Somatic - 5 Day CPD Course
With Gemma Mallol
Module One
Foundations: Somatic CPD Training
Dates: 1st – 5th May 2025
Venue: The Yoga Garden - (non-residential)
Price £575 - for the 5 Day course
3 Low-cost Spaces available at £450 (please contact Gemma below)
(This is a non-residential training,
please bring packed lunch, tea/coffee and light snacks provided)
(There are glamping / camping options
on the Knepp Estate, please refer to their website)
(We have a list of local places to stay, please ask)
To book the course or ask further questions please email Gemma via the link below
Module Two
Elemental Body: Somatic CPD Training
Dates: Mid-September 2025, (exact dates TBC)
Venue: Location: Dartmoor, Devon, UK
Price £575 - for the 5 Day course
3 Low-cost Spaces available at £450 (please contact Gemma below)
To book the course or ask further questions please email Gemma via the link below
ABOUT
Somatic CPD Training (Continued Professional Development) module is broad and covers different aspects of Somatic Yoga, Somatic Movement with Nature and is underpinned by Buddhist Contemplative Meditation Practices and Creative Process.
Through the 5 days you will discover principles, techniques and understandings around somatic practice and how they interweave to bridge the worlds of yoga, meditation, movement, therapy and creative process with nature.
This CPD creates a bridge for yoga and movement practitioners and teachers, dancers, creatives and therapists to enter the diverse world of somatics.
Led morning Somatic Yoga practices as a foundation for further embodied explorations with focus on stability, grounding, clarity, structure and orientation.
Understanding and cultivating developmental sequencing as an intelligent somatic asana/movement framework.
Cultivating awareness and relationship to the inner body through movement practices such as walking and slow movement, underpinned by Buddhist teachings (drawing on the traditions of Insight and Zen meditation).
Cultivating a somatic movement practice with nature, understanding how an eco-somatic approach to movement in nature develops inner resources, well-being, empathy, creativity and community through both human and more than human worlds (drawing on Somatics, Butoh Dance, and Eastern Contemplative Arts).
COURSE INFORMATION
PRE-COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
Each module can work as a stand-alone module or sequentially for those who are interested to dive into the world of somatics.
However, for participants with no experience of Buddhist mindfulness practices or somatics, it will be necessary to take Module 1 first and then progress to Module 2.
CERTIFICATION:
The Somatic CPD Trainings are 30 hours and on satisfactory completion of the hours, you will be issued with a CPD certificate from Still Flowing Yoga Teacher Training with my senior yoga teacher stamp on it from the UK Yoga Alliance.
SOMATICS, INCLUSIVITY & NON-HIERARCHICAL APPROACH:
The 5-day CPD’s are offered to small groups (maximum 12 participants) to cultivate a personal, safe and well-held experience for all involved.
The CPD is a space of open enquiry, dialogue and creative process, the material is explored within community using an experiential pedagogy. I specifically facilitate a non-hierarchical way of exploring together, which involves invitations and suggestions of movement to deconstruct power dynamics.
These spaces are queer spaces meaning that they are open and inclusive to people who may find themselves somehow different, marginalised or underrepresented on the grounds of sexuality, age, gender, colour, race, neurodiversity or disability. They are both safe and inclusive.
YOUR TEACHER-GEMMA MALLOL
Gemma Mallol is a senior yoga & mindfulness teacher trainer of more than 20 years teaching experience, she is the Founder and Director of Still Flowing Yoga Teacher Training established in 2008 which offers training internationally and highly regarded as a pioneering programme in integrating contemporary somatic practice and Buddhist Mindfulness with the teachings of Yoga.
She specialises in trauma informed somatics and now situates her somatic movement work specifically with nature as a universal resource that has the capacity to tend to the multiple social and ecological crises of our times cultivating well-being, empathy and community.
She is currently undertaking a Research Master’s at Plymouth University where her focus is on somatics and Japanese Butoh Dance and their reparative potential in the creative resolution of trauma.
Her teaching is rooted in Buddhist contemplative traditions (Zen and Insight) & Somatic Experiencing (body-oriented trauma therapy). She has been working with trauma in a variety of group training contexts and private practice for 12 years.
WHY THE KNEPP ESTATE
The Yoga Garden is a beautiful natural centre found within the pioneering 3,500-acre rewilding project that is the Knepp Estate. The training takes place in a beautiful hand-crafted yurt set within a wildflower meadow, with a swimming lake, woods and accompanied by many animals, birds and insects all around.
I have specifically chosen to bring the somatic training to the Yoga Garden on the Knepp Estate because of the re-wilding focus and it now being one of the most biodiverse places in the UK. Due to importance of foregrounding nature with movement in my approach, I am interested in how our somatic movement process will be enriched and informed by this diverse ecology that we move within at the Yoga Garden and how our collective process can give back to the space and to nature. I believe that somatic practices with / as nature develops reciprocal and reparative relationships.
