Reflections arising from a Somatics Practice

Part 3 – The Symphonic Body

The skeletal structure of the body is an intriguing confusion of so many curves and angles and knobbly bits. In particular I find the pelvic bone almost impossible to visualise internally – it just doesn’t make sense. The different shapes contribute so many different possibilities of movement, and the muscles are strung this way and that all over its surface to enable this to happen.

It’s hard not to see the whole body moving as a symphony of so many different muscles and bones contributing their frequencies, arcs and amplitudes – always changing, endlessly inventive, meeting the circumstance appropriately. 

When I am conscious of this new dimension I sense life playing through my body. When I trust and follow my body I am taken into new possibilities of experience.

It is easy for me to become limited to a few fixed tunes, to shape experience in a few fixed ways. This seems a poor response to such abundant possibilities.

Embodied somatic exercise is an excellent way to start tuning this body instrument properly, and to move towards some kind of harmonious expression. We learn how to re-member ourselves well through gentle, slow movement, and through paying close attention. 

It is easy to underestimate the healing power of embodied exercise such as somatics, because the exercises are luxuriously easy, without struggle, simply pleasurable. The results, however, are stunning.