Somatic Groundwork
embodied movement practices for moving and feeling better
Somatic Groundwork is a tonic medicine that is self-correcting, self-organizing, non-invasive and accessible. By its nature, movement as medicine is complementary physically, mentally and spiritually and not contradictory to any other healing modality or belief system. Restore bodymind harmony and feelings of well-being and ease through embodied movement practice. Somatic Groundwork offers a developmental, fascia-oriented and trauma-informed approach to moving and feeling better.
Hi, I am Kaila June Keliikuli!
I offer somatic movement education and coaching. I work with wellness and movement professionals as well as people who want to move and feel better, relate with life in a more wholistic way, and befriend their body home. The base of my approach is Somatic Groundwork, a movement system I have been developing for the past 25 years.
JUST RELEASED: Somatic Groundwork Essentials Course! Experience the primary patterning approaches and explore the science of somatics, fascia and touch.
Somatic Groundwork online practice space brings somatic movement right to you. Choose from over 100 classes in more than a dozen class collections.
1:1 Somatic Movement Coaching is personalized movement education. Repattern movement from the inside out and the ground up. Develop movement qualities like support, stability, stamina and strength.
natural movement patterning and systems sensing
Somatic Groundwork explores natural movement and patterning from the inside-out and ground up in relation with ground, gravity and space. The experiential practice leads with sensory awareness or systems sensing. Our attention and presence in movement help to improve movement quality, function and efficiency.
Somatic Groundwork effectively alters nervous system tone by way of sensing into and participating with the global fascial matrix. These two autonomic self-regulatory communication systems are interdependent networks. With research indicating that the fascial matrix is our largest sensory organ and whole body tensioning system, mindful movement gives new input to our brain, influences the gel-like properties of fascia and supports movement organization. Through practice, learn to track sensations through force flow, volume changes and effort fluctuations and apply movement techniques to improve circulation, tissue gliding and harmonize the branches of the nervous system.
The fascia gifts us with feeling-felt and in turn, our sensorimotor system maps new possibilities. The outcome is embodied well-being, or feelings of okay enough. Participants of Somatic Groundwork experience 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 mobility. Further, Somatic Groundwork also reduces chronic pain and other unfavorable symptoms from daily stress overload, repetitive injury and illness.
Somatic Groundwork as a moving meditation
Somatic Groundwork is a moving meditation. Participants begin with the experience of yielding which is also the first of the Somatic Groundwork ten basic patterns. As a whole, yielding practices are about resting into the support of the ground (or other contact surfaces) while allowing weight to sink and be received by gravity. Yielding practice includes natural breathing, sounding, releasing weight and basic unwinding techniques like rolling, rocking and pandiculating.
Somatic Groundwork is a form of self-care, like a soothing balm, for nurturing body intimacy and presence of being. The progressive movement vocabularies develop physical support, improve motor control and encourage perceptual flexibility. Transferable skill-sets include improved movement function and ease, better support and stability in dynamic movement, and greater versatility in movement. In turn, with honesty in self-research, somatic practice bolsters our ability to pattern healthy relationships.
Somatic Groundwork returns us to pleasure, presence and possibility through guided movement experiences.
principles of practice
Linger in Curiosity
begin with inquiry and wonder, stay with the question, allow for the unfolding
Return Here
experience this presence, explore resources of support, embody the felt-sense of ease and okay enough
Practice Your Body
pay attention to your body impulses, make agreements as you move and play with creative expression
Lean into Possibility
stay with the process, explore new somatic channels and movement choices
Relational Participation
listen to the spaces in between, dance with whoever arrives, particpate with the forces that be
development of the work
The bones for Somatic Groundwork were formed through dance training, dance making, improvisation, embodied movement research and healing from injury and trauma. Floor-based contemporary dance, creative movement, Contact Improvisation, Bartenieff Fundamentals, Bodymind Centering, Authentic Movement and general yoga asana contributed to the early framing of the Somatic Groundwork movement system. As well, personal experiences with childhood sexual abuse, low back pain and sacroiliac joint dysfunction, birthing two children, psychosomatic illnesses, loss, despair and lineage repair have called for alternative healing solutions. Somatic Groundwork has both developed from and been an abiding container for these events.
More than 2 decades ago, Somatic Groundwork began as a body-based creative exploration with a small group of dancers and artists. Next I started teaching Somatic Groundwork classes and workshops in studios and gyms. Then I honed the basic patterning methods of Somatic Groundwork when I started my 1:1 client practice in 2009. Since 2018, I have taught Somatic Groundwork online to an international community of teaching professionals, movement enthusiasts and private clients.
The movement system continues to develop and evolve as people participate with the work. Somatic Groundwork is a dynamic system whose form appears in response to somatic and social interactions. My inquiries and embodied research continue to revolve around movement patterns, human development, healing (or not) cumulative injury and trauma, Indigenous worldview, ancestral lineage repair, decoloniality, creative expression and movement science.
VISION + MISSION + CORE VALUES
VISION | to participate in healing and repair processes with ourselves, others and our planet so that we may cultivate good relating on all size scales
MISSION | to guide embodied movement experiences in participatory and inclusive spaces to teachers, therapists and enthusiasts for therapeutic, functional and creative outcomes
CORE VALUES | emergent learning + collective liberation + practice as play
“Learning with Kaila has provided confirmation that being in and living from an embodied sense of self is an act of love. That to be at home in the body and to invite students and clients to be at home in their bodies is how we affect the change we want to see in the world.”
Antonia Small
Integrative Movement Educator
“I highly recommend Somatic Groundwork to anyone with an appetite for exploring and developing a deeper sense of themselves. This is a profound journey and I continue to evolve.”
Janet Steeves
Yoga Teacher
“I taught hatha yoga for several years and found I was unable to teach or delve deeper than offering a physical movement practice – Somatic Groundwork has helped me to find what was missing – the bridge from movement into the nature of ourselves and all that is…life, connection, relationship.”
Vanessa Brumby
somatic movement teacher
“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