1. Focus: Internal experience vs external form

• Regular yoga (especially as taught in many studios) often emphasises postures (asanas) — alignment, strength, flexibility, and flow between poses.

• Somatic yoga shifts the focus inward. It’s about felt sense — how the movement feels inside your body, not how it looks from the outside.

2. Movement: Habit awareness vs performance

• Somatic yoga draws from somatics and neuro-motor re-education. Movements are usually slow, mindful, and exploratory, designed to help you notice and re-pattern tension or holding.

• Regular yoga often uses set sequences or routines — like Sun Salutations or Vinyasa flows — focusing on physical conditioning, endurance, or flow states.

Somatic yoga is about awareness before action, not repetition or perfection.

3. Nervous system: Regulation and release

• Somatic yoga works directly with the nervous system. Its goal is to help you downshift out of chronic stress or tension, improve body-mind integration, and restore natural movement patterns.

• Regular yoga can certainly be relaxing too, but the emphasis is often on stretching muscles rather than retraining the nervous system.

In somatic yoga, you’re not trying to “stretch tight muscles” — you’re helping the brain remember how to release them.

4. Intention: Embodiment vs exercise

• Somatic yoga is less about fitness or flexibility and more about embodiment, healing, and self-awareness.

• Regular yoga can be a spiritual, physical, or meditative practice — but in many modern contexts, it’s approached as a workout.

5. Result: Integration over achievement

• After somatic yoga, people often describe feeling deeply rested, grounded, and reconnected — not necessarily “stretched out” but more embodied.

• After a typical yoga class, you might feel physically worked and mentally calm — but somatic yoga goes a step further: it helps you retrain how you inhabit your body in daily life.