INTRODUCTION
from the Guidebook of Somatic Transformational Exercises

    This handbook exists to enable you to improve your physical and mental prowess by improving your mind-body connection -- which produces the very practical result of reducing or ending chronic pain and fatigue associated with injuries, aging, and stress.

    The effects of the somatic transformations are potent. Those of us who have worked with the processes described in this book have found that as we combine certain movements together, our strength instantly increases. We have also found that as we do these processes with steadier attention and focused intention, our quality of movement in general becomes smoother and surer. These improvements result from a higher level of mind-body integration.

    So the transformative processes described here do more than improve bodily functioning; they also improve mental functioning by exercising your ability to convert ideas (words and instructions) into tangible actions with tangible results. You get results according to how accurately you do so. Take your time.

    Here, among this selection of transformational movements and attentional maneuvers, you will find some of the somatic movements taught by Thomas Hanna, himself.

     I was one of Dr. Hanna’s direct students.  Dr. Hanna’s influence on my work will be recognized by those who have read his book, Somatics: Re-awakening the Mind’s Control of Movement, Flexibility and Health. One of Dr. Hanna’s invitations was to explore.  This guidebook contains discoveries made in the spirit of such exploration.  It contains technical guidance that, applied to the Cat Stretch exercises of Dr. Hanna’s book, magnifies their potency.  I welcome your feedback.

    This volume stands as the counterpart of another curious work, The Handbook of Assisted Pandiculation, a book of clinical techniques developed and written for use by professional (clinical) Certified Hanna Somatic Educators of Hanna Somatic Education. It is available to formal students in training, and relevant parts are available to participants in experiential workshops.

    This volume is for everyone.  However, clinicians in other disciplines may find that the somatic transformations taught here open a new vista for understanding and working with persistent musculo-skeletal conditions and refractory pain. Somatic educators-in-training may use them to accelerate their development and add them to their vocabulary of somatic transformations.

    For some of the somatic transformations given here, you will get the best results if you have first practiced the learning exercises given in Dr. Hanna’s book, Somatics; the same exercises are also found in the audio-cassette instructional program, "The Myth of aging: Somatic Exercises for Neuromuscular Stress", also by Dr. Hanna.

    Introductory workshops and instructional audio-cassettes on this material are available.

    The material contained in this work resides within the domain of the body-mind - but its source lies beyond.