#nervousystem #polyvagaltheory #homeostasis #mindbody #yogawithdaphne #somatictherapy #somatictherapyasia #somaticswithdaphne #somaticyoga #somaticssg #somaticssingapore #yogasg #sgyogis #resilience #yogatherapist #yogatherapy #neuroplasticity #nervoussystemreset #sgbodywork #somaticbodywork #somatictherapytraining #journeytosomatictherapy

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As yoga becomes increasingly popular in therapeutic settings, it’s important that teachers and professionals understand not just that yoga offers healing opportunities to those recovering from trauma, but how and why it can help. This course offers the unique opportunity to learn basic foundational frameworks, apply this knowledge to both individual and group cases, and identify how yoga can meet the needs of diverse populations.

This course is designed for yoga and mental health practitioners seeking to share yoga with people who have experienced trauma.

You might be teaching in a studio, private practice, or less conventional setting, or you may be a practitioner seeking depth in your personal practice. If you’re looking for a grounded, practical understanding of how you can use movement and touch work to support folks with trauma recovery, this workshop will serve as an excellent introduction to this work
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Thank you @mandalapsychology for the quote feature.

This post was previously posted on Yogawithdaphne.com on January 18th 2021.

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This post was previously posted on Yogawithdaphne.com on November 18th 2020.  ​

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I was all nerves but it was one hour of full presence, connecting mind to mind, body to body, soul to soul.

The rest is history.

As I delve deeper into how we embody the human condition and each of our own journey into healing, I found the field of Somatics as the relational roadmap to understand why we are how we are – as individual organism, and as collective communities.

I have worked with thousands of individuals since then, from age 0 to age 90+.
I work with people who suffer from chronic pain and help post-stroke patients reconnect their body with their brain.
I assist stressed-out execs in carving out space for quality rest in their busy schedule to get out of their heads and into their bodies.
I help people hone their sensory awareness, to honour the stories written in our body, to reclaim our inherent wholeness.
I teach people how to FEEL again.
(This was way before phrases like Embodiment, Somatics, and Trauma became trendy jargon)

So if you’re on this journey too, or have a sense of curiosity or interest in uncovering how our brain is our body, and how to develop your own roadmap to healing self and others, or if you work privately with clients in the realm of the body and mind, I invite you to join me in this upcoming training.
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(Only 1 spot left)

This post was previously posted on Yogawithdaphne.com on November 2nd 2020.

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This week’s topic on #somawithDaphneandLucy is about what constitutes healthy stretch!

Everyone loves a good stretch. However, do you sometimes feel that the more you stretch, the more you need to stretch?

The yoga world is obsessed with stretching. There’s this misconception that the more one stretches a particular area of the body, the “longer” and “looser” it will be, and “looser” feels better than “tight”. Like most things in life, there’s also the “high” of chasing big sensations in stretching, and the belief that there is no gain unless there is some sort of pain.

Being a person with hypermobility, the physical practice of yoga came about relatively easily for me. It doesn’t take long for my joint spaces to open up and I could quite quickly flop into forward bends or use my arms as leverage to pull myself to extreme range of motion. I’d feel spacious and open after an intense stretching session. However, it wouldn’t take long before my body started to feel tight again and needed another round of “fix”. As this cycle perpetuates, my body would feel achy and sore if I have to sit or stand or walk for extended periods; my mind restless.

To many people, I seemed like a dedicated yogi, spending hours on a yoga mat contorting myself into a pretzel. I realised that something had gone terribly amiss when the more I practice, the less I could bear stillness without discomfort – counter to the tenet that Yoga is state of being both steady and easeful (Sthiram Sukham Asanam)

I finally found the answer to this mystifying conundrum when I discovered somatics and mobility practice. I had been stretching wrong!

I was chasing sensations instead of cultivating awareness.
I wasn’t listening to the subtle nuances of what my body was telling me.

My muscles were either switched off or over-contracted in those deep stretches, further stressing my already hypermobile connective tissues – in particular the tendons and ligaments – as I collapsed into gravity or when I leveraged on an external force to pull myself into the end range of motion (ROM).
Even though this might initially trigger the nervous system into a relaxation response, it also destabilises the connective tissues around my joints. My body then sends a “danger signal” resulting in even more muscle tension, creating the vicious stretching cycle.

My practice now includes resistance stretching which requires active range of motion, i.e keeping muscles in eccentric contraction and maintaining integrated postural tone through myofascial continuity (more on a future post!) to express our 3-dimensional relationship with gravity and space, as well as in creating progressive loading with theraband or weights to strengthen and stabilise joints)
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Passive stretching is still a valuable practice to down-regulate the nervous system when we use props to support joints without going into the full range of motion such as in restorative poses..

This post was previously posted on Yogawithdaphne.com on June 30th 2020

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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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STRETCHING VS PANDICULATION
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The fascination and obsession with “stretching” is pretty much why most people came into the practice of yoga. Ever since we can remember we’ve been told to stretch for our aches and pains. What most people don’t know is that most of the time, we are doing “passive or static stretching when we just hold a stretch and pull with our hands, or submit into gravity, or sometimes we use a prop to help us get “deeper”, with the intent of releasing tight muscles.

Our volitional motor control comes from our central nervous system. Muscles respond to signals from the brain to contract and move. Moreover, the brain can also signal our muscles to involuntarily contract from physical and emotional trauma and repetitive stress. Extended tension can create an almost perpetual contraction of muscles, till they “forget” how to completely relax. The impairment of volitional control of a muscle group and its synergists is called Sensory Motor Amnesia. A sedentary or stressful lifestyle can contribute to this form of musculature contraction.

Passive stretching is done with the intent to pull a muscle into a specific length or state of relaxation. Extended passive stretching can sometimes result in injuries such as tendonitis or even trauma to the joints even though it might “feel good” in the beginning. This is central nervous system not being fully online during passive stretching, thus a feedback loop to the sensory-motor cortex cannot be established.

Pandiculation (like yawning) is an instinctual “re-set” button for our nervous system. It is also an effective way of restoring full muscle function and Range Of Motion (ROM) through concentric, eccentric and isometric contraction of different muscle groups. The sensory motor cortex becomes fully online during this process.

“If you want to untie a knot, you must look at the cord carefully then gently undo the tangle. Yanking on the cord will only make the knot tighter.”
— Thomas Hanna

If you have ever watched an animal arise from a slumber, you’d observe how they might arch their back, drop their belly and lengthen their spine and limbs into a full body “yawn”. We also do the same when we awake, we gently tighten trunk and limbs our arms and legs inward, feel a yawn coming on, and then reach arms over head, then extend our legs long. This process involves a concentric contraction of our muscles, then an eccentric lengthening, and an isometric holding in the “yawn” before coming into full relaxation as the brain integrates into this feedback loop to remind our muscle that they don’t have to stay stuck in contracted, protective state. The result is relaxation and restoration of voluntary motor control and coordination.

So next time you want to stretch, try first contracting the muscle that’s tight (less ROM) and then slowly lengthening it (more ROM). Then completely relax. Note the difference not only in sensation and control of the muscle, but also in your range of motion and sense of ease in your body. You may even feel more “connected,” less tense. Instead of classic stretching, try pandiculating instead and notice if there’s a shift in your ROM (“muscle length”) and sense of ease in the body-mind.

Video by Lucie Krobová
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#somatics#embodiment#embodiedpractice#yogatherapy#soma#somaticmovement#somaticyoga#livingbody#bodyintelligence#innerknowledge#somaticeducation#yogaeducation#yogawithdaphne#exploredancemovement#movingfromwithin20#yawning#pandiculation#catstreach#myofascialunwinding#fascia#fascialunwinding#yawningbody#listentoyourbody

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

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Being hyper-mobile, yoga asanas came easily to me as a practitioner. When I was a new teacher, I’d be teaching 18 classes a week and demonstrating everyone of them on my dominant right side, and doing physical assists on the other.

Then I got very involved in “universal principles of alignment” that’d prescribed systematic methodology of getting into poses, working into end range, and accomplishing peak poses for a recognition of my practice, not forgetting the photo ops.

When I got into my 40’s my right hip started clicking, my thoracic spine lost its kyphosis, my head feels to heavy for my neck and shoulders, my SI joint felt wonky and sore at times, and I’m always in a state of feeling like I’d jump out of my skin UNLESS I’m bending myself into deeper stretches.
Something wasn’t right. If Yoga is the path to freedom and bliss, my body felt shackled to the ball and chain of a yoga mat.

I got into somatics first through the wonderful Feldenkrais classes with Tara Eden in Chiang Mai. Subsequently I dived into Body Mind Centering’s embodiment work of non linear movement and understanding of the nervous system in psychosomatic relationships, learning to listen to the body through sensory awareness into different biological systems, to re-learn and repattern very conditioned ways of inhabiting our body, through self inquiry, using the body as a baseline.

Now I can walk, run, sit, hike… do the functional stuff normal humans do for extended periods – pain free and with presence. My movement repertoire consist of a mix of different activities in addition to mat yoga – swimming, rock climbing, dance, resistance work – so my body’s neural mapping gets wired in a variety of possibilities. I’ve also been working with yoga practitioners and teachers on preventing / rehabilitating repetitive injuries through therapeutic bodywork, yoga therapy which addresses the person through the different layers, and somatic movement education – learning so much about the body-mind as an integrated whole.
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I really hope more yoga people are waking up to the message in this article, so we can create a much more sustainable, enriching and mindful dialogue to this ancient tradition. As Richard Freeman says in the first line of Yoga Matrix, “Yoga begins with listening.”

#ahimsa #satya #aparigraha 

This post was originally posted on Yogawithdaphne.com on November 10th 2019

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The longing I’ve always held for travel and exploration was born into me. Back when I was only a child, I used to cut out travel ads in newspapers and magazines, making scrap art from those unfamiliar & exotic images, lost in the luring landscapes of misty mountains ranges, panoramic lookouts, architectures from another world.

I’d imagined the sights, sounds, smells… the touch of snow. This was back in the days before budget airlines existed and global travel became as ubiquitous as hopping on a subway. I remember taking buses to the airport just to wander about, looking at travellers and their multi-coloured suitcases and coats. I’d listened to announcements over the PA and wondered about the adventures that await them or the experiences they had returned from. 

I didn’t get on a plane till I was 21. But I was hooked long before the journey started. I needed so much to explore beyond the little red dot on the map that’s Singapore, the mysteries that laid in store beyond the little island city state on the equator. It was also this insatiable wanderlust that led me to subsequently leave behind my self-contained life, my cosy apartment, corporate career.

After I stepped into my 40’s, something shifted in me, made porous by the lessons learnt on the road – solitude, adaptability, grit, courage, respect, resilience, fear, love, and impermanence. And all that frenzy of looking outwards for mirrors of self-expression started to change course. As I delve further into the practice of self-inquiry and introspection, a different longing begins to take shape… a beckoning from a familiar place, calling out to me to not forget, to remember – of who I am and where I come from.

To retrace the story of my own becoming.

This subtle stirring in my heart a few years ago became a visceral yearning when I lost my father last year. Now the ambers have been stoked into a wild fire of recognition, a deep sensate resignation from the nomadic seeking, to return to the birth place of my karmic imprint, like a fish swimming back into familiar waters.

“Take your attention down into the tiny, miraculous stitching of the life you are creating from nothing, and trust that each small thread is connecting you to the greater body of belonging. One day, maybe today, you will look back on everything that came after your decision to attend to your life like an artwork, and you will see a great number of years symbolized in moons and stained with blood, stretching across a great landscape behind you, and you’ll know you have come a great distance. Here, with your great cape of wound-moons, a piercing presence in your eyes, a living history on your skin, you will know you have always belonged.”
Toko-pa Turner, Excerpt From “Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home”
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I’ll be moving back to Singapore in a few weeks time, after 12 years of wandering to be in close proximity to my family and friends who have stood by me through all these years. I’m also looking forward to bringing more of my skills and practice in therapeutic modalities to serve the local communities in Singapore and  around the region. 

Starting from November, I’ll be offering regular Yoga Therapy and Integrated Bodywork 1:1 Sessions in Singapore, with the flexibility of in-house, home visits and clinic sessions at Soma Clinic and Terra Luna Yoga.

I’ll also be launching teaching and therapist professional development programs for those who’d like to learn more on working therapeutically with a sensory approach in bodywork and movement.

Singapore-based sound healer extraordinaire Jasz Lau and I will be partnering up again to offer a deeply therapeutic embodiment series of four Somatic & Sound Healing special classes at her lovely new studio The Senses Therapy from November through to February. And look out for the Somatic Wisdom Therapeutic Workshops at the trauma-aware Terra Luna Yoga which caters specifically to women. 

For teachers and practitioners looking for continuing education, don’t miss out on two Somatic & Yoga Therapy trainings that I will be offering in Cambodia (December) and Thailand (February). 

If you are a teacher trainer or wellness education provider, I’m now available to help you create customised therapeutic curriculum that I can also facilitate or deliver in your existing training programs. See below for more details.

Coming home.

Blessings,
Daphne

This post was originally posted on Yogawithdaphne.com on October 31st 2019

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