Sorry, “Somatics”?
Somatics refers to body-based practices used to explore feeling as a way of knowing, but there’s a lot to unpack around its lineage:
Somatics was coined by Thomas Hanna in the 1970s as a catch-all for practices of “working with the body”, most of which had their roots in indigenous practices and a diversity of cultures throughout the world.
Some of these practices were acknowledged. Others were not — and this is unsurprising.
A core purpose of these practices was to facilitate a reconnection between mind and body, which emerged from a disconnection that resulted from colonization
— a key piece that those such as Prentis Hemphill, Resmaa Menakem, and many other my teachers-that-don’t-know-they’re-my-teachers speak to.
All’s to say, somatics is a history that carries a lot of sh*t — most of which is intimately interconnected with colonization and white-body supremacy.
It’s important for practitioners, like myself, that facilitate somatic practices from white-bodies to acknowledge this and commit to deepening our understanding of the ways in which white-body supremacy continues to be perpetuated.