What Is Somatic Yoga?
Somatic Yoga is a therapeutic form of embodied movement for everyone! It integrates the science of neuromuscular retraining with body prayer consciousness. The natural state of the human body is to be in motion. First person experience of motion can have a positive impact on muscle coordination, emotional self-regulation and pranic life-force flow. Whether it be from injury or long held unconscious muscle patterns, we hold discomfort in the body in the form of contractive reflexes and emotions that compress our subtle life force. This playful practice uses meditative motions to investigate the body while moving to the breath. It can release old patterns and hidden tension by regaining control of the muscles, encourage you to make friends with your thoughts and emotions, and vitalise the body.
If you experience chronic pain, illness, or fatigue, or if you want to improve your body-brain communication for healthy aging or to excel in your sport, Somatic Yoga is for you. The awareness is on the internal experience and re-educating muscles toward fluid body movement. Somatic Yoga also works with prana (life-force energy) to balance the subtle body.
Somatic Yoga Classes Online
Megan offers Somatic Yoga Classes Online on select Fridays from 4-5:15 pm Dublin GMT (11-12:15 am Eastern).
Classes take place on zoom. If you are unable to attend live, recordings of each class are available for 2 weeks after the live session.
€15 per class OR
Super Kula Yoga Library Members: weekly classes and video replays are included in the membership platform. Please be sure to sign up on the roster to receive zoom links for each class.
Upcoming Dates: November 29 (Post Thanksgiving For Digestion With Yoga Nidra), December 6 (Groovy Legs), December 13 (Happy Hips), December 20 (Silky Shoulders), December 27 (Holiday Core)
Updated Monthly – Watch for more future dates!
The Space of Grace
Our society is taught to admire intellect over intuition – to respect doing more than being – to value the material above the natural – to focus on consumption instead of preservation – to expect expansion without contraction – and to pursue the scientific before the spiritual. What about finding a state that balances these seemingly opposing forces? Somatic Yoga can bring you into the Space of Grace where you remember that you are not one or the other of these complimentary opposites. You are simply resting in your natural state of being. The places of sticky resistance become the spaces of full body freedom. Emotional regulation comes in letting feelings surface. Somatic Yoga helps you to feel and release the tension of opposites and recognize that your body is here to support you in everything you do. It is the non-dualism of knowing you are a cosmic divine creation in human form.
The Body as Soma
“Soma” is the Greek word meaning “living body”. Viewed from the outside, a human being is a body with a certain shape and size. However, when a human being looks at him/herself from the inside, he/she is aware of feelings, movements, sensations and intentions – a very different fuller being. What an individual sees from his/her first person, living, sensing, internalize view is a soma. To yourself you are a soma. To another, you are a body.
The somatic viewpoint is that humans are self-aware, self-sensing and self-moving and therefore, self responsible somas who can change themselves, as well as bodily beings who are subjected to physical and organic forces.
A Breath Centered Practice That Explores Pandiculation
You learn about yourself through motion. Movement is a result of the brain and nervous system communicating with the muscles. Your nervous system is also heavily influenced by the way you breathe. Somatic Yoga beautifully entwines a type of movement called pandiculation with breath. Neurologically, pandiculation is when you contract into tension that is already present, slowly lengthen through it and completely release. It is a biological function in the body that resets muscle length at the sensory motor level. Like our pets, we pandiculate involuntarily every time we yawn. If you have animals, you have undoubtedly seen them pandiculate time and time again when they get up after any period of inactivity.
Listen To The Whisper Of Sensation In Your Body
In Somatic Yoga, the natural spaces of contraction, expansion and relaxation within the cycles of breath are appreciated as your most innate pandiculation. By synchronizing your instinctual necessity to breathe with physical pandiculation of the muscles, we learn to self-regulate the nervous system. When you close your eyes and enter the somatic space, you find sensation; that sensation is how your body speaks. All you are asked to do is notice sensation with curiousity and kindness. Being mindfully aware of gentle movement and breath immediately benefit all of the systems of the body.
Try A Somatic Yoga Class On Youtube
If you are new to Somatic Yoga and want to see if it is for you, Megan has over 175 free classes to practice to.
Contact Megan if you have specific questions about how you might benefit from Somatic Yoga in person or online. Some options:
One-On-One Yoga Therapy In Person
One-On-One Yoga Therapy Online
Pre-Arranged or Custom Retreat
Somatic Yoga Training In Person
Somatic Yoga Training Online
I have been going to Megan's somatic yoga classes for over 5 years. I started with 1 class a week and now go to at least 2 and sometimes 3 or more. My health and outlook has improved substantially. I've gained flexibility and become more relaxed and comfortable. Megan is a treasure!
Sue
Wisconsin, USA
With an anxiety disorder in my genes and a thirty-year career in commercial office building management, by the time I retired I needed to RELAX! Add to that some arthritis and I was in search of relief! Somatic Yoga with Megan has shown me that I can move more gracefully, breathe more deeply, and connect my mind with my body in a very mindful way....and truly relax. This wonderful gift extends into all parts of my life.
Nancy
Wisconsin, USA
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