Why Do We Lose Our Ability To Move Freely?

According to Thomas Hanna:

The fact is that during the course of our lives, our sensory-motor systems continually respond to daily stresses and traumas with specific muscular reflexes. These reflexes, repeatedly triggered, create habitual muscular contractions, which we cannot - voluntarily - relax. These muscular contractions have become so deeply involuntary and unconscious that, eventually, we no longer remember how to move about freely.

This habituated state of forgetfulness is called sensory motor amnesia (SMA). It is a memory loss of how certan muscle groups feel and how to control them. And because this occurs within the central nervous system, we are not aware of it, yet it affects us to our very core.

This is my good news - sensory motor amnesia can be avoided, and it can be reversed…..to unlearn what has been learned and to remember what has been forgotten.

Somatics provides us with a way to live under the stressful demands of an urban-industrial environment and still remain healthy - physically and mentally.

From Somatics: Reawakening the Mind's Control of Movement, Flexibility, and Health. Read my full book review here.