Martha Peterson, CCSE
Come home to the quiet wisdom of your body and return to its original blueprint with gentle brain-based movement — and rediscover how good it can feel to move with ease, breath, and grace.
Experience lasting pain relief and vibrant vitality through playful, rarely taught somatic sequences that help you reset your nervous system and move forward in body and life with renewed freedom — enhancing your creativity and bringing more ease into your daily life.
Have you resigned yourself to the idea that aches and pains are just part of getting older? That as the years go by, your ability to do what you love will naturally fade?
It’s a common myth — that limited movement and chronic pain are inevitable signs of aging. Yet, if that were true, why can some people over 70 run marathons while others in their 30s struggle to walk a block or kneel to pet their dog?
It’s not your age that makes you feel stiff or sore, it’s how your body adapts to stress, says Martha Peterson, author of Move Without Pain and founder of Essential Somatics ®.
Whether the stress is from injuries, surgeries, emotional strain, or simply daily overwhelm, your body’s unconscious tension response gradually restricts your mobility and vitality, and can lead to chronic pain.
The good news is, you can rewire these patterns!
In this highly experiential 7-module course, Martha will guide you through gentle yet powerful somatic movements to help you identify where tension is held in your body...
... and release it through a natural technique called pandiculation — a nervous system reset that “unsticks” your body from habitual patterns and restores your freedom of movement.
You’ll discover how your brain creates a kind of sensory “blind spot” called sensory motor amnesia (SMA), which keeps muscles contracted without your awareness — causing cycles of chronic pain and limitation.
The body responds to stress and trauma through three universal reflexes — patterns of muscular contraction that, over time, become unconscious and restrictive. You’ll learn how to unwind these — the Red Light, Green Light, and Trauma reflexes — using restorative movements that return ease, symmetry, and flow.
Pandiculation is the key to reversing SMA — not by force, but through awareness, curiosity, and precise, brain-based movement that reawakens your body’s innate intelligence.
Even if you’ve studied with Martha before, this course offers fresh, rarely taught Hanna Somatics sequences and playful new variations — all of which can be adapted for the floor or seated — designed to deepen your practice and spark new insight.
She’ll guide you through an inviting series of movements — each one crafted to dissolve deeply held tension and gently reawaken your body’s innate healing intelligence, so you can reclaim the joy of moving freely.
As you progress, you’ll discover how to soften the muscles that help you move you forward in life with grace, power, and control — physically and metaphorically — allowing your spine to lengthen and your movements of your torso, neck, pelvis, and limbs to become more supple.
Harmony and balance will gently flow back into your body as you awaken the seamless conversation between the two halves of your brain and body — bringing ease to chronic pain and weaving a protective shield against injury.
During this powerfully healing course, you’ll:
- Awaken your nervous system’s sensing ability through gentle, playful pandiculation sequences designed to reverse sensory motor amnesia and reduce habitual muscle contraction
- Build a personalized somatic practice by exploring varied sequences that blend imagery, breath, and movement to cultivate lasting ease, vitality, and pain relief
- Practice movement sequences that help you identify and release the Red Light, Green Light, and Trauma Reflexes — relieving pain and resetting long-held patterns of muscular contraction
- Engage in flowing exercises that integrate breath and movement, inviting your body to soften, reset, and embody resilience in daily life
- Improve spinal mobility with the “Cat/Cow, Arch and Curl with Psoas Release” exercise
- Free your shoulders and neck with the “Arch and Curl with Cactus Arms” somatic movement
- Explore a playful way to practice the classic “Back Lift” movement as you connect arms and legs to center of body — to elongate your more supple spine
- Learn the “Human X” — a powerful movement designed to improve your ability to reach with your arms and legs by learning to soften the center of your body
- Learn a unique Hanna Somatics sequence known as “Lift the Knee to Stand Up” — a fun way to get up off the floor easily and confidently
- Experience a basic staple of your growing practice — the “Arch and Flatten” — adding the movement of your feet, knees, and hips to ease hip, lower leg, and foot pain or restriction
- And much more...
This course is more than movement — i t’s an invitation to come home to your body’s natural wisdom. An invitation to slow down, listen deeply, and untangle the tension that’s been holding you back.
As you release chronic muscular contractions, you may also find yourself shedding layers of unprocessed emotions that are held in the same patterns of tightness and pain — allowing you to reconnect to your wholeness and inner freedom.
As you relearn how to move with ease and grace, you’ll awaken a felt sense of aliveness — where breath flows freely, pain dissolves, and your body becomes a source of strength, clarity, and joy.
Join us and step into a more vibrant relationship with yourself... and remember what it feels like to be fully at home in your own skin.
What You’ll Discover in These 7 Modules
In this 7-module, 8-week transformational course, Martha will guide you through the fundamental skills and competencies you’ll need to successfully discover lasting pain relief and lifelong vitality, using playful, lesser-known somatic movements.
Join the Livestream — or Stream Later to Watch at Your Convenience
You’ll connect with Martha and experience her teachings through livestreaming video via any connected device. This connection is easy to use and will enhance the impact of Martha’s transmissions. Can’t make it live? After each class, you can stream the video and audio recordings to enjoy anytime and anywhere at your convenience.
Course Sessions 2025-09-30 9:00:00 am.
This course will feature LIVE teachings, interactive sessions, experiential practices, and Q&A 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 unlock the power of gentle, playful somatic sequences that help you move forward with grace — both in body and life.
Module 1: Connect Your Head, Neck, & Center to Relieve Pain & Tension and Enjoy More Freedom of Movement & Mobility (2025-09-30 9:00:00 am)
In this opening session, you’ll receive an overview of the basic principles of Clinical Somatic Education.
Understanding the role of stress and its hold on your body and life will be a consistent theme throughout the course. As a result of stress, chronic, habituated muscle tension — also known as sensory motor amnesia (SMA) — can take hold in the muscles that support and attach to your spine. This is how back pain or disc problems can develop. But when you learn to sense the connection between the front and back of your body, and pandiculate those muscles gently, you’ll begin to sense relief, freedom of movement, and more mobility.
You’ll learn about the importance of learning to connect the head and neck to the center of the body and vice versa.
You’ll explore movements — including seated, on your hands and knees, and on the floor — to begin forging a connection between your head and pelvis. You’ll also explore the teleceptors in your brain and head, and how your survival can depend on being able to look up, down, side to side, and behind you.
Much of your awareness depends on where your attention is focused, so Martha will reveal the areas of the brain that are involved in awareness and attention.
You’ll leave this class with softer back muscles and a more awakened sense of connection between your head, spine, and pelvis.
During this opening module, you’ll:
- Learn the parts of your brain devoted to attention and awareness are actively involved in the practice of somatic movements
- Set an intention for yourself as you consider your own movement goals
- Explore areas of tension and how to begin to actively release it using gentle pandiculation
- Explore how stress is showing up in your body specifically, and why it may be at the root of any aches and pains you’re experiencing
- Learn a lesser-known way to practice the “Cat/Cow, Arch and Curl” exercise for more supple movement of your spine
- Experience a softening of the muscles in the front and back of your body, allowing for taller posture and more connection to the ground
Module 2: Find Your Center of Gravity to Release Tense Muscles (2025-10-07 9:00:00 am)
All of the major muscles that move you forward and back, and allow you to side-bend and rotate, connect into the pelvis. The pelvis is your center of gravity and it supports your vital organs. It gives birth to life.
Yet, when you become habituated to the Startle Reflex (also known as the Red Light Reflex) — a primal reflex of protection that causes us to shrug our shoulders, tighten our bellies, and round forward — you can lose your sense of connection to your center. All you feel is tension, and this can contribute to pelvic floor pain, shallow breathing, neck and shoulder pain, and fatigue.
You’ll learn how to release tension in the front of your body — from your sternum to your pelvis — so you can connect more deeply to your center of gravity and your center of self-knowledge. This lesson will help you voluntarily release muscles that reflexively draw you inward in times of worry or fear, overwhelm, or collapse.
In this session, you’ll:
- Learn about the most primal reflex of protection, fear, and survival and how it affects posture and mobility
- Deepen your somatic connection to your center of gravity
- Restore a sense of safety within as you release tension from your heart center down to your pelvis
- Experience a powerful Hanna sequence to make you aware of what your body does — from shoulders to pelvis — that connects you to the essence of fear, or “startle response”
- Learn to address the slouching effect of the Startle Response and free your shoulders and neck with the “Arch and Curl with Cactus Arms” somatic movement
Module 3: Own Your Power & Stand Tall by Learning to Relax the Muscles That Move You Forward - With Guest Teacher Karen Statner (2025-10-14 9:00:00 am)
As humans, we’re driven to stand up and move forward in life. It’s in our brains and our DNA. We have a spine that holds up and supports us, and a face and eyes that face forward so we can see what we want and move toward it.
At four months old, infants lift their heads to look around their world — using our back muscles to connect to our head. This is the Landau (Green Light) Reflex. From that moment on, we respond instantly when we’re called to action, whether to run and play, answer the phone, or complete a project.
In this session, you’ll explore how, If this reflexive response to outside stress and feedback becomes habituated, you may experience chronic back pain, disc issues, sciatica, or shoulder and neck pain.
But, when you learn to sense the muscles of your back, you can learn to switch them off when they’re no longer needed for an action.
When you can coordinate the front or your body with the back, you’ll be better able to move in a way that allows you to adapt and rest when you need to.
Guest teacher Karen Statner will guide you in a different way to connect your arms and legs to your center, as you learn to sense and recalibrate the coordination between the back and front of your body.
This week, you’ll:
- Learn about the Landau (or Green Light) Reflex that’s responsible for forward action in your life
- Take back control of the muscles of your back for more balance in standing
- Experience a softening of your back muscles, from head to tailbone
- Explore why chronically tight back muscles contribute to many common pain complaints
- Begin to restore freedom of movement in your back for more power and groundedness
- Explore a playful way to practice the classic “Back Lift” movement as you connect arms and legs to center of body — to elongate a more supple spine
Module 4: Balance Your Body & Balance Your Life (2025-10-21 9:00:00 am)
It’s not uncommon to feel out of balance — not just in your body, but in your life.
You’ll explore why that happens, and how, through somatic movement, you can regain your sense of balance and symmetry in your body — which will enhance your ability to find balance in other areas of your life.
You’ll learn that you need to be connected to what’s “out there” as much as within your own somatic process and awareness.
Martha will guide you to connect “out there” (your head, arms, shoulders, hips, and legs) to “in here” (your waist, back, and front). This class will leave you with an improved sense of balance and symmetry in your bodies that will enhance your ability to find balance in other areas of your life.
During this session, you’ll:
- Begin to restore movement in your shoulders, pelvis, and waist for more balance, rotation, and symmetry
- Deepen your connection to easier, more supple movement as you learn to let go and allow movement, rather than force it
- Learn the “Human X” — a powerful movement designed to improve your ability to reach with your arms and legs by learning to soften the center of your body
- Free your shoulder blades in a side-lying exercise and enjoy renewed freedom of movement of your shoulder blades as you connect to your center in a different way
- Reflect on what’s possible for your future now that you can move with more ease
Module 5: Coordinate the Two Sides of Your Brain With the Two Sides of Your Body for Improved Balance & Decreased Pain (2025-10-28 9:00:00 am)
You have two sides to your brain — one that focuses on the concrete and literal, and the other on the creative aspects of life. The two sides of your brain are also indicative of other functions in your body — your two arms, shoulders, legs, feet, kidneys, and lungs.
When accidents and injuries happen, you can lose your sense of balance in the center and no longer experience the fullness of your somatic system. You have nerve fibers in your brain that connect one hemisphere to the other and allow your hemispheres to talk to each other. But when you’re out of balance and out of sync, one side of your body stops talking to the other — leaving you more prone to falls, one-sided compensation, and an uneven gait.
You'll explore movements of your shoulders, arms, hands, pelvis, and feet, designed to get both sides of your brain and body back in communication with one another.
You’ll learn movements of one side of your body, then diagonal movements, and, finally, full body integration of your shoulders and pelvis in crawling and twisting.
During this session, you’ll:
- Experience the connectedness of your entire body as you gently and luxuriously twist and roll on the floor
- Begin to notice how all movement is easier and more connected when you allow your center to move along with your periphery
- Improve your ability to move your rib cage and center when you allow your shoulder blades to move easily across your back
- Experience how certain pain patterns (sacroiliac joint, back, knee, or foot pain) begin to disappear as you allow the shoulders, pelvis, and legs to coordinate in a natural, effortless way
- Learn the “Turning the Lightbulb” movement — exploring movement of your arms, shoulder blades, and pelvis bilaterally and diagonally
- Enjoy a new version of the “Steeple Twist” for deeper connection to your somatic center in rotation
Module 6: Freeing Your Pelvis, Hips, Knees, & Feet to Easily Stand Up From the Floor (2025-11-11 9:00:00 am)
Your feet show the history of your life as a bipedal human. We’re the only species meant to stand on two feet and move forward toward what we want.
When we lose our connection to the ground, there can be disastrous consequences. We fall, we slip, we lose control of our balance.
Getting up and down off the floor is a skill many people lose as they get older, yet that doesn’t need to happen.
In this module, you’ll learn how to get down on the floor and get back up with more ease and control. You’ll also practice sensing your feet in a playful, exploratory way and then connect that sensation to the movement of your knees, hips, pelvis, waist and shoulders.
In this session, you’ll:
- Become acquainted with your feet and experience how intelligent they can be when they get sensory feedback
- Explore the connection of your feet, knees, and legs to the center of your body
- Release tension in your waist muscles with a unique differentiation of the “Side Bend”
- Learn how to connect the movement of your feet to the movement of your center
- Learn a unique Hanna sequence known as “Lift the Knee to Stand Up” — an easy and fun way to get up off the floor easily and confidently
- Continue to let go and create suppleness in your pelvis and hips
Module 7: Cultivate Versatility in Your Feet to Develop Power in Your Walk (2025-11-18 9:00:00 am)
This last session will bring you back to your center as you explore, once again, the movement of your pelvis and center of gravity — and how it all connects down to your feet and up to your head.
By this point, you’ll have learned to sense and move your spine more comfortably, and cultivated more control of the front and back of your body. You’ve released tension in your waist for more suppleness in your shoulder girdle and pelvic girdle. Now you’re ready to learn how to walk with more ease, comfort, and efficiency, as you were born to do.
Martha will show you how to connect the movement of your feet to a basic staple of your practice, “Arch and Flatten.” You’ll experience how adding the movement of your feet can change the way you experience two more basic movements — preparing you to explore a powerful movement for the feet, knees, and hips that will ease any hip or lower leg and foot pain or restriction you may have.
As a result, you’ll be able to move forward with more balance, confidence, and ease. This movement class will be calming and playful with plenty of imagery to help you sense your ability to respond to changes in movement coming at you from the back, front, diagonals, and sides.
You’ll also practice standing and lying down… however, you can also do these movements while seated in a chair.
In this closing session, you’ll:
- Sense the ease and freedom in your walk that comes from allowing your feet, legs, hips, waist, and center to move fluidly
- Explore how grounded you can feel when you allow the center of your body to yield and respond, rather than tighten and resist
- Connect your feet to your center and up to the top of your head, using imagery of waves
- Learn an original movement called “Bridge and Boat” that connects the diagonals, knees, and feet and prepares you for walking
- Practice both the classic walking movements and a simplified version of “Invert/Evert” — for happy, supple hips and improved balance and efficiency
- Enjoy a playful, dancey standing sequence of spiraling the arms and legs in and out as you connect the suppleness of your shoulders, arms, pelvis, legs, and feet — creating a sassy, relaxed walk
- Experience the “Washrag” standing movement
SPECIAL BONUS OFFER
In addition to Martha’s transformative 7-module course, you’ll receive this special bonus offering to complement the course and take your understanding and practice to an even deeper level.
Daily Somatic Awareness Practices
PDF From Martha Peterson, CCSE
In this illuminating article, you’ll learn two simple yet powerful daily somatic awareness practices to help you connect with your whole body — from your feet to your center — and develop a deeper understanding of your habitual postures. These practices also shed light on your unconscious morning, midday, and evening routines that can significantly influence how your day unfolds. Chronic habituated muscle tension, known as sensory motor amnesia (SMA), often stems from small, automatic habits that may be detrimental to your wellbeing. Over time, these patterns can shape how you feel in your body. This resource offers a first step toward greater awareness and intention in your daily life.
Ballet Barre
Video Teaching and Practice From Martha Peterson, CCSE
In this video, Martha shares how to reframe your daily practice, not as a task to check off your daily to-do list, but as a warm-up to start your day or wind down in the evening. Just like athletes, dancers, and musicians begin their training with the basics — no matter their level of skill — approaching your own movement practice this way helps you stay connected to the fundamentals. This provides you with the mindset of a lifelong mover, committed to refining the art of movement for the rest of your life.
What People Are Saying About Martha Peterson, CCSE…
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Join the Global Community
The Art & Power of Pandiculation offers some of the most transformational online teachings available, within a thriving global community of learning and practice.
Join fellow students and practitioners to support and inspire each other as you integrate the teachings and practices Martha Peterson, CCSE will share in this powerful program.
You’ll join an international community on the leading edge of manifesting a world grounded in the principles of cooperation, harmony, and reverence for all of life.
Here’s What You’ll Receive
Seven 90-Minute Class Sessions With Martha Peterson, CCSE
Experience a unique opportunity to be mentored by and learn from Martha Peterson, CCSE, the founder of Essential Somatics® and author of Move Without Pain — from the comfort of your own home. Each class session includes a livestreaming video option and will guide you to ease your pain and increase your vitality, as you explore lesser-known, playful movement sequences designed to support your natural flow and life’s forward motion. Course sessions are on 2025-09-30 9:00:00 am.
Seven Video Recordings of Class Sessions
After each class, the video will be available for you to stream in a high-quality format. You’ll never have to worry about missing a session, and you can watch anytime and anywhere at your convenience.
Seven Audio Recordings of Class Sessions
After each class, the audio will be available for you to stream. You’ll never have to worry about missing a session, and you can listen anytime and anywhere at your convenience.
Seven Transcripts of Class Sessions
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.
Interactive Exercises and Questions for Each Lesson
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 week’s lesson.
Online Community
Our exclusive online community is the perfect place to continue your discovery process after each class. Here, you can continue the discussion about your course materials and interact with your fellow students to take your exploration to an even deeper level.
An Unprecedented Opportunity to Join the Online Course, The Art & Power of Pandiculation
We feel honored that Martha Peterson, CCSE has chosen to partner with The Shift Network to offer this exclusive LIVE online course. This is a unique opportunity to interact directly with 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 experiencing the freedom of pain-free movement and renewed vitality, awakening your body’s intelligence so you can propel forward in life, then you owe it to yourself, your loved ones, and our world to take this one-of-a-kind program.
If you’re ready to take the next step in your own evolution, click the register button below to reserve your space now.
Your Satisfaction Is 100% Guaranteed!
Your satisfaction is 100% guaranteed! If you don’t absolutely LOVE The Art & Power of Pandiculation — or don’t feel that it meets your needs — please submit your refund request form on or before October 14, 2025 and we’ll happily issue qualifying customers a refund.
More Praise for Martha Peterson, CCSE
Yoga teacher, United Kingdom
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About Martha Peterson, CCSE
EDIT
Martha Peterson, CCSE, is a certified clinical somatic educator and leader in the field of somatic education. She’s the founder and CEO of Essential Somatics® and the 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 also maintains a private clinical practice.
Martha’s expertise comes from more than 30 years of working in the fields 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 when trying to discern between the myriad methods that claim to relieve or “fix” chronic pain. She eventually 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 and self-regulation.