SOMAJOY MOVEMENT

SomaJoy project aims to bring the somatic principles of body awareness, anatomy and movement into both JAMS’ creative sessions and people’s everyday lives. Each session explores a different body system, ie lungs and breath or blood and flow and uses JAMS playful approach to make experiencing this depth of movement and subtlety accessible.

By taking a little more time to stop, to sense and to breath, participants of the SomaJoy community and care home sessions were able to relax and release tensions and move more freely and fully with joy and ease. 

Aimed at our elder audience, many of whom are living with dementia, JAMS artists coupled with the investigative material and much loved music and props aim to bring the somatic experiences alive. The pages below provide a framework for you to explore.

Each exercise is accessible from a variety of body positions. The safest and most comfortable should always be chosen.

Disclaimer: It is your responsibility to run your own Risk Assessment, you make the judgements on how to work with the movement activities offered, by using these pages you accept responsibility for any accident or injury that may occur.

At the beginning of each movement exercise ensure you, or your participants are sitting as upright as possible, feet are both on or toward the floor and the body is as balanced as can be. The chest is open and facing forwards and the shoulders are moving away from the ears.

If guiding others your words should be calm and slow.

You can try the SomaJoy movement experiences in the following ways:

Seated
These exercises can be done while sitting comfortably on a chair or even on the floor. Ensure there is sufficient support (from the chair, cushions, wall or another body) and balance is stable. Avoid high backed, winged armchairs which do not enable good posture, movement and strength. If working from the seated position try to sit up and forward in the chair (i.e not relaxing back).

Standing
If it is safe to do so, for a more grounded experience and to develop balance and help prevent falls, try the exercises standing up. Ensuring a solid base with feet hip-width apart and soft knees. You may wish to have the back of a chair within easy reach and a chair seat close behind. A wall is also a useful tool to aid balance and confidence when exploring exercises standing.

Lying
These exercises can also be experienced from lying in a bed and may offer some gentle relief to pain. Watch out for facial expressions and always ask questions to ensure warmth, comfort and ease.

These exercises are designed to be explored individually or worked through sequentially to provide a full body somatic movement experience.

The pages below (click on the images) provide a framework for you to explore.

All images used with kind permission of Big Picture Press Anatomicum - Illustrated by Katy Wiedemann & expert text by Dr Jennifer Z Paxton. Published by Big Picture Press (part of Bonnier Books UK) ISBN 978-1-78741-492-1

Created with generous funding from Sport England and Winchester City Council and Sport England.