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Somatic Exploration: A Taste of Different Movement Modalities

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Course Overview

A somatics practice offers you the opportunity to experience yourself in a unique way and to deepen your practice of yoga. Connecting with the subtleties of sensation in your body can also help you move with more ease and awareness in everyday life.  

This course includes a wide range of movement experiences. You’ll begin with classes that focus on moving one area of the body, such as your arms, to see how nuanced simple movements can be and how they affect feeling in the rest of your body. You’ll then move into practices that involve whole-body sensing as you learn how to initiate movement from one body part, explore the differences between skeletal, muscular, and organic sensing, experience automatic movement, apply some of the practices you’ve learned to yoga transitions, and more. 

Enjoy this opportunity to learn accessible techniques that can help you tap into your inner life in an exciting and validating way. There’s no right and wrong in this practice!

Certificate of completion

3 CEU’s Upon Completion

Self Paced Learning

Course Outline

1.6hr to complete

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Section 1
  • Jaime welcomes you to the course.
Section 2
  • In this discussion, you’ll learn what somatics is all about and how the practice relates to yoga. You’ll be introduced to the benefits of this therapeutic practice, which are relevant to everyone—from athletes to desk sitters to yogis to dancers. Jaime discusses how somatics can help you gain insight into your inner life and how those who have experienced trauma can use it to connect with their bodies in a healing and fulfilling way.
Section 3
  • Release into gravity with this supine practice where you’ll do slow motion arm circles. Use minimal effort and notice your experience of your breath to receive the full effects of this simple movement exploration.
Section 4
  • Notice where you’re holding tension in your body, particularly your pelvis, with these heel-rocking movements that you’ll do on your back. Enjoy the effects of the practice on your whole body afterward.
Section 5
  • Reduce excessive effort and bodily stagnation with this practice where you’ll learn how to initiate movement from particular parts of your body, thus developing improved whole-body awareness. This practice can be very useful in therapeutic contexts and may also be helpful for teachers who give hands-on assists to their students.
Section 6
  • In this practice, you’ll use the Alexander Technique (a movement method that works to change habits in our everyday activities) to explore standing up from and sitting down on a chair in an integrated way.
Section 7
  • Sense the three types of tissues in your body (skeletal, muscular, and organic) through your inner experience. Using visualization, thought, and feeling, you’ll play with this exploration and then do in a simple vinyasa to see how your “tissue senses” affect your yoga practice.
Section 8
  • Explore the five basic actions of a movement (yield, push, reach, grasp, pull) in cobra pose. Using this method can help you refine your movements and make your asana practice more efficient.
Section 9
  • Enjoy the opportunity to move freely by following your impulses in this automatic movement class. After watching a student demonstrate for a brief period, you’ll be invited to move around in any way you like. Notice the effects of this practice, which can often surprise and delight!
Section 10
  • Jaime tells you how to take this somatic experience into your life to enrich your practice and/or your teaching.

How to Get This Course?

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Meet Your Teacher

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Jaime Stover Schmitt
Jaime Stover Schmitt- Founder and Director of Spanda® Yoga Movement Therapy Dr. Schmitt is a pioneer... Read more

Frequently Asked Questions

Absolutely, you can include this course in your Yoga Alliance training hours, with each hour equivalent to one continuing education credit.
This course is entirely self- paced, allowing you to learn at your convenience.There are no imposed deadlines or time constraints for Course completion.
No prerequisites are required; this course is open to anyone interested in deepening their knowledge and practice.
No, the course is accessible to all individuals interested in enriching their understanding and practice of yoga.Yoga teaching certification is not a prerequisite.

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