Soma, in the somatic tradition associated with Thomas Hanna, refers to the body as experienced from within: sensing, moving, responding and learning.
It differs in emphasis from the body treated only as an object somebody else observes.
The outside description leaves something out.
Your arm is raised. Your shoulders are still. That is visible.
You may also feel effort, uncertainty, pleasure or the urge to lower the arm. Those details belong to the person doing the movement.
I AWAKE’s body-based practices attend to this lived perspective. You can notice sensation and movement without requiring an observer to tell you what the experience should be.
The term doesn’t mean that your body supplies a flawless explanation of every feeling. It gives first-person experience a place beside outside information and interpretation.
Somatics introduces the wider field. Thomas Hanna provides the historical context for this particular use of soma.
Thomas Hanna’s Clinical Somatic Education explains his use of soma and somatics. It is a primary source for the distinction between a body observed from outside and bodily life experienced from within.