Returning guest presenter, Danny Burke, taught another fabulous class. One of the things I really like about Danny's classes is that he does a lot of breathing as part of his movement format. He included a number of movements in side-lying in this class. One of his side-lying breathing movements used a metaphor of a sail. The three points of the sail were your two shoulders and your tailbone. As we pandicularly arched and curled we filled the sail in the back and sail in the front. The feedback from the class noted how "opening" to the thoracic spine and front of the chest this movement was. He also did a variation, which I loved, on the classical "yoga bridge," which did not stress the low back and in fact, beautifully lengthened our whole spine. Thank you to Jacqui Neurauter for being our model again. I hope you enjoy this wonderful class. You can contact Danny at danburke57@gmail.com.

8/3/24: Zoom Class: Integrating Hanna Somatic Education with Somatic Yoga, Presented by Danny Burke

Lisa Sack led a fantastic class. I hope you watch it. She started with a very practical assessment guiding us to do activities of daily living such as washing our arm pits, reaching up to a high shelf to get something, reaching down to pick up something from the floor, reaching behind us as in a car, and more. We compared doing these activities with our right arm and then our left arm. She took us through basic ranges of movement of the shoulder and scapula, and even included some neck/shoulder movements. We worked from supine, side-lying, and prone. She also modulated many of the movements so we could get the general feel of a movement in opposite directions, and then turned these into pandiculations. She guided us to integrate specific movements into full body movements. She included numerous differentiations such as focusing more on the shoulder joint, then focusing on including the scapula, then integrating into full body movements to experience the roll of the neck and shoulders all the way down to the feet. You may contact Lisa directly: flourish@clearsightyoga.com

9/7/24: Zoom Class: Shoulder Girdle, Guest Presenter Lisa Sack

Alexis Flores Williams led a wonderful somatic movement class. He took the basic Cat Routine movements and created many variations. For example, he took many of the regular movements and guided us to do them in a different position. For example, if the movement is usually done in supine, he led it in either side-lying or prone. He also created simple variations by changing our leg positions from bent knees to straight legs, or one leg bent, one leg straight. He also varied our arm positions. For example, if the movement is usually done with one hand behind the head, he guided us to do the movement with our hand on our upper chest. Then he often combined variations in hand position with variations in leg positions. He gave us plenty of rest and integration time, which was quite lovely. Even simple movements can become challenging in a different relationship to gravity, or a different way to turn the head, or rotate a leg or arm, from the usual routine. Alexis has such a kind and gentle manner; there was no rushing or a sense of urgency.

12/7/24: Zoom Class: Playing With The Cat Routine, Guest Presenter Alexis Flores Williams

Karen will be recalibrating the 8 basic movement lessons in the book Somatics, by Thomas Hanna, pp. 101 - 153. This class represents her recalibration of lesson 1. She brilliantly updated some of the language and content based on her experience working with clients and teaching classes. She began with an extensive standing and walking assessment, which laid the foundation for participants to become aware of a number of their postural and weight-bearing patterns. Karen is extremely talented in guiding foundational movements such that we come to understand how we are doing our movements. She has us do a lot of comparison between our two sides so we are able to notice differences in comfort, ease, awareness, balance, stability, and effort as we move. Sometimes she has us "motor plan" before we do a movement and sometimes she has us focus on how we change our body position from supine to prone to side-lying. I recommend you view this class more than once in order to gain more and more somatic understanding of how you are moving your body.

1/4/25: Zoom Class: Recalibration of Lesson 1 from "Somatics" by T. Hanna, Guest Teacher Karen Meyer

Samantha starts her class with the best standing assessment that I have ever experienced. She starts at our feet and thoroughly takes us through how we bear weight not only between our right and left feet, but in many parts of our feet as well. As she guides us up through our body we begin to notice various relationships between our feet, legs, pelvis, and on up through our head and neck. In my experience, you will learn or clarify many aspects of your postural patterns.By the end of class, you’ll feel better, gain deep somatic awareness, and notice significant improvements in your posture. Samantha perceptively guides us to self-regulate our movements for greater comfort, ease of movement, and toward sensing the effect of both our movement and rest periods throughout our whole soma. She includes some wonderfully novel movement explorations with our ribcage and how we organize the act of reaching through our whole body. This is a class you'll want to take many times.

2/1/25: Zoom Class: Somatic Awareness from the Feet Up, Guest Teacher Samantha Holland

Karen continues recalibrating the 8 basic movement lessons in the book Somatics, by Thomas Hanna. In this class she focuses on the second lesson, pp. 106-109, controlling the flexor muscles of the stomach. She continues to brilliantly update some of the language, content, and choice of movement examples based on her experience working with clients and teaching classes. She always begins in standing with an assessment, starting with feet and a comparison of weight bearing between the right and left foot and proceeds up through the body. She also guided us through an assessment in sitting regarding weight bearing with the sits bones, feet on the floor, and our relationship to uprightness. She spent some time having us be aware of where we position our eyes in relationship to spinal and trunk movement, especially flexion and extension. Most of the rest of the class was guided with us lying on the floor. Karen is very precise in her instructions which helps us to pay attention to how we are organizing ourselves. Her guidance often leads us to challenge our expectations which may confront our comfort levels. She uses the technique of "motor planning" which helps us think through how we are going to move ourselves before we actually move. This is a valuable skill to practice and is widely used in the sports world for improving performance. She thoroughly led us through variations of the complimentary oppositional trunk and spine movements involving flexion and extension and how that affects our entire body.

3/1/25: Zoom Class: Recalibration of Lesson 2 from "Somatics" by T. Hanna, Guest Teacher Karen Meyer

Melissa Orth-Fray is a Certified Hanna Somatic Educator and is also trained in many modalities. Her clients range from high level athletes to children and adults with neurological issues. This class focused on a combination of Hanna Somatic Movement, reflex integration, and proprioceptive activities. I hope you watch this class a number of times. Her very clear guidance brought us to a greater awareness of where and how our bodies move in space. For example, we palpated our sits bones, sternum, and the bony landmark of our ASIS on each hip bone. As Melissa guided us she had us notice various relationships between different parts of our body including the effect of the movement on our forelegs, rib basket, pelvis, and more. We used a "skin tugging" technique to wake up our proprioceptive receptors. We practiced rotational moves in all 3 dimensions, we practiced crossing midline, and learned to pay attention to transferring weight from our upper body to our lower body. This class was very rich and offers creative explorations for better functioning in our daily lives and activities.

4/5/25: Zoom Class: Hanna Somatic Education and Proprioception, Guest Teacher Melissa Orth-Fray

I know you're going to love this class. My 4 guest teachers were Astrid Cruise, Lisa Sack, Indu Vashist, and Jacqui Neurauter. Potpourri means a bit of this and a bit of that. This class contains a selection of movements I hope you all practice and include in some of your movement sessions. I started the class with a standing head to toe movement series related to the Green Light, Red Light, and Trauma Postural Patterns. Indu Vashist led a ribcage movement in which we followed our sternum (breastbone) in the 4 cardinal directions of up, down, to the right and to the left. From the 4 directions we then created a circular pattern in all directions. Next came Jacqui Neurauter leading a series of psoas movements with a number of wonderful variations. Then came Lisa Sack leading a series of movements involving the gluteals and the TFL, tensor fascia lata. Last came Astrid Cruise, who led a fascinating series of movements in which the pelvis rotated around the hip joints instead of the hip joints rotating within the hip sockets of the pelvis. You never know where you are going to be more challenged than you expected. I hope you have a wonderful learning experience.

6/7/25: Zoom Class: Hanna Somatic Education Potpourri, Four Guest Teachers and Myself

Astrid, herself, described the focus of this class as creating space and control in the hips, pelvis and thoracic spine to enhance stability, mobility, and core connection. Astrid guided us beautifully with great clarity, an  emphasis of both exploration and self sensing at an easy to follow, slow pace. She basically had us explore four movements of the pelvis and lower extremity. Astrid built each movement sequence carefully starting with a basic movement and then guiding us to notice different aspects in the way we were using our body. She often added an additional aspect to the movement such as an oppositional rotation in the upper body with a focus on the thoracic spine. Sometimes she cued us to notice where our stability was coming from, sometimes she cued us to notice our breath or if we were adding an unconscious rotational or lateral flexion aspect. She helped us differentiate between rotating the head of the femur in the hip socket versus  rotating the hip socket around the head of the femur. It was a wonderful class with lots of learning. Thank you Astrid.

8/2/25: Zoom Class: Finding Your Center, Stabilize & Mobilize, Guest Presenter Astrid Cruse

I hope you watch this video many times. One of Lisa's goals is to help you prepare for sitting on the floor. For many people, especially as we get older, we are just not comfortable sitting on the floor. In a future followup class Lisa will actually take us into sitting on the floor; in this class we do not do that yet. However, practicing these movements may have a profound effect on your mobility in your hips, pelvis and related myofascia, such as the tensor fascia lata (TFL). Lisa expertly builds our ability to add greater levels of movement complexity without any sense of being rushed or moving outside of our comfort zone. Enjoy! 

You may contact Lisa directly: flourish@clearsightyoga.com

10/4/25: Zoom Class: Lower Extremities: Hip, Pelvis, TFL with Guest Presenter Lisa Sack

Disclaimer: These recordings are for educational purposes only.  Please do all somatic movements comfortably, slowly, and without pain or force. Please consult appropriate medical or health care providers if you have any concerns about whether the movements are suitable for you, especially if you are dealing with an illness or injury, are pregnant, or have other health, balance or mobility issues.

New tracks tagged #Arch &amp; Flatten

New tracks tagged #Arch & Flatten