Interdisciplinary Movement & Somatics
online somatic movement training for teachers
Interdisciplinary Movement & Somatics is a 250-hr somatic movement training for teachers and therapists who want to skillfully teach somatic movement and patterning activities to help people resolve and reduce cumulative injury (chronic stress, pain, repetitive injury, emotional dis-ease) and to cultivate curiosity, creativity and equanimity. Learn how to guide movement experiences with a developmental, fascia-oriented and trauma-informed approach through Somatic Groundwork. Weave the teachings with other modalities through interdisciplinary movement, or teach Somatic Groundwork as a stand alone practice.
The somatic movement training is 100% online and is designed with a balanced mix of science, philosophy and movement practice relevant to the somatic skills needed to guide therapeutic movement experiences. Interdisciplinary Movement & Somatics (IMS) provides a framework for applying the art and science of somatics to your movement classes, client sessions or workshops. Discover how Somatic Groundwork applies systems sensing to movement practice for gentle myofascial re-patterning.
Somatic Groundwork explores natural movement and patterning from the inside-out and ground up. The experiential and progressive practice leads with sensing ground, gravity and space. Our presence with the moving process helps to improve movement quality, function and efficiency. By applying somatic techniques to specific movement vocabularies, we develop a sensory skill-set to study fundamental forces and their relationships to our tensegral bodymind architecture.
The movement vocabularies in Somatic Groundwork are based on developmental patterns and natural movement skills with a focus that oscillates between specific forms and creative improvisation. The gentle and nourishing approach influences global organization providing mental and emotional benefits like calm, safe and nourishing feelings. The method is effective for reducing (and eliminating) low back, hip, neck and shoulder pain, calming the nervous system, increasing vagal tone and improving neuromyofascial patterning. Further, Somatic Groundwork also reduces chronic pain and other unfavorable symptoms from daily stress overload, repetitive injury and illnesses.
Interdisciplinary is a process of seeking to find collaborations and integration between various disciplines and perspectives to create new understanding. Somatic movement training is a wide and varied study. IMS seeks to bring ideas together from different sciences, explore the relationships between systems, honor knowledge that is generated from more than one worldview, and understand and implement both evidence-based and discovery-based research and learning. Interdisciplinary approaches challenge traditional ways of perceiving and encourages creative participation in the learning process. The process of building bridges to link ideas is about researching the spaces in between the elements and learning about their relatedness.
Next IMS Enrollment
Spring 2025
Why IMS?
you desire to participate in social change by teaching movement
you know movement practice has the potential to shift our relationships on multiple size scales
you believe in a movement movement
you are interested in movement beyond striving and achievement and attaining a metric
you understand that movement is a healing way
you want a creative and inclusive approach to guiding somatic movement experiences
you desire to help people return to embodiments of care, connection and belonging
“Kaila’s expertise in the field of movement science is the hard-won result of cumulative years of interdisciplinary study and hands on work with hundreds of clients and students. As a teacher, there is no one I would trust more with the hearts and bodies of students. She brings a dedication to working collaboratively, and an acute sensitivity and ability to respond valuably to whoever she’s with.”
Sarah Dawn Hartman
Cranial Sacral Therapist and Embodiment Teacher
Goals & Objectives of IMS:
- Generate rapport and safety with clients and students and create effective learning spaces through trauma-informed somatic inquiry
- Create membership with clientele and student groups that encourages individual autonomy and responsibility
- Maintain scope of practice and ethical and legal business operations
- Apply decolonial processes to somatic movement education and embodied research in lived experience
- Articulate the grounding resources and learn how somatics, fascia and touch intersect
- Combine sensing channels and somatic techniques to guide others through systems sensing
- Explore the process of teaching (and change) as a dynamic system that allows for emergent ideas to be revealed between members (teacher and student) of a class or session
- Articulate movement experiences for gentle and intentional neuromyofascial repatterning
- Guide clients and students to experience embodied active rest through Somatic Groundwork yielding practices
- Facilitate movement activities to downregulate nervous system defense responses for receptive learning and embodied relating
- Demonstrate a commitment to self practice and “being your own client”
- Apply somatic patterning recipes to guided movement practice to help with improved function, support and stability in movement
- Design interdisciplinary movement sequences that encourage sensorimotor and neuromuscular patterning
- Conduct reliable and valid movement assessments and translate findings to individualize client program
- Learn the science of bottom-up sensing practices and somatic movement unwinding through neuromyofascial science
- Learn the developmental movement sequence and how these patterns are the base of Somatic Groundwork
- Learn how to invite both process-oriented and goal-oriented perspectives to a movement session
weaving art & science in somatic movement training
The movement arts are largely subjective, value creative expression and apply personal self-research to understand the connections between things. Movement science tends to have an objective lens, aims for function and performance outcomes and is motivated by goal attainment. On one side of the movement education spectrum there is this quantitative, evidence-based focus and on the other side there is qualitative, discovery-based inquiry. IMS offers a framework to unify these viewpoints.
As part of this movement education bridge, IMS teaches a unique movement assessment process to ensure as unlicensed movement professionals we maintain scope of practice while confidently claiming our role as healing agents. Implementing a movement assessment in the client on-boarding process helps us:
- learn who is a good match for movement as a therapeutic method
- identify if a client needs medical clearance
- when to refer out to another allied health professional, alternative practitioner or healing modality
- identify functional adaptations and movement limitations
- choose specific somatic techniques and movements to improve autonomic tone, myofascial health and joint mobility
- design individualized client programs that are specific and progressive
IMS is structured yet flexible, specific and exploratory. The program provides the essential ingredients for guiding somatic practice while also providing the scientific rationale for why the practices work. Learn the recipe for systems sensing and apply these to patterning methods like yielding, unwinding and core support. Discover the step-by-step process for working 1:1 with a client and a method for designing movement sequences that create meaningful change in our clients and students lives.
somatic patterning
Instead of quick-fixes, medications and surgeries that often fail to provide long-term solutions for a majority of people, let’s offer another solution: somatic movement as a tonic medicine. Through systems sensing, Somatic Groundwork explores conscious and organic movement processes as a method for deep recovery and neuromyofascial repair. Somatic practice returns us to presence with our body impulses and attitudes and gives us a chance to research what is under the holding pattern of a behavior/movement. Due to the sensory pathways between our body and brain, these mindful movements aid in reduced pain and inflammation, enhance neuroplasticity and bring feelings of calm and balance.
Somatic movement practice is a way to know ourselves through our felt sense experience with our body. Our path of inquiry is via tracking sensation to learn about our patterns of behavior, our reflexive responses and underlying autonomic tone. Tracking sensation brings us directly inside the learning cycle giving us access to change how we do things that have become patterned and habituated. Somatic patterning is an embodied process of movement education and bodymind awareness used to uproot holding patterns and discover healthier replacements. Somatic Groundwork uses several simple and effective somatic patterning recipes to help people overcome common movement limitations and pain cycles.
No matter sedentary, active, or athletic, we are each susceptible to the same contemporary bodymind challenges including repetitive injury and movement interferences, toxic stress and unresolved trauma, chronic pain and illness, and under-recovery. Often these issues have underlying holding patterns that somatic movement can help to alleviate. The whole-person approach for uprooting these holding patterns is called somatic patterning.
Somatic patterning is a method of neuroplasticity which emphasizes bottom-up processing to facilitate change. Sensory awareness is a direct pathway for meeting the present moment experience. Change the experience – change the pattern. The process starts by tracking sensation to understand cognition/behavior/movement. This bottom-up learning cycle gives us a chance to observe the spaces-in-between and make new choices to shift, or modify, our neurobiology and motor function. Moving with mindful attention includes tracking how we initiate movement, how much effort we use, the qualities available to us, the spaces we occupy, how we give and receive and our shaping from the inside out.
Holding patterns are historical events that have active imprints in our structural architecture and neurobiology. They may include any combination of developmental, structural, psychological or social aspects. Further, holding patterns are often intergenerational and inherited. When left untended, holding patterns can lead to cumulative injury.
Cumulative injury is physical, emotional, or psychological harm that lingers in our body as inflammation, energy dysregulation or a movement interference. Common complaints include limited mobility, energy depletion, chronic pain and emotional dis-ease. To help resolve these symptoms, a bottom-up approach to movement education is necessary. Through the guided process of somatic patterning, we can down-regulate our defense strategies, influence the quality of our tissue architecture and modify muscular synergies.
Somatic Groundwork has developed a unique patterning approach over several decades that includes applying a specific sensing process, called systems sensing, to movement. The primary patterning methods are yielding, unwinding and core support. With a blend of both exploratory and specific approaches to guiding movement, the Somatic Groundwork practitioner encourages active participation with their students and clients for immediate and sustainable change.
Our sense of self, in a body, are somatic patterns that are shaped by the society and cultural value system in which we are embedded. In this way, somatics is not solely for the benefit of the individual – but rather is a way for us to relearn how we behave socially, together. A decolonial somatics calls for restoring right relationships from both within ourselves and between living bodies (both human and more-than-human).
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Is Interdisciplinary Movement & Somatics a good fit for you?
Take the Somatic Groundwork Essentials course and experience the primary Somatic Groundwork primary patterning methods yourself! By taking the Essentials course, not only will you feel the benefits of Somatic Groundwork for your own bodymind, you will also get direct experience of the online learning approach in IMS. In the course you will earn your first 10 hours in the IMS program. Further, reduce your IMS enrollment fee by the same amount as the investment of this course ($230 usd) when you enroll in either IMS Core or IMS Total.
SOMATIC GROUNDWORK ESSENTIALS COURSE
In this 10-hour online somatic movement course experience Somatic Groundwork and explore the movement system’s philosophical framework. Practice somatic techniques through developmental and creative movement. Learn about the science of sensing, fascia and touch.
Book a Call with me HERE to learn more about IMS and how it aligns with your movement path.
IMS Enrollment Pathways
There are 2 pathways for somatic movement training in IMS: IMS Core and IMS Total. Both pathways offer a 2 year membership.
IMS Core is a self-directed path. You will find everything you need to organize your study and experiential practice through the structure of the Modules and Sections.
IMS Total includes a 1:1 Mentorship* with Kaila and the IMS Certificate of Completion**. The 1:1 Mentorship provides: personalized learning sessions, small projects to develop your applied theory and somatic teaching skills, direction on how to guide Somatic Groundwork, and support on creating a Final Project***. IMS Total requires completion of the small projects and the Final Project to graduate the program and earn the IMS Certificate of Completion.
* 1:1 Mentorship occurs over 9 – 12 months and needs to be complete within the 2 year membership. Includes: five 75-minute mentoring sessions, one 90-minute movement assessment, regular email support, individual feedback for all small projects and review of the Final Project.
**Certificate of Completion is not the same as a Certification. A certification program (common in Yoga and Personal Training) is generally accredited by a third-party organization and requires renewal every 2-3 years. IMS offers an optional ‘Certificate of Completion’ indicating the completion of an assessment-based professional learning program. In some cases, a ‘Certificate of Completion’ may serve to fulfill a category for required CEU’s for some organizations (see your organization for requirements). You can also list ‘Certificate of Completion’ programs on your resume detailing your education.
*** The Final Project demonstrates a synthesis of IMS organized around either your unique craft as a somatic movement teacher or your interest in being a Somatic Groundwork guide. For the Final Project choose between the: ‘Comprehensive Client Program’ or ‘4-week Class Series’. The Final Project must be submitted within the 2 year membership.
TAP HERE FOR 2024 FEES & REFUND POLICY
TAP HERE FOR THE IMS CURRICULUM
IMS Module summaries
Guiding others in somatic movement activities is a unique skill-set that includes applying somatic techniques, movement vocabularies and cue strategies; learning to contain safe enough and creative learning spaces; implementing appropriate movement assessments, sequences and design. Further, Somatic Groundwork practitioners are committed to their own practice and realize this is the ultimate learning experience for teaching others. The Modules in IMS are like nodes in a system – each one connects to the other.
1: Somatics, Systems & Change
Learn the history of somatic movement and how it came about as a response to the body-mind split of Cartesian Dualism. Get an overview of systems thinking and complexity science. Learn about somatics as a decolonial process, basic literacy around social somatics, how worldview shapes our perceptions and our unique scope of practice as somatic movement educators.
2: Authentic Offer
Embodying our authentic offering helps us communicate out into the world why we do what we do, the solutions we offer to help people move and feel better, and the process we use to help others reclaim their personal experience of wholeness. Create a vision for your work and articulate your somatic offering.
3: Somatic Way
Somatics is a modern field to help us return to and remember the wisdom of embodied relationality. Somatic Groundwork calls this systems sensing. The somatic way describes how we envision supporting personal and social change through somatic movement practice. Learn and experience the science of sensing and touch through movement and how to apply the Somatic Groundwork ‘first teachings’ for a trauma-informed somatic movement approach. Discover the history of tensegrity and how these structural princples relate to somatics, fascia and the forces that shape us.
4: Movement Science
Take a deep dive into movement science: the sciences that got us here and the paradigm shift of 21st century movement science. Learn concepts from structural kinesiology that help us understand the neuromuscular system. Take a learning leap from classical anatomy and biomechanics to biotensegrity. Explore the web of fascia science and how our living architecture is a fabric of function, form and sensation.
5: Somatic Patterning
Nervous system rhythms, developmental patterns, core support, unwinding methods, and functional adaptations are presented as contributing views in the process of somatic patterning. Learn how to apply the SPA cycle and basic patterning recipes to gently and effectively uproot holding patterns and facilitate healing and repair.
6: Client Process
Here you will find everything you need to onboard a new client. Through movement assessment and analysis, learn a step-by-step approach to discover both functional and structural relationships that influence body movement. A comprehensive set of presentations, videos and clear instructions will take you through the steps to conduct a reliable and valid movement assessment, synthesize the findings and create a client Movement Profile.
7: Movement Design
Movement design is a system or plan designed to meet the needs, abilities, preferences and motivations of your participants and to provide meaningful and sustainable change. Program design includes the specific movement sequences in a single session, the series of sessions over time and the lifestyle practices adopted by your client to promote well-being. Learn a unique framework for weaving movement modalities together to offer cohesive classes and sessions.
Frequently Asked Questions (about the somatic movement training)
IMS is a 2 year membership, will I have access to the education site after 2 years?
IMS includes access to the Education Site for 2 years after your initial enrollment date. After the 2 year membership period, your access to the Education Site ends. After the 2-year initial membership, access may continue with a small monthly fee.
Am I required to complete the Final Project if I join IMS?
There are two enrollment pathways: IMS Core and IMS Total.
IMS Core is a self-directed path and does not include the Mentorship or Final Project review. IMS Total includes a 1:1 Mentorship and is a commitment to completing the Final Project + other small projects along the way. The Final Project is for pratitioners who want to earn a professional development certificate for the time invested in IMS (this is NOT an accredited certification). In July, I submitted my application as Program Director of IMS to ISMETA (International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association) to become an Approved Training Program. Stay tuned!
Is everything recorded or are there live classes?
IMS has a robust and elegant Education Site that has been specifically designed for effective online learning. All IMS content is ondemand in the Education Site and includes a mix of reading, watching and moving (blends theory and embodied practice). The content is organized into Modules, Sections and Topics for easy navigation. IMS also offers live monthly Community Calls and pop-up events. Curretnly the IMS Community Call is on the third Monday of the month at 10 am MT. Pop-up events include deep dives into specific content areas and live class series. Pop-up events are announced several weeks before the occurence (this is why they are called pop-up events). Several times per year, Guest Teacher workshops will be offered.
All live events are recorded and added to the Education Site. Participants are asked to be on camera during events. Participant videos are not recored for the ondemand viewing. Most live events include opportunity for community Q/A. IMS has an international membership and attendance for live events varies with the circle ranging from 6 – 20 members in attendance.
Is there any kind of support available if I have questions or get stuck?
During your IMS 2 year membership, you are welcome to email me with your: questions about content, reflections on process, needs for next steps or direction with the material. There will be opportunities for Q/A and discussion during pop-up workshops. Finally, the seasonal Community Circles are designed around open discussion and questions.
How much time will I need to dedicate to the program?
My recommendation is to allocate a minimum of 3-10 hours/week with IMS or an average period of 6 hours/week. You are encouraged to balance your time between reading, writing and watching with investigating, exploring and moving. You may spend your IMS time studying materials from the Modules, exploring movement practices, in self-research with the Learning Checks, and by applying new teachings with students and clients and in general life practice.
What kind of movement is taught in IMS?
The movement practice embedded in IMS is Somatic Groundwork. Somatic Groundwork is a movement system with a focus on developmental movement, natural movement skills and myofascial unwinding. Somatic Groundwork is desigend with a series of progressive vocabularies that teaches movement from the inside out and ground up. There are classes, class collections and mighty workshops to gain experience in movement. Movement design is taught by sequencing movement Elements. The Elements include: tissue shape-shifting, joint mobility, developmental patterns, muscle tuning, dynamic mobility and dynamic stability. There is also a 20 day Kettlebells & Myofascial Fitness program that combines Somatic Groundwork with fitness and performance.
IMS is a framework for weaving multiple modalities into a skillful program design based on neuromyofascial repatterning. The members in IMS come from a variety of movement and manual therapy backgrounds including Yoga, dance, fitness, Pilates, somatics, therapy, massage and more. A central thread in IMS is helping you cultivate a somatic approach within your movement craft. If you come to IMS with a seasoned practice in one or more specific modalities, the Somatic Groundwork movement vocabularies will provide a container for guiding somatic experiences and to offer you new movement techniques. If you do not have a dedicated movement practice, Somatic Groundwork will develop as your movement base.
Will I be able to teach Somatic Groundwork after I finish IMS?
Yes! If you enroll in IMS Total, you will be a qualified Somatic Groundwork teacher after graduation. Because the backbone of IMS is Somatic Groundwork, all IMS members will naturally weave the movement system into their interdisciplinary craft as they learn with the program. The participation in IMS Total is the only way for me to have direct experience with a member’s teaching process to ensure that Somatic Groundwork is shared with the applied knowledge of the first teachings (fundamental processes and container) and somatic patterning recipes so that the integrity of the practice is maintained. Therefore, those members who complete IMS Total and graduate will have demonstrated the basic skills to name themselves as Somatic Groundwork teachers (if they choose).
I want to know more about human anatomy, is that covered in the program?
Understanding human anatomy and how to apply this knowledge to program design is a fundamental skill set for the movement teacher. IMS weaves together teachings from biotensegrity, fascia science and kinesiology to create maps with which to study our body’s territory. Our inquiry oscillates between global organization and how the various parts support whole body function. In IMS, there is a dedicated 12 hour Embodied Anatomy Course that surveys the entire body.
IMS sounds great, but I am not sure I have enough experience to join. Should I wait?
Members in IMS enter the program with various levels of somatic experience. Some people have years of practice and inquiry and others are new to somatic research. If you are curious about movement as a healing approach and desire a fresh and contemporary perspective, IMS is a step in that direction. In the program you will learn about the science and theory of Somatic Groundwork, how to apply somatic inquiry in a trauma-informed way and primary somatic patterning methods that are effective for helping people resolve cumulative injury and express creatively. Through practice, you will develop a personal experience with the work and discover the recipe to guide others for good benefit. To see if learning online with IMS is a good fit, take the Somatic Groundwork Essentials Course.
How do I enroll in IMS?
The next enrollment for IMS is Spring 2025. Join my email list (see bottom of page) to be in the know. Or contact me here with your questions.
feedback from past graduates about the somatic movement training
“I came home to my body during the IMS membership. It has fundamentally changed the way I move! It has taken my practice to a new level. I work with the breath in a new way! I think about the body in new way! I lift heavy objects in a new way!”
Amanda Perry-Bolt
Yoga teacher/Breathworker
“If, as I believe, connection with the body is the way to our deepest knowing and the sense of wholeness that underlies our ability to live joyfully and compassionately, the IMS approach has the potential to both address specific ailments and transform entire ways of life.”
Charo Montoya
Conscious Yoga and Movement Teacher
“I have emerged with a clear method for helping athletes navigate their path to pain free play. The process pulses between comprehensive study of the human movement system and dynamic exploration of your own lived body through felt experience. IMS includes rich content that is brilliantly packaged into modules and sections that prepare you to assess, interpret, design and apply intuitive, safe and effective programming.”
Emily Steers White
Somatic Movement Guide, Yoga Teacher & Fitness Professional
“The IMS program will up level your understanding of the science of movement without abandoning innate wisdom. This program is a masterful portal to understanding the brilliance of somatic movement. IMS is a sophisticated program that allows participants to be well versed within multi-wellness disciplines.”
Nikki Olsen
Advanced Rolfer and Movement Practitioner
“IMS gave me a system to understand the source of cumulative injury and how to design a progressive client program with a somatic approach. With a somatic language, now my students are doing their own thinking rather than being spoon fed how and what they should be feeling.”
Linda Gerletti
Somatic Yoga Teacher
“Working with the IMS program was exactly what I needed! It allowed me to coherently piece together all the information and modalities I already knew while adding to my knowledge and understanding of how we can use movement as medicine. This work is needed more than ever in our world, and I’m super grateful for the experience I had with IMS and to continue doing this work with my clients.”
Helen Marie Carruthers
Franklin Method Educator, Massage Therapist & Professional Dancer