HANNA SOMATICS was developed by Thomas Louis Hanna (1928–1990) a philosopher and movement theorist who coined the term
“somatics” in the 1970s. He conceived the practice as a blend of body – mind awareness, and neuromuscular re-education. He focussed on Sensory Motor Amnesia - a state in which the brain loses voluntary control over muscles, leading to chronic tension and pain rather than ageing itself. Suggesting that many common ailments result from poor movement habits rather than time alone.
In Thomas Hanna’s book:
SOMATICS re-awakening the minds control of movement, flexibility and health he states, “To age means either to grow, increase, and become both taller and deeper or to decrease, wear out, and become discreet and discarded. Implying that the direction of human life is not fixed but open.” Thomas Hanna
•HANNA SOMATICS and SENSORY MOTOR AMNESIA (SMA)
HANNA SOMATICS emphasizes attention on internal physical perception and experience. Its approach is based on our SOMA or body as perceived from within.
HANNA SOMATIC EDUCATION is neuromuscular learning, or re - learning. It engages the nervous system into an active learning process. Very slow, focused and conscious movements that teach and/or remind your nervous system how to release chronic muscle contraction. It works to relieve chronic pain, it can correct. “bad” or improper posture and helps to prevent recurring injuries.
If or when we have an injury, have had surgery, or overused parts of our body, our nervous system responds by protecting us. Your posture or gate (the way you walk) may change slightly or grossly to compensate for said occurrence. Sometimes these overused or compensating muscles stay contracted. Perhaps there is a certain posture that you hold. You might work at a desk and sit all day, looking at a computer screen. Maybe you’re a hairdresser. Perhaps your profession requires you to drive a lot and you’re holding tension in your shoulders.
Whichever reason or situation, these said muscles “forget” how to release and rest.
When your muscles are stuck in a contracted or partially contracted state, HANNA SOMATIC EDUCATORS call this SENSORY MOTOR AMNESIA (SMA). Your muscles have become amnesiac, meaning you have forgotten how to move and sense your muscles. SMA can also occur when your muscles are not firing, weak and not used. Your brain needs to re - set . Your nervous system needs to be reminded how to release those muscles and/or how to use those muscles. The only way this can be achieved is by creating new neural pathways in your nervous system.
•DIFFERENT TECHNIQUES and HISTORY OF HANNA SOMATICS
Thomas Hanna built upon previous Somatic approaches like Feldenkrais, Alexander Technique, Body - Mind Centering, Continuum, Hanna Somatic Education & Somatic Yoga, Ortho - Bionomy and Pilates but focused on neuro-muscular re-education and the brain’s central role in effective movement.
•How HANNA SOMATICS differs from other modalities, and how the central nervous system is involved:
Our nervous system tells us which muscles to contract and when to release them. It tells our bodies how to stand or sit, even when we are not moving. Our nervous system runs the whole show, it’s the director and you are the star. For HANNA SOMATIC EDUCATION to be effective, we must engage the central nervous system. In other types of bodywork, the client is passive (Massage, Chiropractic, Reiki) and while these treatments often feel good they usually do not create long lasting change in your nervous system. Which means that the pain or discomfort felt, is most likely to return. To create lasting change, you must create new neural pathways, and to do this you must be actively moving (contracting, and releasing your muscles).
Your nervous system is made up of 2 parts:
The central nervous system (CNS) and the peripheral nervous system (PNS). Your central nervous system is composed of your brain and spinal cord and functions mainly to process information and determine appropriate responses. Your peripheral nervous system is composed of all the nerves leaving and entering the spinal cord. It gathers sensory information from muscles, skin, and sensory organs; sending that information to the brain for processing. The out - going motor response from the brain is carried out by the peripheral motor nerves which connect (synapse with) muscles, skin, and sensory organs. Together the brain, central and peripheral nervous systems control the actions of our bodies.
The Red Light posture is characterized by head and body rounded forward posture)
Green Light Reflex
(action response)
The Green Light posture is characterized by a chest forward, lower - back - arched posture.
Trauma Reflex
The Trauma posture is characterized by habitual, involuntary muscular contraction on one side of the body. Characterized by unilateral pain, tilted pelvis, short leg.
Senile Posture
The Senile posture is characterized by many muscle groups co - contracted all at once.
•PANDICULATION and HANNA SOMATIC EDUCATION
There are 3 techniques used by HANNA SOMATIC EDUCATORS;
means - whereby
which is an adaptation of F.M. Alexander’s, Alexander technique and involves understanding how we do an activity, the “means” by which we achieve a Movement, breaking it down slowly and consciously;
kinetic mirroring, which is a passive technique done by the practitioner/educator with the student. Thomas Hanna’s term for “going with” resistance of a muscle, by contracting it and relaxing or releasing it (a sensory - motor feedback process;
PANDICULATION a sensory motor action (done by your MOTOR CORTEX) that all vertebrates use to arouse or “wake up” the voluntary cortex and to relax the muscles. We use our motor cortex (cortico spinal tract) and do a conscious or voluntary contraction, then a slow controlled release, which then starts a sensory motor feedback loop. HANNA SOMATIC EDUCATION is the re-education of, the nervous system.
•HANNA SOMATIC EDUCATION is performed by a trained certified Hannah Somatic Educator.
HANNA SOMATIC EDUCATION training involves
intensive, multi - module training structured around key neuromuscular postural reflexes.
•THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN SOMA and BODY - Thomas Hanna History
What is SOMATICS? by Thomas Hanna Ph.D.
Somatic is the field which studies the SOMA: namely, the body as perceived from within by the first - person perception
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