That in every movement or gesture that we perform, the Nervous System is listening to the Fascia System and talking to the Musculo-Skeletal system.

Our body of intelligence is always trying to figure out how to respond to the environment. The nervous system is our safety barometer – it perceives both our internal and external environment and everything in between to scan for potential danger. It records every phenomena and labels them as good or bad based on the imprints of historical experiences.

Our connective tissues via the self-organising fascia matrix give us a sense of where and how we’re moving through space and gravity across multiple joints. Every muscle, every bone, every organ and even every cell lives embedded within the sea of a unitary fascial matrix. It gives us a sense of continuity and integration of our whole body. 

All these information is then related back to our brain to control our musculo-skeletal system for both volitional and sub-conscious movement and action.

These trinity of system then form a feedback loop – The Neuromyofascial Web. These processes and the way in which they dialogue with each other define our responsiveness / reactivity to our environment, our defensive mechanisms in which we view the world as safe or dangerous. It shapes our emotions, our posturing and our body language. It creates the container in which we experience life and conjugates our reality.

DM to find out more about how we can tap into these somatic inquiries through our trainings, workshops and private sessions.

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The second class of the navel radiation series. Click the link to watch the full class on youtube https://youtu.be/GKTokdJALho

This session starts off with a developmental explanation of how we come to become who we are – from the meeting of the sperm and egg, implantation, development of fetus, vital organs, and intricate features. We hear how the navel is our centre, and the seed by which intrinsic movement gives rise to extrinsic movement – and bi-directionally, from extrinsic movement to intrinsic movement.
The session starts off with the use of touch, to bring greater felt sense to the different parts of our body and their relationship to the navel centre. We then engage in different movement sequences to engage the entire body (all our 6 limbs), with the focus on initiating movement from the navel centre.
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Props required:

• 1 yoga mat
• 1 pair of socks
• 1 weighted ball (or water bottle)
• 1 cushion (or bolster)
• 1 blanket

This post was previously posted on Yogawithdaphne.com on December 17th 2021.

The post Somatic Workshop Series: Navel Radiation (2/3) appeared first on Somatic Therapy Asia.

Could the tightness that you’re feeling in your back be caused by your organs sitting in the front of the body?⁣⁣
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When our body isn’t able to provide a conducive environment for the organs and gut tube to function and move optimally in relationship with one another, they are not able to yield into the support of gravity. ⁣This can also happen when our nervous system can’t get into the rest and digest mode. ⁣Our organs become sticky, frozen, inanimate, braced. ⁣And they sit at the front of the abdominal cavity and pull into our lower back.⁣⁣
This might cause our whole body to come into a holding pattern of bracing against gravity.⁣⁣
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Creating more thoracic mobility and releasing the pelvic floor helps to bring the respiratory and pelvic diaphragms back into resonance.⁣⁣
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⁣Want to know more? Join me at my next Somatic Movement & Therapy Training on Polyvagal Theory in Somatic Applications. Happening 31 May to 9 June. ⁣

This post was previously posted on Yogawithdaphne.com on April 23rd 2021.
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The post Bloating and Back Pain appeared first on Somatic Therapy Asia.

Lucie is taking a little hiatus…

When Lucie told me early this year that she is venturing into the decluttering profession, unlike most who know her, I wasn’t at all surprised at this career choice she has chosen.
In working with her the last 3 years from teacher-student to movement collaborators, Lucie is always able to demonstrate her presence in understanding the nuanced concepts in movement, and also in the creative ways she’s able to apply them in real life.

We share a common deep love affair in the work of somatics and embodiment which goes above and beyond just being healthy and fit.
It calls upon us to do our inner shadow work so we ca clean out the cobwebs of our somatic imprints through relational inquiries.

There is no demarcation between body and mind. The body is the mind. The mind is the body.
The body is the canvas upon which our experiences are wonderfully written with movement as its language. Within the microcosm of the body we inhabit in – a universe of fluids, cells, organs, breath – belies a magic we can lean into, a harmonious balance of space, gravity, support and surrender.

As a movement teacher and body therapist, our work parallels each other’s. What I do is to guide and hold sacred space for these storylines to be organised, to be told, to be released or reframed. Through this co-creation, I help my clients uncover their authenticity for expression and agency to live more fully.

Keep in touch with Lucie at Your Space as she embarks on her adventure too in the alignment of inner and outer spaces.

How does your home reflect your inner state of being?
It goes beyond just inquiring #doesthissparkjoy.

Till soon Lucie! ​

This post was previously posted on Yogawithdaphne.com on July 29th 2020

The post Space Within. Space Without appeared first on Somatic Therapy Asia.

The concept of a neutral pelvis is a topic every movement educator across different modalities would passionately debate over.

This week on #SomawithDaphneandLucy, we’d like to share our take on the neutral pelvis as an embodiment PROCESS, rather than just a shape or a form.

One of the most logical rationales to this principle is that – When the pelvis is in its neutral position, it allows for the most amount of space between each vertebra, as they are then aligned in their natural curves (i.e primary and secondary curves or kyphosis and lordosis). A neutral pelvis means that our spine can act as a “spring” in our bipedal form, to provide a buffer for the compressive forces moving through the body as we navigate through space and gravity.

A simple approach to finding a neutral pelvis is to experiment with the anterior and posterior tilting of the pelvis in relationship to the bony landmarks – the ASIS (hip points), and the diamond-shaped compass of the Sacrum, Coccyx, Ischium, Pubic Symphysis – to find the place in the centre.
These landmarks are incredibly useful in bringing awareness to a vital and yet vulnerable part of the body that we often ignore. Even though we spend so much time sitting on our bum, what we do with our pelvis and pelvic floor are often only brought to our attention when we are experiencing pain or discomfort.

From the bony landmarks, we can begin to explore the intrinsic movement of breath within the inner body, in particular the relationship between the ribcage and the pelvis.

Our respiratory diaphragm sits just beneath the ribs. As our primary breathing muscle, the diaphragm contracts and descends during inhalation, and releases to ascend during exhalation. The heart and lungs rest above the respiratory diaphragm, and our internal organs are below this diaphragm. On the other hand (end), the pelvic floor (also a diaphragm) supports the weight of our internal organs, in addition to sexual and elimination functions.

The respiratory diaphragm and the pelvic diaphragm (not just a floor!) is actually one continuous integrated “being” that modulates our life force! Their ability to move in resonance with each other is important in the healthy and intricate functioning of all our biological processes, such as oxygenation, circulation, motility of organs, digestive and reproductive processes etc.

Creating an embodied awareness on this symbiotic relationship of the intrinsic rhythm of our breath pulsating through the different diaphragms will not only create optimal alignment and ease in the way we move, sit, stand, walk, but also help regulate our nervous system, return us back to health, and cultivate a sense of grounding and safety.
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In the next video, we would like to invite you to explore a short practice to sense the resonance between the 2 diaphragms to come into the “state” of a neutral pelvis.

This post was previously posted on Yogawithdaphne.com on June 19th 2020

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In our quest to move up the evolutionary ladder, we expose our vulnerability to the world through the front body, which contains our soft and vital organs. The front body also forms a big part of our #selfimage (refer to our previous post on this topic) of how we see ourselves and how we want others to see us. Therefore, our nervous system is wired to “think” and “predict” danger to preserve our survival. This sense of vigilance can literally move us away from our anchor and grounding.

When the world we live becomes too much for our nervous system to handle – too much stress, too much uncertainty, too much stimulus, too much grief, can we take this as a signal to retreat, to withdraw, to exhale?

The flexion state takes us back into our embryological being – a time in which we are nestled and suspended in the warm fluids of our mother’s womb, a state where cells divides and organise, a state of balance and homeostasis, in which the order of nature grants us nourishment and protection.
If you’re experiencing physical symptoms like migraine, neck and shoulder tension, back ache, shortness of breath, excessive gas, acid reflux, or even sleep disorder, your body is sending an invitation to marinate yourself in this restorative state.

Check out this video as Lucie explains her experience and a little demo to retract the front line and open up the back line of the body.

Allow your organs to soften and drape over the support of your cushions, bringing breath into the back body and releasing the adrenals from its state of vigilance to one of yielding. 

​Welcome home.

This post was previously posted on Yogawithdaphne.com on June 7th 2020

The post Flexion state & the nervous system appeared first on Somatic Therapy Asia.

Heart opening poses are a consistent “obsession” for yoga practitioners. Deep contortionistic backbends are pursued like trophies – a trademark of the accomplished yogi.

Backbends or spinal extensions are often mythicised as “Heart-Opening”, since it creates an expansion in the front of the body, particularly in the chest / thorax where the vital organs of the heart and lungs are situated. Spinal extension poses are thought to create lung capacity and invigorate the body-mind. Since these poses also stretch into the front of the belly, it can serve as a reprieve from those who live a sedentary lifestyle of hunching over devices, sinking into couches, with the spine constantly being in flexion.

The energetic benefits of heart openers also include stimulating our life force, instigating our capacity to love unconditionally, and helping us find courage to face challenges.

All these are well and good. The spanner in the works almost always lies in the HOW and not the WHAT. Generally, yoga backbends are done with the alignment cue to draw the shoulder blades back and down (retraction, adduction, internal rotation of the scapulas) in order to create maximum spinal extension. However, the structure of the thoracic spine (with a rib bone extending out of each vertebra forming a “cage”), is the “stiffest” part of the entire spine, and naturally shaped into a flexion or a kyphosis.

Culturally, we are told since young to pull our shoulders back, stick our chest out, and not to hunch our back! We have been so conditioned to contract our back body in order to push our sternum forward, that we might have forgotten that Mother Nature equipped us with a concave “cage” so we can house and protect our vital organs!

The study of the organs system in Body Mind Centering led us to reconsider this whole paradigm. According to its founder, Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, our heart is cradled by each half of our lungs. The trio creates an ecosystem of oxygen and CO2 exchange that feeds life force into our cellular matrix, much like the dynamic macrocosm of our external environment.

The pulmonary system responsible for this exchange is actually located in the back of the anatomical heart, snuggled in the space in between to touch the front of the lungs. It is interesting to note that the lower lobes of each side of the lungs form most of the back of the ribs, where as the top lobes are under the upper trapezius.

When we overextend the thoracic spine by squeezing into the traps and leveraging onto our scapulas to push the “heart” forward, we are actually squashing the lungs and the heart, not exactly “opening” them at all! This can over stimulate our nervous system, as well as create strain in our spine and destabilise the balanced curvature of our spine.

The next time you attempt a backbend, can you reach into the spaciousness of the back body, and let the heart rest in the space embraced by the lungs, supported by the circulation of the blood exchange in the pulmonary vessels.

This post was originally posted on Yogawithdaphne.com on May 14th 2020

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Sound therapy works through the vagus nerve through its innervation in the auditory camel through to the middle ear into the pharynx, larynx, into our vital and digestive organs. Through mindful fluid movement to sound vibrations and resonance, as well as guided visualisation and vocalisation, we are able to regulate our immune and nervous system and affect our internal organs to restore their regulatory functions.

Join myself and Singapore-based sound healer Jasz Lau @The Senses Therapy in this series of Somatic & Sound Healing Embodiment Sessions from November to February to experience this deep healing process for the body-mind-spirit.
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To register: https://www.eventbrite.sg/e/somatics-sound-healing-embodime…
https://thesoundhealer.org/sound-therapy-and-the-vagus-ner…/

This post was originally posted on Yogawithdaphne.com on November 30th 2019

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