Somatic Movement Classes

Yoga and QiGong

Have you ever felt disconnected from your own body, finding it hard to make sense of what you are feeling?

Or found it hard to feel much at all?

Most of us spend a great deal of time inside our heads, until the body becomes little more than what carries the head around. The conversation between the two gets quiet. We forget what it is to properly sense the body, and often only notice when something insists on our attention: tension, pain, anxiety, or a sense of being oddly far away from ourselves.

What happens in the body

In a settled state, information moves freely through the body. We can sense what is going on inside us, whether that is hunger, ease, or discomfort. This sense of the internal state of the body has a name: interoception.

Under sustained stress, or after difficult experiences, that flow narrows. The body tightens protectively, and the brain begins reading neutral signals from the body as though they were warnings, which produces more tightening still.

What we do in class

Classes draw on yoga and QiGong. Both traditions work with slow, breath-linked movement, and both are far more interested in what you notice while moving than in how the shape looks from outside. QiGong brings its flowing, circular quality and its steady attention to the breath; yoga brings its own vocabulary of shapes and its long attention to the relationship between breath and effort.

We move slowly, and we pay attention to how the body responds. The aim is to give your nervous system repeated experiences of safety, so that the signals travelling between body and brain can be read more accurately.

Classes are trauma-informed and mindfulness-oriented. Nothing is compulsory, you set the pace, and you are always welcome to rest.

You do not need to be flexible, fit, or experienced. You need a bit of floor space and a willingness to pay attention.

Who these classes suit

People carrying long-term tension or pain, people who feel disconnected from their body, and people who want a gentler entry point into body-based work than they have found elsewhere.

I teach as a mind-body centred yoga teacher and therapist, drawing on QiGong alongside yoga, working intuitively and relationally, at whatever pace suits the people in the room.

Book a class or bundle below

All classes are Online, via Zoom