocked. This amnesia is in the sub cortex of our brain. An internal process with new patterning, as well as movement can create new patterns that we then process and they become our new movement memory.
When doing the movements, your primary focus is to your internal sensation of movements. Concentrate an awareness of the movements in the body areas as a way to maintain control over your body.
Moving slowly gives your brain more chance to notice all that is happening with your body. Moving gently allows the brain to receive feedback on how your body moves. Your brain needs to learn how to move the muscles, no amount of effort will release the involuntary contracted muscles. If you force a muscle the reverse happens and the muscle will contract.
There are 3 Stress Reflexes which help support the movements to self correct. The Green Light where the back muscles are tight, contributing to lower back pain, sciatica, neck and shoulder pain, herniated discs and jaw pain. The Red Light where the muscles at the front of the body are tight, the back rounded, chin jutting forward, shallow breathing, hip, knee, neck and abdominal discomfort. The Trauma reflex such as an accident or injury or emotional upset occurs we manoeuvre our bodies into an avoidance when we twist or turn to escape an injury. Yet with this we push our bodies into tightening in certain areas and this tightened muscle may become or norm, hence SMA. This happens unconsciously and instantly and can result long term in shortening of the waist, the centre of the body twisting, rotation in shoulders, hips, pelvis, back and neck. Leading to postural imbalances.
PANDICULATION
This is a conscious deliberate contraction of a muscle or group of muscles, followed by a slow controlled lengthening of the muscle, followed by relaxation.
This is intentional sensory feedback “wakes up the brain”, which is the command centre of the muscular system. So the brain resets the muscle length. Relaxing the muscle past its previous point of relaxation.
You start to observe which muscles are involved in the movement. You start to understand your muscle control. You begin to understand which muscles are working together to involve a stretch. You learn how to reverse pain.
