Basis in Neuroscience
Hanna Somatic Education works with the client’s whole postural pattern. In Somatics, Thomas Hanna wrote about the Red Light reflex, which causes a forward-bent posture; the Green Light reflex, which causes an arched-back posture; the Trauma reflex, which causes a laterally flexed and sometimes rotated posture; and the senile posture, in which many muscle groups are co-contracted. These postures are created when ongoing muscle contractions cause an imbalance in muscle contraction patterns. Hanna Somatic Education enables the client, using his or her brain, to reset the resting tonus of the muscle so that the client can stand in a comfortable upright position against gravity. This enables the client to stand and move more easily and comfortably.
Hanna Somatic Education is based on the principles of neuroscience. The HSE practitioner helps the client take control of muscle groups that are not currently under voluntary control. The client voluntarily contracts the muscle group, using cortical control (the voluntary motor cortex). Then, the client sends a volley of electrochemical impulses from the motor cortex to inhibit the firing of the motor units in the appropriate spinal cord segment, which allows the client to slowly and voluntarily release the contraction of the muscle group. A motor unit is a motor neuron and all the muscle fibers on which it synapses. As the client inhibits the firing of the motor units, the muscle is gradually allowed to relax. For example, if you bend your elbow slowly with your palm toward your shoulder and then slowly allow your arm to straighten, your corticospinal tract contracts your biceps muscle and then decreases the output to the muscle, allowing it to relax and the arm to straighten.
Chronically contracted muscles are compromised by circulation that is inadequate for full function. They get enough blood supply to remain alive, but they do not get the fluids, nutrients, and oxygen that they need, nor can they get rid of the by-products of muscle function, such as lactic acid. Chronically contracted muscles may press on nerves, pull on their joint attachments, cause inflammation of the area, and contribute to pain. They also cannot give their full force and may seem weak because the motor units have already been recruited to maintain the ongoing contraction.
In Hanna Somatic Education, there are three protocols devoted to addressing the four typical maladaptive postures described earlier. In addition, specialized extremity work is blended with the basic protocols as needed. Three techniques are used in Hanna Somatic Education protocols to help the client develop more voluntary control of the muscles: meanswhereby, an adaptation of F. M. Alexander’s Alexander Technique; kinetic mirroring, Thomas Hanna’s term for bringing the origin and insertion of muscles closer together, as was done by Moshe Feldenkrais; and pandiculation, a technique developed by Hanna. The pandicular technique is named after the reflexive contraction of the whole body or parts of the body that is seen in all healthy animals. Following the contraction, there is a slow release of the contraction. Hanna Somatic Education uses a voluntary pandiculation, either self-initiated or assisted by the practitioner, to help re-set the resting tonus of the muscles.
Meanswhereby movements provide sensory input to the brain. The effect of kinetic mirroring occurs at the spinal cord level, subsequently informing the brain’s sensory cortex that the muscle has shortened. As the practitioner brings the origin and insertion of the client’s muscle closer together and the muscle shortens, gently pulling on its tendons, a message is sent to the spinal cord to decrease the motor unit firing rate. The Golgi tendon organs (structures within the tendons) cause an inhibition of the motor unit firing. This allows the muscle to relax.
In the voluntary pandiculation used in HSE, the client is asked to voluntarily contract a muscle or muscle group (concentric contraction) through a movement. This is not an isometric contraction. The client moves against gravity or against resistance provided by the practitioner’s hand to increase the muscle’s load and then slowly returns to the neutral position. This is an eccentric contraction or lengthening contraction. The client maintains the contraction while gradually allowing the muscle to lengthen. This allows a new resting muscle tonus to be established. The slow movement allows the client to use the corticospinal tract, originating in the motor cortex, the only part of the motor system that can decrease the firing of the motor units. Information about the new resting tonus is conducted along the sensory pathways up to the brain’s sensory cortex. Neuronal connections between the sensory cortex and the motor cortex complete the sensory-motor loop.
The Hanna Somatic Educator helps the client understand how HSE works by explaining the relevant neuroscience principles in language the client can understand. This is an important part of the HSE learning process. The Hanna Somatic educator then uses techniques based on those principles to help the client make the somatic changes necessary to become more comfortable and to move more easily. The daily Somatic Exercises recommended by the practitioner help the client maintain the changes and continue his or her somatic development.