Defining Somatic Practice

Over the past decade, the word somatic has become almost ubiquitous. It appears in psychotherapy, movement education, trauma work, leadership training, yoga, and coaching. The body has clearly re-entered the conversation in meaningful ways.

And yet, the more widely the term is used, the more its meaning begins to blur.

For those of us who identify as somatic practitioners, this presents an important challenge. If our work is grounded in the intelligence of lived bodily experience, we need to be able to articulate—clearly and simply—what distinguishes somatic practice from other approaches.

Not to restrict the field. But to protect its integrity.

Especially now.

We are living in a moment where artificial intelligence can generate language, images, theories, and interpretations with extraordinary speed. Information is expanding rapidly, but the ability to distinguish direct experience from interpretation is becoming increasingly important.

Somatic practice sits precisely in this territory. It invites us to return to the most fundamental question:

How do we know what is real?

Interestingly, this question was answered more than two thousand years ago.

An Ancient Framework for Knowing

One of the most concise descriptions of how human beings come to know reality appears in the opening chapter of the Yoga Sutras, attributed to the sage Patanjali.

In aphorism 1.7, Patanjali describes three ways clear comprehension arises:

pratyakṣa-anumāna-āgamāḥ pramāṇāni

These three terms describe the valid means of knowing.

Across the major commentaries—including those ofT. K. V. Desikachar,Swami Satchidananda, andB. K. S. Iyengar—the meaning remains remarkably consistent.

Desikachar translates them simply as:

1. Observation

2. Inference

3. Reference

   
   

When viewed through the lens of contemporary embodied work, these three ways of knowing provide an elegant and practical framework for defining somatic practice.

They describe three criteria that are necessary—and jointly sufficient.

The Three Criteria of Somatic Practice

1. Direct Sensory Experience (Pratyaksha)

Somatic practice begins with direct sensory experience.

It is grounded in what can actually be perceived through the body: breath, pressure, movement, rhythm, internal sensation, and spatial orientation.

We are not simply thinking about the body or applying conceptual frameworks to it. Instead, we are perceiving through it.

This is what Patanjali calls pratyaksha—direct observation.

Without this anchor in lived sensory experience, a practice may still involve the body, but it is no longer somatic in the strict sense.

2. Reproducible and Therefore Inferable (Anumana)

Direct experience alone, however, is not enough.

Somatic practice also involves patterns that can be observed repeatedly.

When certain breathing patterns consistently influence nervous system tone, a relationship becomes visible. When particular movements reliably alter proprioception or internal awareness, another pattern emerges.

Through repeated observation, these relationships become inferable.

This is what Patanjali calls anumana: knowledge derived from observed patterns.

It is what allows somatic work to develop not only as an art, but also as a disciplined inquiry.

Experience becomes knowledge when it can be observed, repeated, and understood.

3. Human-to-Human Transmission (Agamah)

The third criterion is reference through reliable teachings.

Somatic knowledge does not arise in isolation. It evolves through relationship—between teachers and students, practitioners and traditions, communities and lineages.

Texts, teachers, and practices provide reference points that help situate individual experience within a broader field of understanding.

Patanjali refers to this as agamah: authoritative or reliable teachings.

For many contemporary practitioners, these teachings are transmitted through living teachers who embody the tradition. Among them,Leanne Davis has contributed to bringing the Yoga Sutras into contemporary somatic dialogue through chanting traditions transmitted through the lineage of Desikachar.

In this way, knowledge remains both personal and collective—grounded in experience yet refined through generations of practice.

The Risks if We Do Not Define the Field

If somatic practice is not clearly defined, several risks begin to emerge.

First, the term can become diluted. When somatic is used to describe almost any body-related intervention, the distinctive epistemology of the field becomes harder to recognise.

Second, practice can drift away from direct embodied experience and become primarily conceptual. In this case, the language of embodiment remains, but the method itself becomes abstract.

And third, without shared criteria for how knowledge in the field is generated and validated, practitioners and students may struggle to discern which approaches are grounded in reliable experiential inquiry and which are speculative.

For a discipline rooted in lived perception, these distinctions matter.

Why the Samadhi Pada Matters

The Samadhi Pada, the first chapter of the Yoga Sutras, offers a particularly compelling foundation for defining somatic practice for three reasons.

1. Historical continuityThese teachings represent one of the oldest surviving systematic explorations of mind and perception, originally transmitted orally before being written in Sanskrit.

2. Conceptual clarityThe aphorisms are extraordinarily concise. Their simplicity allows them to remain accessible while still holding deep philosophical insight.

3. Cross-referenced authorityThe same principles appear consistently across multiple authoritative commentaries, including those of Desikachar, Satchidananda, and Iyengar.

Across these interpretations, the same insight appears:

Clear comprehension arises through observation, inference, and reference.

In Brief

From this perspective, somatic practice can be defined through three inseparable criteria:

1. Pratyaksha — direct sensory experience

2. Anumana — reproducible and inferable patterns

3. Agamah — reliable teachings transmitted through lineage

Together, these three form the foundation of embodied knowledge.

Patanjali described them more than two millennia ago as the means by which clear understanding arises.

Today, their relevance may be greater than ever.

As artificial intelligence increasingly shapes how knowledge is produced and distributed, the ability to distinguish direct experience from constructed representation becomes essential.

Somatic practice—grounded in perception, pattern, and human transmission—offers a powerful way of returning to what is real.

For a contemporary and embodied translation of the first eleven aphorisms of the Yoga Sutras, see Stand in Your Radiance by Alexis Dennehy.

In my next article, I show how the teachings of SN Goenka (under the lineage of Sayagyi U Ba Khin) through Vipassana Meditation independently supports this definition of Somatic Practice.

To practice Standing in Your Radiance alongside Paul Beaton's DharmAttachment, join us at Adder Rock, Minjerribah this coming May Day Long Weekend.

References

Reflections on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. (1995). Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram.

Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. (1993). HarperCollins.

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. (1978). Integral Yoga Publications.

Davis, L. (n.d.). Teachings on the Yoga Sutras. Oral transmission.