The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between Bak Geum-seul's "Chumdongjak" movement principles and Somatics. It is also to examine the movement principles of Bak Geum-seul’s "Chumdongjak" in relation to the theory of the Five-Elements: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. Through the embodied experience in Bak Geum-seul's basic dance moves, the results of the study are as follows: First, one of Bak Geum-seul's movement principles is to enable a dancer to recognize and be aware of their body, which is similar to a principle of somatics that focuses on body awareness. Second, Bak Geum-seul's ‘upper body’ movements can be represented as Wood and Fire. Bak Geum-seul’s ‘middle body’ movements can be described as Earth while her ‘lower body’ movements can be symbolized as Metal and Water according to the theory of the Five Elements. The study suggests what happens inside of our bodies can be signaled through emotions. I hope that this study, which emphasizes the importance of expressing internal emotions through dance, may promote a healthy and harmonious lifestyle.

The aim of this study is to examine how climacteric women's Soma has changed in response to somatic movement training. The study was conducted for a total of 10 months from March to December 2021, and participants were four climacteric women aged 50-56 registered in a fitness club. After conducting twelve somatic movement training sessions, in-body measurement, Kupperman index, and Telomere Assessmant were performed. The study first found that all four participants' menopausal symptoms (such as fatigue, insomnia, arthralgia, and depression) improved. In the telomere trajectory analysis, participants' physical activity duration increased, their quality of sleep improved, and their level of social support increased. The study participants reported, through somatic data, that the somatic movement training improved their body's awareness and control, encouraged emotional healing, and strengthened their social connections. Both expressive and functional movements were improved by somatic movement training.

The purpose of this research is to explore if the Feldenkrais Method(ATM), a leading approach of the somatics field, is positively applicable to Royal Court Martial Arts. Three research questions were prepared to achieve the purpose of this study. As a research method, experiential description based on phenomenology was employed. The researchers of this study applied the ATM to a practical field of Royal Court Martial Arts, Pyung Soo Beop in particular for 100 days. Making the training logs, the researcher described them in a lingually representative way. The result of analysis and interpretation of the somatic data were as follows. First, what appeared on Sensory Awareness Training during the process of learning the ATM of the Feldenkrais Method, were largely categorized into three features. (1) ‘intentional exploration’-the process of recognizing intention through movement, (2) ‘relaxation and communication’- the process of delivering the intention of the movement and (3) ‘integration and arrangement’- a status that looks for and recovers a definite intention of movement. Secondly, the answers of the second research questions, were characterized by the following five features: exploration, concentration, coordination, integration, and energy. (1) ‘exploration’ is the first step to discover an accurate intention at the starting point of a motion. (2) ‘concentration’ is the step to recognize and understand the definite intention of a motion. (3) coordination is the step to recognize given information through the process of concentration, and then, to continue to look for the most effective way through a ‘coordination’ of organic movements. (4) ‘integration’ is the step to relax, transit, be aligned, and be recovered through the most efficient movement. (5) ‘ki energy’ is the last one, which not sequential, overall, so it is distinguished form the order of the other steps. Thirdly, the findings to the third research questions were as followings. (1) breathing was improved and changed to be easy, comfortable, stable, and deep. (2) coordination and balance were harmoniously improved. (3) through organic harmony of movements, the body’s alignment changed into a balancing and stable state. In conclusion, this study showed that Royal Court Martial Arts applied by ATM could improve performer’s sensory awareness ability in general, integrating function and structure by intentional movement, through which training of the Martial Arts could be improve in quality.

This article analyzes my dance work, Walk. It is crucial that dancers, as the main agent of dance art, embody their dancing as real experience and recognize their dancing bodies. This research questions if dancers, when becoming the principal agents of their bodies, experience bodily subjectivity differently from what they feel when they passively dance. The methodology used for this study includes practice based research and dance analysis. In terms of literature research, we examined the historical recognition and discourse of body in order to understand dancers’ bodily subjectivity. Practice based research refers to a particular type of inquiry that interrogates the whole process of artistic creation from the conception to the performance. For this, we analyzed somatic data that were generated in the process of creating my dance work Walk in order to illuminate the changing recognition of bodily subjectivity. When it comes to dance analysis methodology, we adopted Janet Adshead-Lansdale’s dance analysis model. The research’s findings are as follows. dance works Walk adopted bodily exploration early in the stage of practice, dancers could move their bodies with more integrity. Dancers in Walk showed individual differences in terms of their depth of recognizing bodily subjectivity as well as of the speed of experiencing their bodies. However, as they gradually experienced their own bodies, they became more confident and showed progress in performing creative movements. These analyses indicate that dancers as well as artists can recognize their bodies as active and subjective when an inquiry on bodily subjectivity builds on. The dance field in Korea has shown little interest in the significance and possibilities of bodily subjectivity. we hope this research would stimulate further inquiry on bodily subjectivity.

This study was intended to introduce the modulation of somatic experience in Korean academic societies, which was one of the core concept of Soma Theory of Thomas Hanna. Although Somatics was introduced in Korea by several scholars and practitioners during recent decades, the concept of experiential modulations has remained vague on account of its difficulty. This study aims to eliminate the vagueness, tracing Hanna’s academic and professional background of his Soma Theory. For this study I visited Novato Institute to see Eleanor Criswell and other colleagues twice and I had chances to discuss with the Somatic Educators the vague area of Hanna’s theory. The first texts for the cross-analysis used in this study included his books, training manuals, and articles mainly written by Hanna and his colleagues in the magazine-journal ‘Somatics,’collected in Novato Institute and Myong Ji University Library. As a result, this study clarified three modes of somatic experience, in the first-person, second-person, and third-person experience, and the modulation of somatic experience. At the same time this study was able to find their relationships to the transformation of our material-based age and the significant position and role of Somatics raised by Hanna in the mobile revolution Era.

This study explores the teacher-student relationship in a somatic movement program through a self-study approach, based on the teaching activity for a class consists of 9 females of 65–80 age groups. Through the somatic classes, in general, people experience their own movements. In this study we learned that the teaching is far more effective if the teacher-student relationship is horizontal and consistent body contact exists. Teacher-student relationship was getting deepen into love and compassion through the body contact such as short time massage in the movement session and hugs as the greeting. It provided calm and happy moments to the participants’ minds and bodies; moreover, the touch as a primal and instinctive act made them feel better sensitively and kinetically. Furthermore, the students permitted to access into their soma, which obviously improve the learning process of somatic discipline and they had the modulations of somatic experience in the first-person and second-person experience.

This paper analyzes the performance of “Connected” by focusing on the proprioceptive senses. Presented at Ewha Woman’s University Performance Hall 1, “Connected” was performed based on ballet movements and characteristics of post-modern dance and somatics. This research adopted a practice-based research methodology and followed five steps: research design → concept formation → composition and practice → performance and analysis → examination of the research findings. The researcher videotaped practice sessions and kept a journal of proceedings during the study. In order to analyze the dance work thoroughly, the researcher explored the role that an audience’s visual sense plays in a ballet performance as well as the performer’s senses in post-modern dance. The researcher looked inward with the concept of proprioceptive senses in somatics in order to analyze the researcher’s own ballet performance. The findings based on “Connected” can be summarized as follows. First, after stimulating senses in the first part of the practice, the researcher had a more delicate understanding of the soma. As the researcher gained more knowledge about one’s soma, including contraction and relaxation levels and range of motion, the researcher felt more comfortable, focusing more on expressing oneself. Second, the routine and habitual movements felt different because the researcher was dancing according to one’s feelings. The researcher was able to focus more on the performance’s qualitative aspects, indulging in dancing and performing more sensuously, rather than focusing on the quantitative factors, the mere connecting of different moves. Finally, the researcher was able to dance with more freedom when trying to stimulate the proprioceptive senses while remaining conscious of the audience. Rather than practicing and performing routinely and putting too much emphasis on the audience’s perceptions, the researcher moved with more freedom. This research demonstrates that stimulating the proprioceptive senses of the researcher was essential to the dancing. Through proprioceptive sense stimulation, dancers may produce more comfortable and seamless moves, which may also result in a higher quality performance. In this regards, this research suggests that performers can enhance the quality of their performances when they thoroughly understand their own soma through proprioceptive sense stimulation.

This dissertation investigates the way dancers experience the “personality of soma” while practicing. The purpose of this dissertation was to study the interrelationship between the personality of soma and the creation of unique dances. This study included dancers learning original movements and the entire process of practicing. The author used practice-based research and other academic resources for the study. First, major terms, such as “soma,” “somatic learning,” and “personality of soma” were defined based on other academic sources. The discussion of the concepts of soma and somatic learning is primarily based on the somatics of Thomas Hanna. The personality of soma discussion is based mainly on the concepts that Karol Wojtyla suggested from a theological perspective: origin solitude, origin nakedness, and origin unity. Practice-based research informed analysis of the entire process of constructing the piece, creating choreography, practicing, and performing. Somatic data was derived from the researcher’s first-person observation, and dancers were employed as the subjects of analysis. Experiencing the personality of soma consists of four stages: recognition, awareness, unity, and openness to soma. First, the experience of silence caused the dancers to recognize their soma and discover the potential within them. Second, the experience of origin solitude allowed the dancers to discover creativity and autonomy within their soma through an exploration of autonomous movement. Third, the experience of origin unity provided a chance to realize that soma has its own way of conducting communication and personal interaction. Fourth, undergoing the origin nakedness stage, the dancers learned how to dance their unique moves without the eyes of others, a perspective that they had internalized. The researcher who participated in the study gained self-esteem and recovered the personality of soma. They also created unique dance through a development of their own dance moves. By conducting this study, the researcher experienced transitions from passive, memorization-based learning to active learning, which allowed the utilization of somatic sensations.

This article reports on changes in health-related parameters, including muscular strength, cardiac-pulmonary endurance, flexibility, equilibrant and coordination, elderly citizens who completed a seven month movement educational program based on somatic disciplines for body-mind integration. The study included 5 participants (1 male, 4 females; age range 70-86) and was conducted over seven months (November 2013 to June 2014) at a senior welfare center in Seoul, Korea. Pre-program data collection consisted of a questionnaire on somatotype, body composition analysis, and examination of physical strength. The somatic movement program included meditation, Bartenieff Fundamentals, Pilates, the Feldenkrais Method, etc., and each participant attended class for two hours twice a week. The program comprised to sections of 20 and 14 classes respectively. After each section, body composition and physical strength were analyzed (1st exam: March 27, 2014 ; 2nd exam: June 3, 2014). The results of this study were as follows: First, the participants lost weight and body fat noticeably through somatic disciplines. Second, it seems that there is a significant interrelationship between somatotype and health elements. Indeed, the participants improved on some specific aspects of health elements more than others which depends on the participants’ somatotype. For example, leg and arm muscle functions were improved more for participants with mesomorph than those with ectomorph. The observed outcomes were attributed to the participants’ attitude of immersing in classes, mindfulness, intimate relations between teacher/peers, and awareness of their own soma in daily lives.

Human beings think, study, and develop creativity and character somatically. However, at present, many people are pressured and stressed; as a result, they have lost this sense. The purpose of this study is to explore the principles and develop a program of movement education based on somatics through the analysis of literature on somatics as a practice plan for the recovery of the vitality of soma. First, the principles of movement education based on somatics are as follows: The goals of education are atony, awareness, awakeness, and abundance. The contents of education are soma and movement responding to temporal, spatial, and relational factors. The methods of education are composed of verbal methods leading to first-person experience, including description, comparison, explanation, and questions, and non-verbal methods leading to second-person experience, including touch. Second, the program of movement education based on somatics was as follows: The “Soma 4A program” was developed to reflect the principles described above. Specially, three programs were actualized with a focus on characteristics like totality, verticality and confrontation, balance and horizontality, and movement. Finally, we recommend implementing and evaluating this program, developing various programs, expanding movement education based on somatics, and connecting this to dance education. We hope that this study will represent a small steppingstone in movement research–based somatics, and that it will help dancers and ordinary person to understand the soma through the provision of valuable data.