Reimagining the Cat Stretch

Wendell Hanna 4-21-2024

Thomas Hanna’s Cat Stretch was designed to engage the body’s main functional movements into a somatic refresher routine. I have reimagined these laying-on-the-floor exercises to standing in gravity and set to music.

The use of slow music with even phrases utilizes rhythmic entrainment which is the natural synchronization of body movement with externally perceived rhythmic aspects of music. Clapping, bouncing, dancing, swaying, bobbing your head and feet to the beat of music are examples of the body’s natural response to music. Music and movement are inextricably linked in the human species and are therefore particularly somatic partners.

Feldenkrais’ Awareness Through Movement exercises are intended to be done laying down to provide a novel exploratory experience to unconscious movements. Alexander Method exercises, on the other hand, are often experienced standing up and sitting, because Alexander believed that careful attention when performing everyday tasks was important in order to change functional movement patterns. By doing the Cat Stretch in a novel way while bringing broad attention to the functionality of the movements, we are perhaps, combining the best of Alexander and Feldenkrais approaches into Hanna Somatics.

Wendell Hanna, PhD, is Professor of Music Education at San Francisco State University. She is a Certified Hanna Somatic Educator® and the youngest daughter of Hanna Somatics founder Thomas Hanna.  Wendell studied music performance at Yale University, M. M. (1987) and University of South Florida, BA (1985) before completing her Ph.D. in Music Education at the University of Oregon in 2000. Wendell formerly held positions as a bassoonist with the Oregon Mozart Players, the Eugene Opera, and the Santa Cruz and Monterey Symphony Orchestras. Wendell has published many scholarly articles on music education and in 2017 published the book, The Children’s Music Studio with Oxford University Press.

(650) 759-6147
whanna@sfsu.edu