Starting in 2008 as a traditional, functional fitness company that wanted to take the intimidation out of fitness, we soon found that every client came to us with an injury or trauma history of some kind - even if they didn’t consider it impactful.
And in our personal search to heal our own chronic pain, anxiety, and difficult relationships, we discovered that the emotional and behavioral patterns that keep us stuck correspond with very real physical tension in the body. All the ways we move, act, react, feel, and show up in the world are programmed into our nervous systems by our unique life history.
So after almost a decade of watching our clients struggle with the same issues: chronic pain, collapsing posture, and limited capability regardless of the work put in, we looked outside of the traditional fitness industry to deliver what we and our clients actually wanted: Transformation.
In 2016, we began using specific Somatic practices that access the nervous system in order to release and transform the many ways our clients were “stuck” in their bodies. We saw right away that these very non-traditional movement practices helped our clients find more freedom and joy in our sessions.
Here’s a more concrete example of what we could see in a session; take a traditional Row. While the Row is an excellent exercise, it requires a strong upper back, and a front body that is able to release. If, for instance, you have tight pecs or rotator cuffs (which is incredibly common in modern times), you may find that you round your shoulders or back to execute the Row. Unfortunately all this does is reinforce patterns that are unhelpful at best, and invites increased pain, exhaustion, and injury at worst.
Now here’s where things get really interesting when we’re exploring the intersection of movement and transformation: This tension could have started and been exacerbated by a number of things: a birth trauma, a car accident, an unhealthy relationship with a family member while growing up, repetitive movements at work (like sitting at a computer), scarring from a surgery, hiding who you are, being in a cast or on crutches, or even working through the grief of being told that your body wasn’t the ‘right kind of body’. Literally everything and anything.
You could do burpees and squats until the end of time, but those deeper patterns that are keeping you from exercising with ease and safe form won’t release without awareness and explicit, intentional re-education through nervous-system informed practices.
Inside the world of Somatic exploration, there’s a recognition that our pattering, as humans, is created through our of Spheres of Influence: family, academic and religious institutions, our community, society & culture at large. To be completely honest, Comfy Fitness was born within the restrictive subculture of the mainstream fitness industry. The very industry we started in creates a fair amount of the dysfunction in our relationship with our bodies. Within that industry we may be able to “get fit”, but we will never transform the inner patterns that keep us stuck.
Through the nervous system, our specific patterns of being in the world show up in every part of our lives. Once we are able to recognize their existence, we can begin working with them to unravel their unconscious hold. And through the magical portal of the body, we see real and lasting transformation begin to unfold in our bodies, our lives, and our relationships.
And that is what we are here for.
