Somatic Practices & Movement Re-education Flashcards
7 cards from real CMA practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Somatic Practices & Movement Re-education flashcards as text
In Laban Movement Analysis, the Effort quality of 'Flow' relates to:
Answer: The degree of freedom or restraint in movement's continuity
Flow in LMA describes the degree of control or abandon in movement — Free Flow is unrestrained and difficult to stop; Bound Flow is controlled and easily arrested.
Somatic educator Thomas Hanna identified three reflexive stress patterns. Which reflex relates to the 'startle response' that causes the front of the body to contract?
Answer: The Red Light Reflex
Hanna's Red Light Reflex is the withdrawal response triggered by fear or stress, causing flexion of the front body — hunched shoulders, contracted abdomen, and forward head.
In developmental movement re-education, 'navel radiation' describes movement initiated from:
Answer: The navel as a center point radiating outward in all directions
Navel radiation is an early developmental pattern where movement radiates from the navel (as a central organizing point) outward symmetrically toward all six limb ends.
Which somatic practice explicitly uses the principle of 'non-doing' or minimal effort, often described as 'directing' without muscular effort?
Answer: Alexander Technique
The Alexander Technique teaches 'directing' — projecting mental instructions to the body (e.g., 'neck free, head forward and up') without voluntarily contracting muscles to create change.
In BMC, the 'yield' action is foundational because it:
Answer: Establishes the push-reach-pull-grasp developmental sequence through ground contact
Yielding in BMC establishes the foundational neurological support that precedes all pushing, reaching, pulling, and grasping actions — it is the first action in the developmental movement sequence.
The Hakomi Method, developed by Ron Kurtz, integrates somatic awareness with which psychological tradition?
Answer: Mindfulness-based body-centered psychotherapy
Hakomi is a mindfulness-based, somatic psychotherapy that uses body sensations, posture, and movement as doorways to unconscious material and core beliefs.
In somatic re-education, 'pandiculation' (used in Hanna Somatics) differs from stretching in that it:
Answer: Actively contracts then slowly releases the very muscles being retrained
Pandiculation involves voluntarily contracting a muscle to its maximum, then slowly releasing it under full awareness — resetting the sensory-motor loop rather than passively stretching.