What is Somatic Education ?
At Eight Elements we promote “body-based self-empowerment” through movement, natural medicine, massage and other healing and self-awareness practices. This is the foundation of somatic education.
A whole-person somatic approach goes beyond exercise. Similar to a martial arts practice, a somatic approach creates internal engagement of the body, mind and heart – the foundation of your inner well-being. It requires a deeper awareness of self that heals gaps in nervous system development. A nervous system with greater coherence creates the ground for presence and inner security.
Why offer 8-centers-in-1 ?
The nervous system requires support at multiple levels in order to achieve the integrative wellness that is the goal of somatic complexity. To guide this process, we conveniently offer access to a complex of 8-centers-under-1-roof: a Nia Center, Yoga Center, Pilates Center, Strength Center, Massage Center, Nutrition Center, Healing Center and a Healthy Products Center. Inner clarity is the result of a Personal Daily Wellness program with somatic foundations.
All of our centers offer you an opportunity to develop a “daily practice”. The Strength Center supports functional movement intelligence. The Yoga Center joins systemic awareness with breathing practices. The Nia Center offers a dynamic environment of 9 movement arts: tai chi, tae kwon do and aikido (3 martial arts); jazz, Duncan and modern dance (3 dance arts); and Feldenkrais, Alexander and yoga (3 healing arts). The Healing Center offers Traditional Chinese Medicine including acupuncture, individually prescribed Chinese herbs, and food therapy as personal medicine.
Our care for our client’s health includes the reality of a busy life with multiple commitments to family, friends and work. To support these higher standards and clear personal values, we strive to attune ourselves to paying attention to needs at all levels: physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.
Developing Consciousness.
Therefore we strive to be far more than a “gym” or “club” which would typically attend to muscles, bones and body mechanics. In reaching higher, this resolve to offer clients both “Daily Wellness” and “Somatic Education” requires an extraordinary, dedicated commitment from our practitioners both as individuals and as a team. It also requires working with a group of dedicated, spirited clients. Finding this type of devoted mutual cooperation is akin to finding a needle in a haystack. This phenomenon is indeed a rare privilege, an association that deserves recognition of the discipline and courage it takes to reach elevated ground together.
To use evocative terms and to more precisely clarify what we are creating together at Eight Elements adds consciousness and power to our healing-filled lives. We hope that this authentic description of our work helps clients embody the sophisticated relationship in which we are taking part so that it may be communicated easily to friends, family, spouses and children.
Our extraordinary journey is to open new dimensions in the science and art of wellness and inspire you to wholeness. As we expand the perception of what creates health for individuals, families and communities, we invite you to join us and spread the good word!
