Hanna Somatic Education, is neuromuscular learning (or re-learning). It engages the nervous system into an active learning process. With 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 prevent recurring injuries.
When we have injured ourselves, have had a surgery, or overused a certain part of our body, our nervous system responds by protecting us. Your posture or walk/gait may change slightly (or may change quite a lot) to compensate for said occurrence. Sometimes these overused or compensating muscles stay contracted. Maybe 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 have been driving a lot lately and you’re holding tension in your shoulders. Whatever the reason or situation, these said muscles “forget” how to release and relax. When your muscles are stuck in a contracted or partially contracted state, Hanna Somatic Educators call this Sensory Motor Amnesia (SMA).
This is just what it sounds like, your muscles have become amnesiac. You have forgotten how to move and sense your muscles. SMA can also occur when your muscles are not firing, are weak and not being used. Your brain needs a re-boot. Your nervous system needs to be reminded how to release those muscles and/or how to use those muscles. This can only be achieved by creating new neural pathways in our nervous system.
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. Your nervous system is the director of your show, and you are the star. For somatic education to be effective, we must engage the central nervous system. In other types of body work, the client is passive (massage, chiropractic, reiki) and while these treatments may feel good they (usually) do not create long lasting change in your nervous system. Which means that the pain or discomfort felt will most likely 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 and the peripheral nervous system. The central nervous system is composed of your brain and spinal cord, and functions mainly to process information and determine appropriate responses. The 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; and sends 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 (or synapse with) muscles, skin, and sensory organs. Together the brain, and the central and peripheral nervous systems control the actions of our bodies.
Thomas Hanna wrote about four postural reflexes; the red light reflex, which is a rounded forward posture; the green light reflex, which is a chest forward, arched back posture; the trauma reflex, which is a tilted or rotated to one side posture; and the senile posture, which is many muscle groups co-contracted all at once.
There are 3 techniques used by Hanna Somatic Educators; means-whereby, which is an adaptation of F.M. Alexander’s, Alexander technique & 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 with the client) 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, is 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 contraction, then a slow controlled release, which then starts a sensory motor feedback loop.
When we do a pandiculation, we are making a voluntary movement from our motor cortex, sending a message through our spinal cord to excite our alpha motor neurons which then fire and synapse to contract the muscles. A different set of neurons from the motor cortex synapse with interneurons and then inhibit the firing of the motor units to lengthen and relax the muscle. The result of this process is a reset of the resting level of the muscles, it restores sensory-motor control and remembering. Thus improving neuromuscular self control. A new alpha gamma co-activation level is set.
There are three levels of motor control that we are engaging when we do HSE. First there is a motor plan; using the motor cortex & limbic system; then a motor program, which involves the motor cortex, the basal ganglia, the cerebellum and the brain stem; and then at spinal cord level; the implementation of the plan & programs, a final common pathway (alpha motor neuron).
HSE teaches you to recognize, release & reverse chronic pain patterns, resulting from injury, stress, repetitive motion, strain or habituated postures. It teaches you how to “fix” yourself. It does this by changing the message that your brain is sending to your muscles. Your soma (your body as perceived from within yourself) your experience (proprioception) and control of your muscles are what makes Hanna Somatic Education so unique and so successful. It is the creation of new neural pathways, that can create lasting and effective change.
Creating new neural pathways means sensory motor training. We need to help our nervous system remember the way that it senses and organizes our muscles and our movements. This is why the study of neurophysiology is so important in the education of Hanna Somatics. Because neurophysiology is the study of the nervous system, and Hanna Somatic Education is the re education of, the nervous system. “Don’t be in pain! Retrain your brain” - Nikki Semeniuk
When we have injured ourselves, have had a surgery, or overused a certain part of our body, our nervous system responds by protecting us. Your posture or walk/gait may change slightly (or may change quite a lot) to compensate for said occurrence. Sometimes these overused or compensating muscles stay contracted. Maybe 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 have been driving a lot lately and you’re holding tension in your shoulders. Whatever the reason or situation, these said muscles “forget” how to release and relax. When your muscles are stuck in a contracted or partially contracted state, Hanna Somatic Educators call this Sensory Motor Amnesia (SMA).
This is just what it sounds like, your muscles have become amnesiac. You have forgotten how to move and sense your muscles. SMA can also occur when your muscles are not firing, are weak and not being used. Your brain needs a re-boot. Your nervous system needs to be reminded how to release those muscles and/or how to use those muscles. This can only be achieved by creating new neural pathways in our nervous system.
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. Your nervous system is the director of your show, and you are the star. For somatic education to be effective, we must engage the central nervous system. In other types of body work, the client is passive (massage, chiropractic, reiki) and while these treatments may feel good they (usually) do not create long lasting change in your nervous system. Which means that the pain or discomfort felt will most likely 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 and the peripheral nervous system. The central nervous system is composed of your brain and spinal cord, and functions mainly to process information and determine appropriate responses. The 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; and sends 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 (or synapse with) muscles, skin, and sensory organs. Together the brain, and the central and peripheral nervous systems control the actions of our bodies.
Thomas Hanna wrote about four postural reflexes; the red light reflex, which is a rounded forward posture; the green light reflex, which is a chest forward, arched back posture; the trauma reflex, which is a tilted or rotated to one side posture; and the senile posture, which is many muscle groups co-contracted all at once.
There are 3 techniques used by Hanna Somatic Educators; means-whereby, which is an adaptation of F.M. Alexander’s, Alexander technique & 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 with the client) 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, is 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 contraction, then a slow controlled release, which then starts a sensory motor feedback loop.
When we do a pandiculation, we are making a voluntary movement from our motor cortex, sending a message through our spinal cord to excite our alpha motor neurons which then fire and synapse to contract the muscles. A different set of neurons from the motor cortex synapse with interneurons and then inhibit the firing of the motor units to lengthen and relax the muscle. The result of this process is a reset of the resting level of the muscles, it restores sensory-motor control and remembering. Thus improving neuromuscular self control. A new alpha gamma co-activation level is set.
There are three levels of motor control that we are engaging when we do HSE. First there is a motor plan; using the motor cortex & limbic system; then a motor program, which involves the motor cortex, the basal ganglia, the cerebellum and the brain stem; and then at spinal cord level; the implementation of the plan & programs, a final common pathway (alpha motor neuron).
HSE teaches you to recognize, release & reverse chronic pain patterns, resulting from injury, stress, repetitive motion, strain or habituated postures. It teaches you how to “fix” yourself. It does this by changing the message that your brain is sending to your muscles. Your soma (your body as perceived from within yourself) your experience (proprioception) and control of your muscles are what makes Hanna Somatic Education so unique and so successful. It is the creation of new neural pathways, that can create lasting and effective change.
Creating new neural pathways means sensory motor training. We need to help our nervous system remember the way that it senses and organizes our muscles and our movements. This is why the study of neurophysiology is so important in the education of Hanna Somatics. Because neurophysiology is the study of the nervous system, and Hanna Somatic Education is the re education of, the nervous system. “Don’t be in pain! Retrain your brain” - Nikki Semeniuk
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