by Esmeralda Brinn and Natalia López
The term comes from the word soma: “the body perceived from within.”
Somatics is a field of study of the body, emotions and movement from an individual experience, instead of studying our human experience from preconceived beliefs, theories and maps. It is an approach applicable to everything in life; it is observing and learning from the sensory experience of the body.
This approach allows us to connect with our own body and its processes, to have a living experience applicable to what we are doing or the profession we want. The action does not change, only the focus of our attention. We go down from ideas to the experience of each moment.
Why to use somatic principles for wine tasting?
When we relate based on preconceived maps, such as the parameters that we are taught in the training of our professions, we tend to internalize these maps as realities, without realizing that there are more possibilities of perception, connection and expression.
Somatics allows us to reconnect with the information that our body sensors send to our brain all the time, making our perception richer, more diverse and more complex.
When we taste connected to this information, we are accessing multiple, usually hidden layers of our consciousness. New maps are opened that belong only to us and allow us to travel original paths. Our appreciation and connection with wine, in this case, becomes an authentic and living experience in every moment.
Tasting can be understood in motion
The focus of our attention determines the path of our perception. For example, from an olfactory perspective, once aromas reach our olfactory center in the brain, they generate a subtle internal movement in our body.
Devoting our attention to naming the aromas we perceive shifts the focus of attention to the stimulus, the wine, and inhibits the ability to track our body’s response. It inhibits the possibility of knowing ourselves in relation to the stimulus. Inhibits the possibility of generating a more intimate bond with the stimulus.
Sustaining attention on the sensations of our body, establishing a bridge with the movement of aromas, is a skill that is developed by learning to navigate our bodily experience with curiosity.
Esmeralda Brinn. Cultura Somática | culturasomatica.com | IG: @ cultura_somatica
Natalia López. Cava Garambullo y Academia Vinograd | vinograd.mx | IG: @ vinograd_mx y @cava_garambullo
Vinograd 