what is birth in motion
the project
BIRTH IN MOTION was created by ANNE SOBOTTA to share and teach Prenatal and Postpartum Somatic practices.
BIRTH IN MOTION establishes a way of thinking and feeling with the body during pregnancy and postpartum. This unique practice opens space for transformative experiences while expanding the horizons of expectations and resources for perinatal care professionals, and the pregnant/postpartum women under their care.
Through these connections, BIRTH IN MOTION reaffirms the importance of autonomy and awareness during the process of a woman’s pregnancy, labor and beyond. Autonomy and personal awareness ultimately results in improved overall perinatal health.
how we care
BIRTH IN MOTION offers professional trainings, masterclasses, retreats and classes for all pregnant and postpartum people. Its mission is to creatively bridge somatic education and perinatal care, while brining careful consideration to each person in their totality and individuality.
BIRTH IN MOTION is aligned with the paradigms of Humanized Assistance to Childbirth and Birth, guided by scientific evidence and human rights.
EXPERIENCES
BIRTH IN MOTION’s expertise is found in the vision, depth, interdisciplinarity and global character of research primarly rooted in the pedagogical process. That process is based on the fluid and constant exchange of knowledge and experiences between all participants and the faculty.
LISTENING
The differentiated training of BIRTH IN MOTION’s partners fully embodies the values the learning process itself and respects each participants’ right to reflection, autonomy, questioning and dialogue. This establishes an open and personal relationship between participant and faculty founded upon listening, availability and inclusion.
PROCESS
BIRTH IN MOTION does not have all the answers or a formula, method or recipe, but faculty guide the participants through a variety of modalities – from dance to evolutionary biology – from artistic performance to anatomy – from poetry to anthropology – from music to embryology – that will stimulate, welcome, empower, thrill, provoke and nourish.
THE BODY
AS PERCEIVED
FROM WITHIN
Somatics is a field within movement studies suggesting that we understand how we are involved within our movements in everyday life and how those movements relate to our health through the study of anatomy and the focus on internal physical perceptions and embodied experiences.
– ANNE SOBOTTA
SOMATIC TECHNIQUES
Carolyn Roy
Somatic tutor
“In somatic practice we are exploring ways of sensing where are as we move in relation to the world through focusing on contact with the ground, the air and other people, as we are listening to our own bodies. This tuning of attention both inwards to our own sensory experience and outward to what is happening in the space is a great preparation for working with partner.”
Marcia Strazzacappa
DANCE ARTIST AND PEDAGOGUE
“The expression Somatic Education is already part of the national vocabulary. In different spaces, both educational and therapeutic, such as dance schools, gyms, private studios, physiotherapy centers, university courses, this expression is being used ( … ) Somatic Education has been present in the national territory for at least four decades, but better known under other titles, such as alternative bodywork, release techniques, body awareness techniques. ”
International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association
In the description of the International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association, somatic practice ‘encompasses postural and movement evaluation, communication and guidance through touch and words, experiential anatomy and imagery, and the patterning of new movement choices. These practices are applied to everyday and specialised activities for persons in all stages of health and development”.
Researcher Martha Eddy reports that “somatic pioneers discovered that by being engaged in attentive dialogue with one’s bodily self we, as humans, can learn newly, become pain free, move more easily, do our life work more efficiently, and perform with greater vitality and expressiveness”.
PRENATAL AND POSTPARTUM SOMATICS
The expression Somatic Practice is born from the concept of Somatic Education (or Somatics ), which is:
“The art and science of the inter-relational process between awareness, biological function and the environment, with all three factors understood as a synergistic whole” ( 1st definition by Thomas Hanna in 1983, in an article published in the magazine Somatics).
The term Somatics is used in movement therapy to signify approaches based on the soma, or “the body as perceived from within,” including Alexander technique, the Feldenkrais Method, and Rolfing.
Somatic techniques can be applied to dance, psychotherapy, body therapies, amongst others.
