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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This fascia workshop starts off with a short introduction about fascia, and on embryological development – particularly on the endoderm (front body), ectoderm (back body) and mesoderm (inside body). We then engage in an embodied meditation followed by a series of movement practices – both active and restorative, with greater emphasis on internal sensing and awareness in relation to the theme. The workshop also offers us the embodied sense into the different layers of our body – skin, adipose tissues, muscles and bones.

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The first class of the navel radiation series.

In today’s session, we learn about the core of our body. In the fitness realm, there’s so much emphasis on the core. Most of the time, the core was associated with the much desired AB(S)dominal muscles. Many modalities also explore pelvic lumbar stability, and the iliopsoas complex.

Through the years of teaching and exploration into Body Mind Centering (BMC), I’ve began to explore the concept of the core as the centre of our “being-ness”, located behind the navel space. It is the space in which the umbilical chord connects each of us to our mother during in-utero fetus days. From a developmental perspective, this very core is also the seed in which all the other limbs of our body (arms, legs, head and tail) develops from. It is the centre between the front and back, the top and bottom half, and the 2 sides of our body. It is the centre in our 3-dimensional body moving through 3-dimensional space.

We start off the session with a navel radiation meditation, followed by sensing how the quality of conventional vinyasa movement changes when we initiate such movement from the core, and end off the session with exploratory movement with the weighted ball.

Props required:

• 1 pair of socks
• 1 weighted ball (or water bottle)

This post was previously posted on Yogawithdaphne.com on December 11th 2021.

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The final class of the creating safety workshop.

Our sub-occipital muscles tends to hold a lot of stress because of the function it plays in keeping our heads upright as bipeds, and its association with our eyes. In this session, we explore an exercise to release tension in the sub-occipital muscles as we lean into the support of gravity, and find full body integration. In the session, we also explore movement across 3-dimensional planes, bringing awareness to our body’s mid-line and our anatomical structures.
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Props required:

• 1 yoga mat
• 1 strap (or scarf)
• 1 blanket
• 1 yoga block
• 1 weighted ball (or water bottle)

This post was previously posted on Yogawithdaphne.com on December 5th 2021.

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The post Moving Well appeared first on Somatic Therapy Asia.

Much of the work I do is also teaching people how to get on the floor and get back up.

I train my clients to not be fearful of the ground beneath us.

A big part of somatic coaching is to lean into the support of gravity so we don’t have to do all the work of tensing all our muscles and be in fight / flight mode constantly.

In today’s society we spend way too much time in the vertical plane, and on elevated platforms such as chairs and couches. We slouch into them and then collapse into our elevated beds at the end of the day.

Ease your way onto the floor and uncover your inner child.

Your spine will thank you for it 💃

#spinalhealth#somaticmovement#preciousmoments
#getonthefloor#somawithdaphne#yogawithdaphne
#yogatherapy#embodiedintelligence#somaticcoaching

This post was previously posted on Yogawithdaphne.com on September 24th 2020

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On the other hand, muscles do the work of mobility, muscle fibres fire and contract to help us move through / across space Muscles and our bones work symbiotically for optimal functioning in stability and mobility.

However, what happens is that we often get stuck to trying to achieve a form or a goal, or we are rushing to get somewhere, or to perform a task based on what we think it should look like and if it fits certain mould. When our nervous system is constantly wired to react to stress and the constant need to “try harder”, the muscles take over the direction of the bones. We tend to get set in movement habits that are driven from the perspective that we are a machine made of parts rather than an relational organism.

This is a little somatic practice of exploring the support we can create if we bring awareness to our bones / ligament and movement continuity. The dynamic fluidity to respond rather than react. So we can create more healthy bone and joint health, as well as regulate our nervous system to come into a sense of being rather than having to do more all the time.
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#bodymindcentering#somatics#somaticmovementeducation#somatictherapy#somawithdaphne
#yogawithdaphne#movementinquiryembodiment#bonehealth#osteopathy
#yogatherapy#somaticyoga

This post was previously posted on Yogawithdaphne.com on November 9th 2020

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The relative distance of our feet from our brain often causes us to disregard the health and care of our feet. We tend to ignore the messages coming from this very distal part of the body. We wear shoes that are too tight, too loose, too flat, too high… For some culture, there’s even a certain element of shame attached to the feet. Some people might go through years of suffering from sore feet before paying any attention to this part of the body.

The health of our feet is instrumental in our overall health.

Our two feet are made up of 52 bones, accounting for about a quarter of all the bones in our body. They contain 60 joints and 200 muscles, tendons and ligaments that hold them together for mobility and stability. Most of the myofascial matrix crosses through the feet as they are fundamental to our evolution into bipeds. Our feet establish the foundation of our vertical relationship to navigate through gravity and 3 dimensional space and create movement continuity through all our body’s systems.
Embryologically, our feet and toes grow out of the limb buds before the legs are fully formed, essentially making our feet an extension of the pelvis, and hence its close association to our pelvic health.

Keeping our feet strong and nimble means stronger grounding and stability, more movement choices and increased neural pathways and plasticity! Training our feet to be able to articulate through different loads and tracking its relationship to different parts of the body will not only alleviate conditions like plantar fasciitis, heel pain, achilles tendinitis, it can also prevent knee injury, relieves lower back pain, soothe neck and shoulder tension and even migraine. Its close relationship with our pelvic diaphragm also means that strong and flexible feet will bring awareness to our core being as we find support through gravity and levity. When we establish better proprioception and interoception we can also help to regulate our nervous system so we are less anxious and stressed!

This post was originally posted on Yogawithdaphne.com on May 28th 2020

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As part of a training course work in which students will apply movement principles into their practice. Lana worked with the single principle Navel Radiation through the different relationships with gravity. Using her navel centre as the anchor from stillness in supine, morphing into dynamic balancing poses into creating the balance of both stability and mobility.

This post was previously posted on Yogawithdaphne.com on October 10th 2019

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