“I get up, I walk, I fall and meanwhile, I keep dancing.” Hillel
We need to keep moving throughout our lives. How we move changes over time because life happens. Shift happens.
When I was younger, I was concerned about how movements looked from an external point of view. I wanted to look “right” and fit the mould, the model of the dancer. I understood movement to be for expression and performance.
Gradually, through Nia, Yoga and especially Somatic Movement, my viewpoint has shifted. I have moved from external orientation to internal orientation and movement has become a source of mindfulness and healing. I now focus almost entirely on sensation. I frequently ask myself and my clients about what they are sensing and feeling in their bodies as we move. This focus is called interoception. What is “right” is unique for each individual body. Practicing interoception leads to a subtle self-knowing and empowerment.
Somatic Movement allows us to discover how and where we have become unbalanced in our bodies. It offers practical skills for awakening muscles that seem to have shut down. This “shut-down” is known as SMA: Sensory Motor Amnesia and can feel like tightness, soreness or a loss of sensation. Somatic Movement awakens muscles and encourages the tissues to move again freely through a 3-part process called Pandiculation. Pandiculation is a conscious contraction, followed by a slow release, and then a pause to allow the brain to register muscle relaxation and length.
Somatic Movement is not a quick fix. Like most movement or art forms, it takes practice, practice, practice. My goal is to move together with you and teach you how to create your own Somatics movement practice at home.
What is Somatics?
About me
My name is Roberta Mohler and when I was a kid, my father gave me a sweatshirt that said To Dance is to Live, to Live is to Dance. From then until now, this phrase has described my life direction. I started dancing at the age of 3 while watching my big sister in her dance lessons. I could not sit still! My father was in the army, so we moved a lot and the first thing I would ask in each new home was "Where are the dancing lessons?" From an early age I new that dance was my sanctuary, my place to just be me, the thing that simultaneously took me out of myself and brought me home to myself. Dance became my profession and I was lucky to perform and choreograph modern dance professionally for 10 years. After my two sons came along, I dedicated myself to being their Mom, but it didn't take long before I wanted and needed to dance again.
I taught aerobics for several years, which lead me to Nia - a beautiful blend of Martial Arts, Dance Arts and Healing Arts combined as a workout, done barefoot with fascinating music. I taught Nia across Canada and in the US for 13 years. During that time, I discovered and studied The Tamalpa Life/Art Process which uses creative movement, expressive writing and visual image making to help people understand themselves, tell their deepest stories and heal from difficult life experiences. Later, I discovered Somatics and dedicated myself to learning and now teaching this powerful, healing approach to movement. Dance and movement have been my path through life whether my purpose was to play, to escape, to entertain, for fitness, or to heal. I have been sharing these gifts for several decades and I am excited to share them with you.
“The true self is always in motion, like music, a river of life, changing, moving, failing, suffering, learning, shining.”