Deep Somatics and Surface Somatics: Moving from the Inside Out

Anyone who knows me or has worked with me may be aware of my interest in language and the way words are used. This grew partly from training in Neurolinguistic Programming in the early 1990s, where I was first introduced to the distinction between Deep Structure and Surface Structure. These were presented as distinctions within linguistics that offered a doorway into an unseen dimension of meaning. Beneath words, phrases, gestures and communication lie deeper generative patterns from which surface expression emerges. For many years, I understood this primarily as an intellectual tool – a model for exploring how communication functions. Over time, however, it began to extend beyond theory and became something I could recognise within my own experience. When I began training in Somatics, the idea of deep structure was no longer simply an abstract linguistic concept. I became interested in the parallel between language and embodiment. Just as words arise from deeper patterns of organisation, posture, gesture and movement arise through sensation, impulse and patterns of organisation within my soma. This led me to begin thinking in terms of two distinct but interwoven realms: Surface Somatics and Deep Somatics. Surface Somatics Surface Somatics is concerned with what is visible, tangible and more readily perceived – posture, alignment, gesture, muscle tone and outward movement. It is the aspect that can be seen from the outside: the observable form of the body in stillness and movement. The surface is important. It is where inner organisation becomes outwardly expressed and where awareness often begins. But when our attention remains primarily at this level, it can be easy to focus on what the body is doing from the outside – its position, shape or movement – without exploring more deeply how that expression is being experienced from within. This is where the distinction between surface and depth becomes useful to me. Deep Somatics Deep Somatics begins with a different orientation. Rather than concentrating primarily on what movement looks like, attention turns towards the experience of movement from within. We begin to notice sensation, muscular activity, breath, weight, pressure, rhythm and impulse – not as separate pieces of information to analyse, but as aspects of our lived experience. From this perspective, soma is not an object to be observed from the outside. I experience my soma from within. Movement can then be explored not simply in terms of its visible form, but through the sensations, impulses and responses that accompany it. As attention moves more deeply into this experience, the emphasis can shift from form towards flow and from visible structure towards the internal experience of movement. Breath, muscular activity, soft tissue, weight, pressure and sensation may all become part of what is noticed. A movement that appears simple from the outside can contain a rich and continually changing inner experience. Deep Somatics, then, is not a rejection of the surface. Deep and surface are not opposites. They are different but continuous aspects of the same expression. The surface is what becomes visible. The depth is what I experience from within. Moving from the inside out When I trace a gesture inward, rather than concentrating only on its outward form, my relationship with movement changes. Instead of focusing primarily on What shape am I making? or Am I doing this correctly?, I can become curious about the movement as I experience it. Where does the impulse to move begin? What do I sense before the movement becomes visible? Where do I experience effort or ease? What happens with my breathing? How does movement in one area of my soma affect what I experience elsewhere? The movement may appear almost identical from the outside, while the inner experience of it can be entirely different. This is where the parallel with language remains useful to me. The surface is like the language that becomes spoken or written, while the deep is the organisation from which that expression emerges. They are not two separate things. One becomes expressed through the other. In the same way, outward movement can be understood as an expression arising through the deeper organisation of my soma. From correction towards experience Exploring movement in this way has also changed my relationship with posture. Rather than experiencing posture as a fixed form that needs to be corrected, controlled or held in place, I can experience it as something continually emerging and changing. Posture, gesture and action are no longer isolated events. They arise through an ongoing interplay of sensation, breathing, attention, movement and response. This changes the emphasis of somatic development. Rather than working only from the outside towards a desired form, I can explore how movement organises itself from within. The body is no longer simply something to be trained from the outside. My soma is something I experience from the inside. Deep and surface together The distinction between Deep Somatics and Surface Somatics is therefore not intended to create a hierarchy in which one is valuable and the other is not. Surface Somatics offers an important way of noticing movement and form. Deep Somatics invites attention towards the lived experience from which that outward expression emerges. We can see movement from the outside and experience it from the inside. We can notice form while sensing the processes through which that form is arising. We can attend to what is visible without losing contact with what we are experiencing. What began for me many years ago as a linguistic distinction has therefore become an experiential one. Deep and surface are no longer simply concepts. They offer different ways of attending to movement, posture and soma. The more I explore this relationship, the less I experience movement as something I make my body do and the more I experience it as something emerging through the organisation of my soma. Perhaps this is where Deep Somatics and Surface Somatics meet most clearly: the inner experience and the outward expression are not separate. The surface is continually arising through the depth, and the depth is continually finding expression at the surface.