SOMATICS in the tradition of Thomas Hanna - CLINICAL SESSIONS, CLASSES & COURSES

SATURDAYS 10am
short courses
THURSDAYS 6.30pm
available using yoga passes or for casual attendance
COST: $25 / $22 casual

SATURDAY MORNINGS 10am
Move Without Pain – the basic movements explored
please enquire for course dates

Hanna Somatics is a very simple, extremely effective way of learning to move without pain.
Unlike many other ‘practices’ – where we go to someone and passively present ourself to have something done to us, this practice is something we learn for ourselves. It can help to create lasting change. And the best thing about it for me is that we learn to do it ourselves.
We learn to take back some control.

Suitable for those completely new to Somatics movements, and for those who have already explored the practice. Or for anyone who has explored some of the movements in the yoga classes you’ve attended – and you’d really like to know a bit more about the work.

To make a booking for casual attendance or the 4-week course starting 10 February click here

IF YOU CAN SENSE AND FEEL IT, YOU CAN CHANGE IT. 
Thomas Hanna
He also wrote: As we grow older – our bodies and our lives – should continue to improve, right up until the very end. I believe that all of us, in our hearts, feel that this is how life really should be lived. 

Hanna developed this system of Movement Education from his own experience as a Yoga Teacher, a Feldenkrais teacher for over 17 years, a Neuro-Scientist and Philosopher.

The word Somatics comes from the Greek word SOMA – which in this context simply means the body. More particularly your first hand experience of your physical body. It means simply: how it feels in there for and to be, YOU.

For myself, with a long history since childhood of living with painful back issues – in part due to structural problems and injuries, but undoubtedly also due to habitual ways of moving that I learned to compensate for these structural weaknesses – somatics is simply a way of learning to move without pain. Hanna developed a series of simple, pain free movements, that educate us to move – and indeed to live – with greater ease. They are simple, easy to learn, and do not demand a big commitment of time to practice. 

The word ‘empowerment’ is an overused word that’s bandied about freely these days. Personally I find this work to be exactly that – in the truest sense of the word. When many of us suffer from pain, stress or tension, we often go to some kind of practitioner to have something done to us. That is, we approach it passively; we hand our body over to some other person to ‘be worked on’. We may experience temporary relief. But then a day or so later, the same symptoms return.

Somatics gives us a way to change this, helping us to take control for ourselves. We learn different ways of moving, and along the way we develop awareness so that we know when we’re falling back into old habitual, unhelpful ways of moving.

There has been much written in recent times about a lot of back pain not being structural at all, but due to our habits. Somatics gives us the opportunity to explore this more fully, and the ability to make lasting change.

I often observe people, and more specifically many yoga students, who have had injuries of some kind, develop real fear around trying to keep themselves moving. They may have been told by their GPs or Specialists to avoid doing this or that movement, to never do X or Y. I have often been told by doctors and specialists myself: well what can you expect at your age?  The normal result of this is that we become afraid and stop moving as much as we need to.

There are now various options for exploring Hanna Somatics at Harvest Yoga:
• Some Somatic Movement is explored in all of Rick’s yoga classes.
• Somatic Movement group classes
• Somatic Movement workshops
• Somatic Movement short courses

If you suffer from pain, from injury, stiffness, or your body just doesn’t seem to be working as ease-fully as you’d like, then somatics is for you.

BONUS class
Anyone who has a clinical somatics session gets one free class at a group class