Hanna Somatic Education is based entirely on the principles of conventional neuroscience (see details below). In addition to improving neuromuscular performance, range of motion, balance & coordination, H.S.E. has shown itself clinically effective in relieving both chronic and acute pain. H.S.E. works with your posture patterns & teaches you how to use your brain to reset chronically tight muscles. Instead of stretching, H.S.E. trains you to actively & consciously engage in the process of re-awakening your brain's ability to relax your muscles. Your sensory-motor system in your brain can be re-educated through SLOW, controlled lengthening movement sequences and sensory awareness training. If you give your body fresh sensory feedback on a daily basis, you can eliminate or reduce habitual muscle tension, speed recovery from injuries & increase stability, flexibility & comfort in your body.
Hanna Somatic Education is a rapidly effective form of neuromuscular movement re-education that goes directly to the root cause of most muscular pain: the brain and the way in which it senses the muscles and movement. By learning to regain awareness, sensation and motor control of muscles, the brain can remember how to relax and move the muscles more freely. This process of sensory motor training creates improved muscle function and enhanced sensory awareness.
Hanna Somatic Education can typically relieve pain and disability associated with common health complaints, such as : headaches, stiff or painful joints or muscles, fatigue, poor posture, breathing problems, accident trauma & whip lash, surgery recovery, back pain, repetitive use/stress injuries, TMJ disorders, sciatica, scoliosis, digestion, anxiety, & high blood pressure.
If you are interested in maximizing the benefits of your health dollar, and in achieving rapid, long lasting results, Hanna Somatic Education clinical sessions and/or classes will teach you to reverse chronic music pain as you regain sensory awareness and voluntary control of your muscles and movement. Sessions are done fully clothed.
Treat the cause, not the symptom.
Reduce pain medication in just a few treatments.
Renew your life with the power of hope.
Private hands-on sessions are available for 60, 75, 90 or 105 minutes and cost $100, $125, $150 or $175 respectively.
The first session is two hours and costs $200, the next two sessions need to be 105 minutes. After these first 3 sessions you can choose to have shorter ones.
Schedule an appointment by emailing: [email protected]
My treatment space is in the Saratoga Creek Building in Langley off of 3rd street, near Coles Rd. (919 3rd St). On the first floor, enter on the main door under the stairs.
First room on the right will bring you to my waiting room, suite 102.
Questions: Contact Kimmer: [email protected]
What is Hanna Somatics®?
Hanna Somatic Education® (also known as Hanna Somatics) is a rapidly effective form of neuromuscular (mind-body training) movement re-education that goes directly to the root cause of most chronic muscular pain: the brain and the way in which it senses and organizes the muscles and movement. By learning to regain both awareness, sensation, and motor control of muscles – an educational process that can only be achieved through movement – the brain can remember how to relax and move the muscles properly. This process of sensory motor training creates improved muscle function and enhanced sensory awareness. Hanna Somatic Education® is a safe, gentle and common sense approach to reverse chronic pain. It is the only method of pain relief and sensory motor training that targets the condition of SENSORY MOTOR AMNESIA (SMA).
Sensory Motor Amnesia is the condition of chronically-tight muscles that have learned to stay contracted due to repeated and reflexive response to stress such as accidents, injuries, surgeries, repetitive tasks, and on-going emotional stress. The resulting patterns of muscular contraction that develop result in such common conditions as chronic back pain, neck, shoulder and hip pain, limited mobility, joint pain, poor posture, shallow breathing, and uneven leg length.
Hanna Somatic Education® particularly helps relieve pain and disability associated with common health complaints such as: headaches, stiff or painful joints and muscles, fatigue, poor posture, breathing problems, impaired movement, accident trauma and whiplash effects, back pain, repetitive use/stress injuries.
Basis in Neuroscience:
Hanna Somatic Education® (HSE®) is based entirely on the principles of conventional neuroscience. HSE® can be thought of as a modality of first recourse for neuromuscular pains and stiffness. In addition to improving neuromuscular performance, i.e. muscular differentiation and range of movement, and improving proprioceptive function, i.e. balance and coordination, HSE® has shown itself clinically effective in relieving both chronic and acute pain.
Hanna Somatic Education® works with the client’s whole postural pattern. In his 1989 book, “Somatics,” Thomas Hanna wrote about reflexive postural tendencies, which he classified as the Red Light reflex, understood to cause a forward-bent posture; the Green Light reflex, which causes an arched-back posture; the Trauma reflex, observed as postural asymmetry characterized by lateral flexion and/or rotation; and the senile posture, in which many muscle groups are co-contracted. These postures are created when an imbalance in muscle contraction patterns causes hyper-tonus (tightness) in the muscles. Practitioners trained as Hanna Somatic educators teach clients to use their brains to reset the resting tonus of muscles. The result is less pain and greater ease and comfort.
Hanna Somatic Education® employs three primary protocols that have been designed to address the four typical maladaptive postures described above. In addition, specialized extremity work may be combined with the basic protocols on a case-by-case basis. Within each of these protocols practitioners utilize three techniques to help clients develop more voluntary control of their muscles. These techniques include; means-whereby, which is an adaptation of F. M. Alexander’s Alexander Technique; kinetic mirroring, which is Thomas Hanna’s term for bringing the origin and insertion of muscles closer together, as popularized by Moshe Feldenkrais; and pandiculation, a wholly unique technique developed by Hanna himself. The pandicular technique is modeled after the naturally occurring reflexive contraction of the whole body (or its parts), which is then followed by a slow release of the contraction, as seen in all healthy animals. Hanna Somatic Education uses two kinds of voluntary pandiculation; either self-initiated or assisted by the practitioner, to help re-set resting muscle tonus.
As per the basic principles of neuroscience, when a client voluntarily contracts and releases a compromised muscle there is a corresponding demand placed on the voluntary motor cortex for precise cortical control of that action. The voluntary contraction first causes a volley of electrochemical impulses leading from the motor cortex. These impulses excite the firing of the motor units in the appropriate spinal cord segment. When the client then attempts to relax the muscle a volley of impulses from the motor cortex excite the interneurons which inhibits the firing of the motor units. Inhibition of the motor units (including motor neurons and all the muscle fibers on which they synapses), allows the muscle to gradually relax. The result is restoration of fuller control to voluntary muscles groups.
A simple experiment can illustrate: slowly bend your elbow with your palm facing toward your shoulder, and then slowly allow your arm to straighten. During these movements your corticospinal tract contracts your biceps muscle, and then decreases the output to the muscle, allowing it to relax and the arm to straighten. By applying these same basic principles to areas suffering from hypertonus, trained HSE® practitioners can help clients recover voluntary control of compromised muscle groups. Chronically contracted muscles often feel tight. Muscles that are tight suffer from inadequate circulation. Even though tight muscles get sufficient blood supply to stay alive, they are lacking in optimal fluids, nutrients, and oxygen. As a result, they are unable to excrete the by-products of muscle function, such as lactic acid.
Chronically contracted muscles may also impinge on nerves, place undue stress on their joint attachments, cause local inflammation, and contribute to pain. With so many of their motor units “stuck” in chronic engagement, tight muscles may also seem weak and unable to access their full potential strength.
Fortunately, the various HSE® techniques can provide relief from these many stressors. Means-whereby movements simply provide sensory input (information) to the brain about a muscle’s status. The effect of kinetic mirroring is more complex, working at the level of the spinal cord to inform the brain’s sensory cortex when a muscle has been shortened. Kinetic mirroring shortens a targeted muscle by bringing its origin and insertion ends closer together. This exerts a gentle pull on the muscle’s tendons and causes a message to be sent to the spinal cord to decrease the motor unit firing rate. The Golgi tendon organs (within the tendons) cause an inhibition of the motor unit firing, allowing the muscle to relax.
During voluntary pandiculations, clients are asked to deliberately contract a muscle or muscle group through a specialized concentric (not isometric) movement. The muscle action is designed to work against gravity or against a resistance provided by the practitioner. The resistance increases the muscle’s load, after which it is allowed to slowly and gradually lengthen as it returns to a neutral position. This phase represents an eccentric (lengthening) contraction and allows a new resting muscle tonus to be established. The slow nature of the movement recruits the corticospinal tract originating in the motor cortex as the only part of the motor system that can decrease the firing of the motor units. Information about the new resting tonus is conducted along the sensory pathways up to the brain’s sensory cortex. Neuronal connections between the sensory cortex and the motor cortex complete the sensory-motor loop.
An important additional component of the HSE® learning process occurs when the Hanna Somatic Educator® explains the relevant neuroscience principles (how HSE® works) in language the client can easily understand. This invites yet another level of cortical participation by the client. Additionally, Somatic Exercises typically recommended by the practitioner for daily practice help the client maintain and reinforce the desired changes (due to long-term synaptic potentiation) in his or her somatic development.
If you are interested in maximizing the benefits of your health dollar and in achieving rapid, long-lasting results, Hanna Somatic Education® clinical sessions and/or classes will teach you to reverse chronic muscle pain as you regain sensory awareness and voluntary control of your muscles and movement.
TESTIMONIALS:
“I had a session with Kimmer yesterday, and I know she just guaranteed me a well-functioning body primed for another 50 years on Earth. In 90 minutes, she unlocked decades of dysfunction from a poor start that made me avoid movement and anything exercise-like. I was in child-like joy the entire session, as I finally started to feel the complexity & ease of the interaction of the full dimensionality of my structural body, which led to the best day & night I have ever spent embodied. Hanna Somatics is a modality of wisdom and Kimmer is an expert practitioner and more importantly, masterful teacher. She will help you feel less pain, right now, but even more useful, she teaches you how to pilot your own proprioception, so you can be equipped to live your life with a fully functioning body.” Deb Helfrich
"A delight to meet with you in this profound work you do." Gretchen Lawlor
“I had a session with Kimmer yesterday, and I know she just guaranteed me a well-functioning body primed for another 50 years on Earth. In 90 minutes, she unlocked decades of dysfunction from a poor start that made me avoid movement and anything exercise-like. I was in child-like joy the entire session, as I finally started to feel the complexity & ease of the interaction of the full dimensionality of my structural body, which led to the best day & night I have ever spent embodied. Hanna Somatics is a modality of wisdom and Kimmer is an expert practitioner and more importantly, masterful teacher. She will help you feel less pain, right now, but even more useful, she teaches you how to pilot your own proprioception, so you can be equipped to live your life with a fully functioning body.” Deb Helfrich
"A delight to meet with you in this profound work you do." Gretchen Lawlor
Payment and Cancellation Policies:
Payment: Full payment must be received at the time of service. I accept cash and personal checks only, no credit cards. There will be a $20 fee for returned checks.
Cancellation: Kindly give at least 48 hours notice of cancellation. Your appointment time has been reserved just for you. No-shows and cancellations with less than 48 hours notice will be charged in full for the appointment. If you are using a gift certificate or a pre-purchased session, it will be considered redeemed. Illness and family emergencies are exempted.
Client Illness: Clients are expected to cancel appointments if they have a contagious illness or if bodywork would be detrimental to client or practitioner health. When in doubt please reach out!
Thank you for your consideration!
Payment: Full payment must be received at the time of service. I accept cash and personal checks only, no credit cards. There will be a $20 fee for returned checks.
Cancellation: Kindly give at least 48 hours notice of cancellation. Your appointment time has been reserved just for you. No-shows and cancellations with less than 48 hours notice will be charged in full for the appointment. If you are using a gift certificate or a pre-purchased session, it will be considered redeemed. Illness and family emergencies are exempted.
Client Illness: Clients are expected to cancel appointments if they have a contagious illness or if bodywork would be detrimental to client or practitioner health. When in doubt please reach out!
Thank you for your consideration!
DISCLAIMER: This website does not contain medical advice. It is intended for medical purposes only and not for the purpose of rendering medical advice. It is not intended to substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Please consult your healthcare provider for personalized medical advice. Always seek advice of a physician or other qualified healthcare provider with any questions regarding a medical condition. Never disregard or delay seeking professional medical advice or treatment because of something you have seen on this website.
