Based on the work of Thomas Hanna, Clinical Somatics is a series of conscious, balanced movements that get to root cause of most muscle tightness and pain, at the level of the brain.

A bone only moves if there is a muscle attached and a muscle can only move if it gets a signal from the brain.  A disconnect with our brain to our muscles can cause a wide range of functional problems like, neck pain, shoulder pain, sciatica, hip, knee foot problems.

 Clinical Somatics helps you to recover range of movement that you may have attributed to getting old or structural issues.  

Stress, injuries, surgeries and repetitive use can cause our muscles to become habitually tight.  Using a method called Pandiculation you learn to take back conscious control of muscles at the level of the brain.  Pandiculation can be thought of as your nervous system's wake up call.  Pandiculation is a contraction of a muscle or muscle group followed by a slow controlled release of the muscle or muscle group. 

​A pandiculation resets the muscle length.  It is what your cat or dog's brain forces them to do each and every time they get up from resting. 
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Humans naturally pandiculate when yawning or upon waking....watch a child that lazily wakes, they might contract their backs and add a slight twist to their spine.  

“The human body is not an instrument to be used, but a realm of one’s being to be experienced,
explored, enriched and, thereby, educated.”

-Thomas Hanna, founder of Clinical Somatic Education

Clinical Somatics:

To be human is to share unique built in reflexes that move us forward, keep us safe and help us to avoid further injury.  Thomas Hanna's work is based on the the following reflexes:

The Green Light Reflex:  This is also called the Landau reflex and we as humans begin to experience it at around the age of 4 months old when our back muscles begin to engage and we are able to lift our heads from the floor and begin moving forward.  Every time you are called to action, hear your phone ring, are busy meeting deadlines, rushing, waking to alarms the back muscles are unconsciously contracting.  The large muscles of the back can learn to stay overly contracted and cause problems such herniated discs, neck pain, shoulder pain, sciatica and foot pain. 

The Red Light Reflex:  This is also called the Startle Reflex and every living creature on the planet, recoils in fear.  The Red Light reflex causes the abdominal muscle and related muscles in the pattern to contract, which over time can causes one posture to looked stooped over and can be the cause of chronic neck pain, a widows hump, hip pain, midback pain and shallow breathing.  Try this...hold your stomach in tight and try and take a big breath...The inability to breath deeply deprives your brain, blood and muscles of the oxygen they need to function properly.  This can in turn lead to fatigue, depression and sleep problems.  We also are faced with a society of people who are constantly hunched over their tablets and devices or sitting a computer.

The Trauma Reflex:   This reflex happens involuntarily in response to an accident or injury.  As we fall our brain tries to avoid  injury by involving the muscles of the trunk rotators which cause one hip to hike and the spine to twist slightly.  The Trauma Reflex  also develops when a mother  holds her child on one hip, or someone  limps after spraining an ankle.  Someone stuck in a trauma reflex may look lop sided, one shoulder will be lower and one hip will be higher which results in leg length discrepancy and issues walking.  

Sensory Motor Amnesia:  A condition where the brain has lost full or partial voluntary/cortical control of its ability to sense and move muscles freely.   Muscles have two functions: to contract and to release.   When muscle function is impaired the end result is chronic muscular contraction that leads to limited movement, distorted posture, skeletal imbalance and pain.  With Sensory Motor Amnesia the muscles no longer relax even when you are asleep.  

The key to reverse Sensory Motor Amnesia:  PANDICULATION