Exploring Pandicular Variables

By John Loupos, H.S.E., M.S.

Most readers of the Soma Times newsletter are probably well familiar with the theory, process, and personal experience of pandicular dynamics. For readers newer to this concept, pandiculations are characterized by the mindful contraction and subsequent slow mindful de-contraction of a targeted muscle or muscle group, ostensibly for the purpose of releasing muscular hypertonus towards the restoration of a correct default tonus.* If you act thus in just this simple manner you are pandiculating.

I say “ostensibly” because there is potentially more to any pandiculation then just as described above, which also begs a fundamental question as to why we use pandiculations. Readers who are also somatic clinicians are accustomed to employing pandiculations, whether assisted or self-, to help people mitigate or eliminate problems such as pain or stiffness. This is what is generally regarded as the primary role of Somatics – fixing the “bad” thing. In my experience, there is a whole other application for Somatics to the extent that it can be used to optimize neuromuscular intelligence, not just as a happy side effect, but as an alternative primary goal. Somatics is very effective at fixing problems. But what happens after the problem is fixed, or if there is no problem, as such, to begin with? Does Somatics lose its utility? Even if you are problem-free Somatics can be used to promising effect. It is in the spirit of this expanded or alternate goal that I encourage readers to apply and freely experiment with the practice variations described below. As a long time pandiculator and sometime eccentric, I have indulged my wont to explore beyond pandiculating such as we all learned in its simplest guise. I have determined that there are at least three, and arguably more, stages to any pandiculation, and that within each stage there are potentially multiple variables that can serve to enhance your Somatics experience.

The stages, or phases, of any pandiculation include: 1, the contraction of a targeted muscle or muscle group prior to the release and lengthening of same, 2, the contraction-holding phase (if it applies), and 3, the release phase. While these stages always proceed in a direction generally from stages 1 – 3 there are variables that can occur within these stages that are highly variable in terms of: order, motor planning and implementation, effort, pace, cadence, duration, attention, and pandicular combinations. Let’s take a quick look at these variables before examining them more closely in practice.

Pandicular Variables

Order. While the sequence of these phases always progresses from contraction to release, the order of these phases can vary. You might simply contract and release. Or you might contract, hold, release partially, re-contract, release, etc.

Motor planning. This entails allotting your attention (more or less, depending on your intention and your need) to pre-planning your maneuver. Importantly, motor planning isn’t just what you do leading into a maneuver. Motor planning can be applied along a continuum throughout each phase of your pandiculation. There’s no such thing as being too mindful. Motor planning recruits your cortical brain into the experience.

Effort. Effort is a necessary component of both contracting and de-contracting a muscle. The amount and nature of effort can vary, also along a continuum. For best results effort should be managed more like a dimmer switch than an on/off switch.

Pace. How fast or how slowly, you contract/de-contract a muscle will have bearing on the result.

Cadence. Order is ‘when you do what’. Cadence refers to the flow of ‘how’ youdo it, in reference to the continuity of your pandiculation as smooth and continuous, or having stops and restarts. Intentional interruptions in cadence may be helpful. Inadvertent/unintended breaks in cadence can serve as a reliable indicator of sensorimotor amnesia.

Duration. Different from pace, duration particularly applies when you elect to hold a muscle in contraction, i.e. during phase 2.

Attention and priming. Attention insures an element of ongoing mindfulness and presence to one’s internal processes. While motor planning requires one’s attention to an anticipated experience, attention isn’t bound to the future. Attention can entail an awareness of what has happened, what is happening, or what may happen. Attention involves simple awareness rather than planning and intention. Priming occurs when you prepare or prompt your client to pay attention in a particular way leading into an action or experience.

Pandicular combinations. This is an unheralded (and more advanced) variable that applies when you pause while holding a contraction during phase 2 of a pandiculation while you simultaneously enact additional separate but related pandiculation(s) or, alternatively, segue from one pandiculation into another.Let’s take a closer look at some of these variables stage by stage. I’ll keep it simple by confining your exploration to a very basic arm maneuver. Feel free to experiment with each variable as it comes up.

Practice

Your starting position will have you lying flat on your back or sitting on a chair as you follow along. For practice purposes I will guide you with a focus on your right arm. Feel free to adjust or apply the following directions to any other part as you prefer. Position your arm along by your side. Your general intention will be to pandiculate your arm to increase its range of motion. However, your underlying intention is to turn an old familiar experience into a new experience that adds value to your understanding of Somatics. You will accomplish this by first contracting certain of your arm’s attachment muscles, i.e. the trapezius muscle, to shorten the reach of your arm by drawing your shoulder upward, and then slowly releasing those contractions allowing your arm to lengthen its downward reach. First, anticipate precisely how you will go about shortening your arm by drawing your right shoulder upwards toward your ear. This is motor planning in action. Consider that just like when planning any other activity some people will naturally be more casual and spontaneous while others are meticulous in their planning. Where do you fall along that spectrum? However you usually motor plan, try to vary your default manner of planning (perhaps slower, or more encompassing) and notice if or how your experience is informed.

A second pair of variables will present themselves as you begin to contract at the trapezius muscle to draw your arm/shoulder shorter. At this stage consider your pace and effort. Trained Somatics practitioners all learned to contract firmly but slowly. However, the terms “firmly” and “slowly” still make for imprecise directions. You can experiment with both the pace of contraction as well as the effort, or strength of contraction. Try contracting a little slower or a little faster. Then try using more or less effort in your contraction. Minuscule adjustments can produce noticeable effects. Given their imprecision, these two variables can each apply along a continuum. You can followup by experimenting with different ways of combining pace and effort together, i.e. slower but stronger, throughout your contraction for different results. Once you move into the de-contraction phase you can experiment in like manner with these same variables. Aside from the theoretical advantages of this approach, practice at differentiated movement for the sake of differentiation contributes to a smarter body.

Many clients newer to Somatics arrive with mindsets that haven’t yet learned to differentiate the finer points of muscular control and performance. As such they tend to experience their muscles as either being turned on or turned on without much attention to the duration of a held contraction. Rather than being in the habit of always immediately releasing a muscle that has been contracted, you might find it instructive to pause for contraction interludes at various points along a contraction/de-contraction process. This is similar to the aforementioned pacing consideration, but different in that the focal point of attention is on what happens during and as a result of the interlude itself. As regards cadence, we practitioners all learned as part of our training about the value of pausing and restarting in various guises during the contraction and de-contraction phases of a pandiculation. You may also find it useful to experiment with the rate of acceleration/deceleration (varied or constant) into or out of any contracted state.

The human brain is hard-wired for novelty and pattern recognition. Your more experienced clients may find themselves freshly engaged by these variations while practicing at what might otherwise have become overly familiar and predictable patterns of movement. Fresh eyes as it were. By noticing for yourself (or prompting your client) to pay attention to your before-state in preparation to compare to an after-state, you are inviting yourself to be more attentive to a change, or newness, in your own body (soma) as well as to better recognize how the idea of newness and learning can be replicated during subsequent practice sessions to continue to improve your own personal pattern of being.

More experienced practitioners may find considerable value in combining pandiculations. There are multiple occasions in his various guidance movement series in which Tom Hanna guided listeners through what he alluded to as “complex coordinations,” which are essentially pandicular combinations for self practice. One such clinical combination that I have devised for clients on my table occurs during Lesson 2 (Trauma protocol), when I ask a supine client to push their bent knee out laterally against my resistance ( which activates their external rotators) before pandiculating their knee/leg medially across toward the opposite side. After enacting this basic version, I ask the client to press their knee out against my resistance while simultaneously hiking up their same side hip, and then de-contracting in a variable manner, leg first or hip first or both together. I have found this greatly enhances the effect of this particular pandiculation, especially for clients who are more challenged in releasing their legs medially.

Revisiting your arm pandiculation, you can affect a simple combination maneuver by contracting your arm shorter as before and holding there as you arch your lower back, first on one side, then on the other. On each side you can release both contractions together, or else one and then the other first according to different variations.

As you can surmise from the above discussion, there can be a lot more to a pandicular experience than its most basic contract-and-release components. A simple contract-and-release may be perfectly adequate for some individuals or circumstances. But attention to and implementation of pandicular variables such as I have described here can serve you well under certain circumstances as well as serving in the interest of, beyond merely fixing problems, optimizing neuromuscular intelligence.

*Not all of the pandiculations taught by Tom Hanna followed this contraction/ release rule. One notable exception occurs when in a supine position we cross our bent legs and lower them over to either side, relying on gravity to increase ROM.

The author welcomes feedback or questions from readers.

Contact John Loupos at: jadeforest@comcast.net.

This is an original article by John Loupos, H.S.E., M.S.

* Posted with permission from the author March 2, 2025