Intro to Hanna Somatic Movement

This is a unique offering with only 6 spaces available.

Feeling chronically stressed, tense, or 'stuck'? Somatic Movement centred in the polyvagal theory is a way to find a profound ease in movement to overcome chronically held tension patterns by engaging in a series of slow controlled movements.

You'll be guided by Jess using specific exercises focused on internal sensation, designed to release unconsciously held muscle contractions often linked to stress and sensory motor amnesia (where the brain forgets how to relax muscles).

This group session utilises Hanna Somatic Movement as a gentle yet powerful way to help reset your nervous system. By re-establishing clear communication between your brain and body, this practice helps soothe the nervous system, dissolve habitual tension patterns, and restore a natural state of ease, calm, and greater body awareness.

___________________________________

Return to Rest

Each week will focus on various exercises based on Thomas Hanna's work and influenced by Bartenieff Fundamentals “Basic 6”. This will work to connect your body-mind awareness in a holistic process of moving away from trauma reflex and into recovery or ventral vagal states. 

Week One:

Horizontal Plane Exercises - talks to the notion of the body communicating in the internal and external environment. Task centred and problem solving planes - the question governing this plane of movement is ‘What does the situation require?

Week Two: 

The Vertical Plane Exercises - is the axis of our being in the world, our relationship with gravity, and the embodiment of our personal history and potential. It's the dimension of standing tall, sinking down, reaching up, and grounding ourselves.

Week Three:

Diaphragm & Brainstem Exercises - the diaphragm emerges as the somatic embodiment of life's essential rhythm. It's where Hanna's quest for freedom from the neuromuscular reflexes of fear and stress meets Bartenieff's principle of integrated support and motor connectivity.

Week Four:

The Saggital Plane Exercises - this fundamental connection along the sagittal axis is crucial for our sense of grounding and our ability to move with intention. It embodies the arc of experience, through conscious awareness and gentle pandiculation. That intelligent, full-bodied yawn of the muscles that speaks to the dimension of re-learning how to move freely.

___________________________________

Recognising the subtle inner shape changes, slowly building muscles strength, resilience and the innate sense of your body’s neurological patterning. 

Using the portal of breath, expanding out through the core, we return to ease and flow. 

FAQs

• Exercises mixed with authentic movement
• There are approximately 10 stairs to access the studio.
• Movement sessions can be done seated for any mobility concerns.
• Please bring a yoga mat and water bottle.
• Gym or yoga wear to stretch and move in.
• Door will be locked at 7.15pm sharp - no late comers please.

ANY QUESTIONS? PLEASE MESSAGE ME VIA THE WEBSITE - (responses to you via humanitix have not been working)

About Jess

Your facilitator Jess Osborne has the skills to hold this precious container for you in a non-judgemental, supportive environment.

Jess has spent time since Jan 2024 embarking on her soul journey led from their heart space transitioning out of corporate life into holistic health services. This forms part of leading general clinical hours towards their post-graduate degree in Somatic Dance Movement Therapy. All that she has experienced in life brings a richness to their current practice with an innate ability to nourish even through discomfort. Collective experience has been spent working with clients through Adaptive Bodywork and SDMT, in radical self care practices, working with the elements of the earth, body sensory systems and movement principles. She has a background in professional dance, theatre and the arts and is returning to their roots.

More about their story here