Have you resigned yourself to the idea that aches and pains just naturally happen as we get older? That as we age, our capacity to do all the things we love — the things that bring joy to our life — becomes more and more diminished?
It’s a common myth that limited movement, disability, and pain are the inevitable results of aging... and that our physical structure is designed to disintegrate with age.
But if that were true, why is it that some people over 70 can run marathons, while others under 40 have difficulty walking around the block... or kneeling down to pet their dog or cat?
Martha Peterson, the author of Move Without Pain and the founder of Essential Somatics®, tells us that the feeling of getting old and “creaky” is not caused by the number of years we’ve lived...
Instead, it’s how we unconsciously adapt to the stressors in our lives — the accidents, injuries, surgeries, and emotional and psychological challenges — that determines whether or not we’re able to maintain our physical agility and independence, regardless of our age.
Through the work of Thomas Hanna, a professor, philosopher, pioneer in the field of somatics, and founder of Hanna Somatic Education, Martha learned the skill of self-sensing as the key to regaining freedom of movement and achieving long-term pain relief.
Hanna taught that when our bodies become habitually contracted due to emotional stress and physical injury, muscles lose their ability to fully relax... and we develop a condition known as Sensory Motor Amnesia (SMA) — which results in ongoing tightness, stiff joints, and persistent pain.
Yet, we have the choice to respond to stressors in healthier ways.
Join Martha in a highly experiential and profoundly liberating 7-module journey to discover how to cultivate your ability to sense where you have tension in your body, identify its root cause...
... and do powerful yet gentle somatic movement techniques to release that tension and free yourself of the chronic discomfort that may be holding you back from living your most self-actualized life.
You’ll delve deep into the power of pandiculation — a technique that resets your central nervous system, “unsticks” your body from harmful repetitive movements, and helps reverse the effects of SMA.
You’ll discover that eliminating muscle pain, stiffness, and that overall rickety feeling begins with the brain. Trauma and stress result in reflex patterns that change the way your brain senses and moves you, altering your experience of yourself, both physically and emotionally.
In every session, Martha will guide you in somatic movement techniques to unlearn those stress response reflex patterns and restore fluid, effortless, joyful movement — with practices you can do on your own, anywhere, anytime.
Anyone can do these, regardless of your level of physical ability, in your own living room — on the floor, standing, or sitting in a chair.
As the seven modules of this course progress, Martha will take you through a perfectly designed, systematic process of relearning how to move, much like babies discover themselves and progressively develop the capacity to control their muscles.
She’ll lead you in somatic practices to restore freedom in the back, front, and sides of your body, and in your ribs, hips, and shoulders — so you can regain balance, improve breathing, have better posture, and enjoy comfort in everything you do.
And, as you learn more about SMA and the impact it has on your body, you’ll be better equipped to prevent injuries and other medical issues, and diminish depression and anxiety.
By the end of the program, you’ll have a full toolbox of practical, easy-to-use techniques that will transform how you feel in your body and your life. You’ll walk away with your own daily movement practice to remain pain-free, with full mobility and presence...
... and the capacity to continually grow and thrive in a self-actualized, deeply fulfilling life.
In this 7-part transformational intensive, Martha will guide you through the fundamental insights and movement practices you’ll need to reverse the feelings of “getting old,” greatly reduce pain, and cultivate more ease and mobility... so you can enjoy a self-actualized, deeply fulfilling life.
This course will feature step-by-step teachings and experiential practices with Martha. Each session will build harmoniously upon the previous ones, so you’ll develop a complete holistic understanding of the practices, tools, and principles you’ll need to reverse the feeling of “getting old” through a variety of gentle yet powerful movements that can greatly reduce pain and provide more ease and mobility... so you can fully thrive.
Do you feel stuck in a pattern of “running from” life? Or slumped inward, defeated by life? Maybe you feel that the various aspects of your life are out of balance... and your movement doesn’t reflect the freedom you yearn for.
Life is a complex combination of stressors — some considered “good,” like running, moving, creating... and some “bad,” such as grief, loss, worry, or failure.
In this opening module, you’ll start to explore aging and how it affects the way you can move and feel... perceiving it not by the number of years you’ve lived, but how you’ve habituated to the stresses in your life.
Martha will guide you to experience what these reflexes are and how to begin to release them so that you can take back voluntary control of the unconscious and involuntary reactions and habits that have become stuck in your brain, nervous system, and life.
In this session, you’ll:
Emotional stress and fear can evoke a deeply primal reflex that causes us to withdraw — physically, mentally, and emotionally.
When we respond to this reflex, known as the “startle response” (or red light reflex), we unconsciously tighten the front of our bodies. Our abdominal muscles tighten, the chest collapses inward, the shoulders hunch, and our head goes forward.
Many people incorrectly assume that this posture naturally results from getting older.
In this module, Martha will show you how to release these contracted muscles to experience improved breathing, more energy, and a calmer nervous system.
You’ll also:
Accidents, injuries, surgeries, and many one-side-of-the-body activities — such as tennis or holding a baby on your hip — can lead to an imbalance in that area...
And just one unbalanced area can throw our whole system out of whack — from the way we walk, to the quality of our eyesight, to our ability to twist and rotate. This in turn can lead to further injury and stress in our joints.
In this module, you’ll learn movements to help release tension in the sides of your body, giving you more freedom in your shoulders and hips. .. thereby rediscovering your true sense of balance.
Martha will guide you as you:
Now that you’ve learned to release muscle tension in the front, back, and sides of your body, you’re ready to connect your shoulders and hips through rotation and twisting. The shoulders and hips move best when the rib cage is free to move.
Think about babies as they begin to discover their environment. They first notice their ability to extend and flex (or arch and curl) their spine as they lift their head to look around or play with their toes.
Then they become aware of the sides of their body as they begin to roll over, with their breathing being soft and natural. Once they master that movement, they gain voluntary control over their shoulders and hips... and start to crawl.
In this session, you’ll explore that same progression as you restore the ability to freely move your rib cage, shoulders, and hips in opposite directions. As you do, you’ll be on your way to dancing with liberation!
As people gain more freedom, some may experience emotions they weren’t expecting, such as fear, which may force them to challenge the way they’ve been living their lives... because as we change our movements, we change ourselves as human somas.
You’ll explore how releasing fear of moving, other people’s opinions about you, and your mental expectations can impact your long-term success in moving forward in life.
This session is designed to help you:
Everything you’ve been learning so far in this course has been leading to the restoration of the most important movement in our human vocabulary — walking.
Now that you’ve learned how to release the red light, green light, and trauma reflex muscles (the back, front, and sides of your body), you’re ready to put together the mechanics of free and easy walking. Get ready to swing your hips and glide toward a brighter tomorrow!
In this session, you’ll
Neurons that fire together wire together. In other words, whatever we do consistently becomes a habit at the level of our brain, nervous system, and movement.
You can, however, teach your brain “new tricks.” When you learn to differentiate your movements, you develop the capacity for more precise and skillful movement patterns.
Differentiation disrupts the habits of our brain as we explore smaller, seemingly unrelated aspects of a movement. When you return to the full movement, you move with more flexibility and ease — without forcing or striving.
In this session, you’ll:
As the old joke goes, a visitor to New York asks a passing stranger, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” The man replies, “Practice, practice, practice.”
It’s sage advice.
The best way to create long-lasting improvement in your relationship with yourself, your body, your movement, and your life is to have a daily practice that supports you in becoming more self-sensing.
As you improve your capacity to sense, you become more self-monitoring. And as you enhance your ability to self-monitor, you become more self-correcting, self-regulating, and, ultimately self-actualizing.
In this closing module, you’ll experience a short seated practice that you can do anytime, anywhere.
You’ll also:
In addition to Martha’s transformative 7-module virtual course, you’ll receive these special bonuses with leading visionaries and teachers to complement the course and take your understanding and practice to an even deeper level.
With these four sessions from the Somatic Movement Summit — an online gathering of leaders in this growing and evolutionary field — you’ll not only receive abundant knowledge from world-renowned somatic movement experts, you’ll gain firsthand, in-the-moment experiences of fluid motion as medicine for your body and mind. You’ll receive sessions from Eleanor Criswell Hanna, Orit Sen-Gupta, Simon Borg-Olivier, and David Hall.
In this fascinating dialogue, Martha Peterson is interviewed by Cynthia Allen, who launched the first Feldenkrais® Awareness Summit in 2018. She’s also the creator of the online Your Learning Body program, has published research on the effects of the Bones for Life® approach in the elderly, and is co-creator of Integral Human Gait™ theory. Listen in and learn what distinguishes Hanna Somatics and Clinical Somatics from other movement methods — and how to become aware of how stress can take hold in the body.
Follow along as Martha talks you through this comprehensive practice to support your personalized practice — and provides insight into how to create a practice that works for you. You’ll learn to design a practice to relieve your back pain, hip pain, shoulder pain, and more. This teaching makes it simple to incorporate somatics into your wellness routine.
Learn a short seated somatic movement practice that you can do anytime, anywhere. It’s important to be adaptable. A seated practice can help you remind yourself throughout the day to reset and reduce tension whenever your body needs it. Whether you’re experiencing mild discomfort or symptoms of pain from old injuries or accidents, poor lifestyle habits, or medical conditions, this seated practice can help you find simple, effective pain relief.
This integrative movement practice can help you sense the connection between your arms, legs, and the center of your body. These gentle, easy somatic exercises can relieve muscle pain, and improve mobility, coordination, and muscle control in both legs and hip joints so you can walk, run, and move without pain. Somatics sessions often help ease hip pain even when years of physical therapy and other medical treatments haven’t helped — because often the problem isn’t structural, it’s functional.
Dive into a different perspective on what it can mean to breathe freely and easily. In this article, Martha shares a somatic approach to improving breathing. It includes helpful photos to guide you in your explorations. Every movement is gentle and teaches you the value of breathing while you move through each of them.
— Jan Berson: “Working With Martha Peterson Has Me Out of Pain for the Very First Time Since I Was a Very Small Child”
— Barbara Richman: “We Are Stronger, More Functional, and We Have Much Less Pain”
I had been struggling with acute back and hip pain for months, and other therapies were not helping. Now I have the tools to address whatever my soma presents on a given day. Any discomfort I feel is a way for me to learn and explore what my body needs, physically and emotionally. The back pain I was experiencing every day is now just an occasional background noise.
— Sue M., yoga teacher, United Kingdom
If you want to live life to the fullest, you have to recognize and eliminate all your non-productive habits. This can only be achieved through Essential Somatics. Since learning Essential Somatics, I have a new lease on life as everything is becoming easier and more enjoyable. Essential Somatics seriously improves your sense of wellbeing in ways I could only have dreamt.
— Ewan S., martial arts teacher, ESMTT graduate, United Kingdom
After practicing somatic movements for eight weeks, my shoulder that has been “frozen” for six months is almost completely back to normal. My gait is more balanced and efficient and I am completely out of pain for the first time in my adult life. I have been exploring self-care modalities for 20 years and nothing has given me the benefits that I have experienced from a consistent somatic movement practice.
— Jan B., pilates teacher, MELT method instructor
I feel more aware of my body and am learning to move with more ease instead of forcing things into place. Had I known about this years ago, my body and mind would be further along! I am so grateful to have this knowledge now and will continue to apply it daily for improvement. The exploration, the awareness of this work speaks to my soul and really does spark an acceptance and peace that is spilling into my life “off the mat.” Somatic practice is real life. And I wouldn’t have accomplished this if I hadn’t taken your courses, so I thank you. Your words and your work are changing my life.
— Julie H.
I am totally blown out of the water with this work. I did not realize I was carrying so much stress. I have such ease in my body and mind. Thank you so much. Realizing what release feels like for real makes me want to cry.
— Kim N., Edmonton, Canada
Essential Somatics is a wonderfully pragmatic and straightforward way of increasing our physical self-awareness and improving our quality of life and longevity, whatever your age or history.
— Richard S., United Kingdom, ESMTT graduate
I have discovered a movement practice which I love. The practices are simple, yet offer unlimited possibilities for an ever-deepening understanding of mind-body function.
— Liz B., United Kingdom, ESMTT graduate
I solved my very complicated, 30-year pain problems with this system. It gets to the root of why there are all these aches and pains. It’s not age, it’s cumulative reactions to stress and injury that become habits in the body. This is how to be free from that. Somatics was the true solution for me. I am so very grateful for Somatics and how Martha teaches it.
— Eric C.
I’ve had chronic pain for many years and had never been able to reduce the pain despite visits to chiropractors, massage therapists, acupuncturists, etc. I’ve lately started going to Feldenkrais classes, which help enormously. I use Martha Peterson’s DVDs at home and just love them. They really help enormously. She’s terrific.
— Health Maven
A professional dancer for many years, Martha is fluent in embodiment. She also had the privilege of studying with the master, Thomas Hanna. She teaches with simplicity and grace, and continues to exhibit the same passion for Somatics that she embraced decades ago as a student. Highly recommended, especially if you want to move with more awareness, flexibility, and freedom, and with considerably less pain.
— Anonymous
I’ve been taking classes with Martha Peterson and had massage sessions on and off over the past eight years. She helped me more than all the massage therapists, acupuncturists, and chiropractors I spent so much money on. She helped me feel where the stressed, tight parts of my muscles are so I could begin to relax them and relieve the chronic pain I suffer from dance injuries and arthritis in my upper back and neck.
— Beatrice
Experience a unique opportunity to learn from the founder of Essential Somatics, Martha Peterson, the author of Move Without Pain — from the comfort of your own home. Each class session includes a streaming video option and guides you through a variety of gentle yet powerful movements to help you reverse the feeling of “getting old,” greatly reduce pain, and provide more ease and mobility... so you can fully thrive.
In addition to the high-quality videos and MP3 audios, you’ll also receive the entire class transcription after each session is completed. You can then review, print, and highlight the most important insights and practices you were given.
Between class sessions, you’ll have the option of completing related exercises, practicing new tools, and answering questions to accelerate your learning and integrate each lesson.
We feel honored that Martha Peterson has chosen to partner with The Shift Network to offer this exclusive online training. This is a unique opportunity to learn from the founder of Essential Somatics and author of Move Without Pain, whose powerful insights and pioneering work are helping us heal and awaken ourselves and our world.
If you’re serious about learning gentle, effective somatic practices to move from pain to a life full of new possibilities, then you owe it to yourself, your loved ones, and our world to take this one-of-a-kind training.
If you’re ready to take the next step in evolving yourself, click the register button below to reserve your space now.
Your satisfaction is 100% guaranteed! If you don’t absolutely LOVE Gentle, Effective Somatic Practices to Move From Pain to a Life Full of New Possibilities — or don’t feel that it meets your needs — please submit your refund request form 2 weeks from your date of purchase and we’ll happily issue qualifying customers a refund.
Martha Peterson is a Certified Clinical Somatic Educator and leader in the field of Somatic Education. She is the founder and CEO of Essential Somatics® and author of Move Without Pain. Martha heads a growing faculty of Clinical Somatic Educators who present Essential Somatics teacher trainings, retreats, workshops, and seminars around the world. She maintains a private clinical practice in Manitou Springs, Colorado.
Martha’s expertise comes from more than 30 years of working in the field of dance, bodywork, and Somatic Education. As a former professional dancer who suffered chronic hip and knee pain due to injuries, Martha understands the frustration and struggle many people experience trying to discern between the myriad different methods that claim to relieve or “fix” chronic pain. This is how she discovered Clinical Somatic Education, the only method that taught her how to reverse her pain and postural imbalances, regain physical control, and create a life of movement, choice, and joy.
Martha is an experienced hiker, inspired by her mother with whom she climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro and trekked in Sikkim, Northern India. She has learned that the key to remaining healthy and mobile is daily, vigorous, fun movement, a regular Somatic Movement routine, a sense of humor, and learning the fine art of relaxation.
Q: What’s a virtual course?
A: It’s a great way to engage live and pre-recorded teachings and each other from the comfort of your home! All you need is a computer, mobile device, or telephone. If there’s more than one person in your household taking the course, you’ll each need your own connection. We use Zoom video conferencing to make it just like an in-person event, where you can ask questions and deepen your exploration of the course themes.
There’s no additional charge for connecting to Zoom with your computer or mobile device. Please note that dialing Zoom from your telephone is a toll call; your telephone service provider will charge you according to your existing long-distance calling plan. International access numbers are available.
“I’ve never seen a course so well put together ever...”
I had never participated before in an online course. The packaging, presentation, inclusion, and Facebook postings created a wonderful, safe cocoon within which to participate. I’ve never seen a course so well put together ever — not in all the years of taking college classes — and I had my doubts about doing an online course. The wealth of organization and ease of learning materials and support made this fun as well.
— Claudia F., Medford, Massachusetts
Q: Can I get benefit from the course if I miss the live classes?
A: Absolutely! You can download the recordings and transcripts of all course sessions from our online media archive, so you never need to worry about missing live calls. You can also engage the full community and leaders on our private online community group.
Q: Can you tell me about the private online community group?
A: We’ll have a private online community group for all course participants that will support you in making connections with others, sharing insights, engaging in discussions, and completing homework assignments that can supplement your transformational journey. You’ll have the ability to share your experiences, projects, and growth throughout the course.
Q: Are there scholarships available for this training?
A: Yes, we always make a certain percentage of spaces available for partial scholarships, for those who otherwise would not be able to enroll at the regular rate. If you’d like to apply for a scholarship, please review our guidelines, which include a link to our online application form.
Q: What’s your refund policy?
A: Your satisfaction with The Shift Network and this course is our highest priority! We offer a satisfaction guarantee so that you can sample the course risk-free. The deadline to receive a full refund is February 7, 2022. To request a refund, please click on this refund request form and submit your request. Qualifying refunds will be processed within five business days and an email confirming the refund will be sent. However, we’d love to have a chance to address and resolve your concerns first. If there’s something we can assist you with, please email us at [email protected] and we’ll be happy to help! (No refund requests accepted after the above date or with scholarship awards.)
Q: What is your refund policy?
A: Your satisfaction with The Shift Network and this course is our highest priority! We offer a satisfaction guarantee for a full two weeks so that you can try out the course risk free. The deadline to receive a refund is two weeks from your date of purchase. To request a refund, please click here to submit your Refund Application Form. Your refund will be processed within five business days and we will send you an email confirmation when your refund has been completed. However, we’d love to have a chance to address and resolve your concerns first. If there’s something we can assist you with, please email us at [email protected], and we’ll be happy to help!
Q: How can I reach Customer Support?
A: Please visit our Customer Support Center, where you should be able to find the answer to your question or the solution to your problem. And if you can’t, you can submit an online request form and we’ll get right back to you.
