Interdisciplinary Movement & Somatics

Join a Contemporary Somatics Movement

The somatic movement field was started 50 years ago. Today there are dozens of designated somatic pioneers, hundreds of somatic methods and numerous ways the field has diversified. Somatic research is context specific, meaning it is directly related to the ‘environment’ of the times including available knowledge domains, changes in technology, trends in health and wellness, current events, artistic expression and social movements.

IMSomatics seeks to bring together embodied research (inquiry, practice, reflection) and concepts from evidence-based research to reveal a somatic systems science. Our broader interest is to bring this research back to lived experience: what it means in our own bodies, how it might support our work in the world, and how it might shape the wider culture we’re part of.

Our work as body-based teachers is more important than ever. Through our offerings, we contribute simple and effective methods for maintaining body-to-brain connectivity and kinship with nature. By relating with and through our body environment, we learn to restore nervous system harmony, improve somatic awareness, expand our movement literacy and renew our movement connectivity. With practice, our ability to listen, interpret and respond both creatively and appropriately is enhanced. As somatic skills develop, we gain organizational updates to moving, thinking, and behaving while remembering our positionality in the greater web of life.

Learn to Teach Somatic Groundwork

In the IMSomatics program, you will discover how to bring a somatic approach to your work while learning to teach Somatic Groundwork.

Somatic Groundwork helps improve nervous system regulation and capacity, feeling states and mood, plus enhances whole body coordination and creative expression. Guide Somatic Groundwork classes as a standalone offering or weave the movement system with other modalities like dance, yoga, strength training and bodywork. Based on developmental patterns and natural movement skills, Somatic Groundwork follows an inside out–ground up approach to movement research.

With a movement philosophy of “moving from relaxation” and “relating with ground as your partner”, our practice begins with yielding practices to help soothe and soften state and structure.  Somatic Groundwork explores ground touch with practices like pandiculation, rhythmic rocking, soft body rolling and gentle joint mobility. As a progressive movement system, both creative and functional skills are developed through Unwinding Methods and Patterns of Organization. Movement activities happen on all levels (floor, mid-level and standing) and flow between specific forms and improvisational studies.

Read more about Somatic Groundwork here

Membership Options & How to Enroll

In the SG movement system, there are three conceptual lenses we use in our framework for somatic patterning: neurofascial, developmental and decolonial.

These are points of view that are used to design, understand and interpret somatic processes and their effects. They are channels that we can tune – and attune with- that provide unique relational experiences with somatic research. Each lens introduces constraints, just as a camera lens determines what is in focus and what is blurred, each of these lenses, or perspectives, highlights specific information. Also, these lenses are not isolated from one another. Each lens reveals a unique subsystem and helps to clarify the other lenses. 

The neurofascial lens helps with observing and identifying “state or tone”. The lens includes questions related to physiology, neurobiology and the tissue environment.  Neurofascial is the bodily based system that includes the nervous system, the myofascial system and fluid systems. The neurofascial lens is used to better understand nervous system state, tissue response and structure, breathing patterns, chronic stress and persistent pain, and somatic resonance.

The developmental lens assists us in assessing and addressing movement function. Consider this a physical literacy lens aimed at researching movement patterns related to human development, daily living, recreational activity, and creative expression. Concepts included in the developmental lens are reflexes, early development, motor learning and behavior, motivation and creativity, repetitive injury, movement subsystems, coordination, stability, mobility and strength. 

The decolonial lens is a social lens that looks at how our senses, perceptions and actions are conditioned by the society and worldview we are embedded in—  or the water in which we swim. This lens examines our lived body from the perspective of how we experience the world and ourselves in it.  A decolonial lens aims to see the links between the dominant cultural narrative and our own belief system. Concepts include worldview, slowing down and relaxing, reflexive habit and implicit bias, systems of oppression, intergenerational trauma, rupture and repair, and critical thinking. A basic tenet of decolonial somatics is that the behaviors we prefer and despise in others should also be examined within ourselves.