Somatic Bodywork & De-armouring
Many of us carry tension in the body that doesn't shift, however much we stretch, rest or try to relax. Patterns of holding, bracing or numbness that feel connected to stress or difficult experiences we've moved past mentally, but which the body hasn't quite let go of.
De-armouring is a form of somatic bodywork that works directly with the physical tension, protection and disconnection that can build up in the body over time as ways of coping and keeping ourselves safe. It can also be understood as a process of resensitisation: gradually reconnecting with parts of the body and sensations that may have become numb, distant or difficult to access.
Rather than talking about what you've been through, in a de-armouring session we work with the body. This might include hands-on bodywork, breath, movement, sound, boundary work and nervous system regulation.
I offer 1:1 trauma-informed de-armouring and somatic bodywork in London and Essex, drawing on training in The Gaia Method alongside somatic coaching and yoga.
If you're curious about de-armouring but aren't sure whether it's right for you, you can book a free 30-minute discoverycall on Zoom. We can talk through what is bringing you to this work, what you're hoping to explore and any questions you have about how I work.
Who I work with
De-armouring may be supportive if you:
feel disconnected from your body or find it difficult to stay present with physical sensations
carry persistent physical tension or patterns of holding
notice that certain emotions feel difficult to access or express
feel stuck in familiar stress, protection or relationship patterns
have been in talk therapy and feel that you need an approach that works with the body as well as the mind.
want to develop a deeper relationship with your body
are integrating difficult or significant life experiences
are exploring sexuality, intimacy or pleasure in a more embodied way
want to work with boundaries, expression, and your capacity to say yes or no
are curious about somatic approaches to emotional healing
You don't need to be experienced in somatic work. What matters most is a willingness to become curious about your experience and to work at a pace that feels appropriate for you.
For women who want to explore more specific pelvic and genital bodywork, I also offer Yoni De-armouring as a separate specialised practice.
If you're unsure whether this work is suitable for what you're experiencing, you're welcome to book a free 30-minute discovery call before deciding.
What happens in a de-armouring session?
Before booking, we'll have a free 30-minute discovery call. This allows us to talk about what has brought you to de-armouring, anything you're currently experiencing in your body or your life, and what you would like to explore. We can also talk through how I work, boundaries and consent, and any questions you may have before deciding whether you would like to book.
When you arrive for your session, we'll begin with a brief check-in and notice what is present for you that day. You may feel different from when we had our discovery call, so rather than starting with a fixed idea of what needs to happen, we start with how you feel in your body in that moment.
The session itself is primarily experiential and body-led. Part of the work involves exploration: noticing where there may be tension, holding, bracing, numbness, sensitivity, or areas that feel harder to connect with. We don't assume in advance what we will find or what it means. Depending on what emerges, I may work with a combination of touch, breath, sound, movement and energetic awareness. These aren't separate stages that we need to work through; they can come together and change throughout the session in response to what is happening.
Breath
Breath can change when we're tense, bracing or experiencing strong emotion, becoming shallow, restricted or held without us necessarily noticing. During de-armouring, I may invite you to deepen or direct your breath towards an area of the body, which can increase awareness of sensation and influence how activated or settled you feel.
The intention isn't always relaxation. Breath can help you stay present with something you might ordinarily move away from, or help you return to greater steadiness when an experience becomes intense.
Touch
Touch allows us to explore the body directly, noticing areas that feel tight, tender, numb, sensitive or protected. The bodywork may include gentle or sustained pressure, holding, massage-like touch, stretching or more focused work with areas such as the jaw, chest, diaphragm, abdomen, hips, pelvis and psoas.
The process is exploratory rather than prescriptive. We follow what we find and how your body responds, rather than assuming in advance where you will be holding or what a particular area means
Movement
Movement can arise spontaneously as sensation changes. This might be trembling, shaking or movements you aren't consciously deciding to make.
Rather than encouraging or suppressing these responses, there is space to follow them where appropriate. Some people recognise spontaneous movements as kriyas; others simply experience them as the body's natural movement in the moment.
Sound
Sound can offer expression where words aren't always available. I may invite sighing, humming, toning or allowing the voice to emerge naturally, particularly where you notice yourself holding back tears, words or expression.
Sound also creates vibration that can be felt through the throat and chest and works closely with the breath. It can help bring greater awareness to sensation and offer another way of staying connected with what you're experiencing.
Energy and sensation
Some people experience de-armouring energetically, noticing heat, cold, tingling, pulsing, waves of sensation or a feeling of energy moving through the body. For others, the experience feels primarily physical or emotional.
My background includes embodied and spiritual traditions that work with energy, but you don't need to share that framework. I'm interested in your direct experience and what unfolds, without needing to immediately explain or interpret it.
Emotions and awareness
Physical sensations don't always arise separately from our emotional experience. During bodywork, you may become aware of an emotion, memory, image, thought or association, sometimes unexpectedly. At other times there may be a physical response without any obvious story or emotion attached to it.
There is space for whatever arises without needing to immediately analyse it or turn the session into a talking process. My coaching background informs how I hold this aspect of the work, but during the bodywork the emphasis remains on your direct experience rather than trying to understand everything as it happens cognitively.
Integration
At the end of the bodywork, we allow time for the experience to settle rather than immediately analysing or making sense of what happened. This is intentional. Sometimes insights are immediate, but often what a session means, if it needs to mean anything at all, becomes clearer with time.
You may continue to notice physical sensations, emotions, changes in awareness, dreams, thoughts or insights in the days following a session. Around two weeks afterwards, we'll have a follow-up check-in, giving you space to reflect on what you've noticed and supporting you with anything that has emerged since the bodywork.
Staying present with the experience
An important part of this work is not simply how much you can feel, but whether you can remain present and connected with what you're experiencing. If something becomes too intense or overwhelming, the body can move toward protective responses such as collapse, numbness, or dissociation from the experience.
This is sometimes described as working within your window of tolerance, having enough capacity to experience sensation, emotion or activation while remaining connected with yourself and what is happening.
For this reason, deeper doesn't necessarily mean more intense. We can work with an experience gradually, in smaller and more manageable amounts, an approach sometimes referred to as titration. Rather than treating tension as something that needs to be forced out of the body, I am interested in what allows the body to soften. This is particularly relevant when working with areas such as the psoas, where forcing a release may be less useful than creating the conditions for holding to begin to change.
We may also move between areas or experiences that feel more activated and those that feel more settled, comfortable or resourced. This movement between different states is sometimes called pendulation and can help create space around a more intense experience rather than becoming consumed by it.
At times this may mean staying with a sensation and allowing it to unfold; at other times it may mean slowing down, grounding, changing the breath or moving attention elsewhere. Touch, breath, sound and movement can all be used in different ways to support this process.
The intention isn't to push you beyond your limits or create the biggest possible release, but to support your capacity to stay connected with yourself as different sensations, emotions and experiences arise. You may be intrested to read my insights on When Catharsis Isn’t Resolution
Why work with Binta
De-armouring is deeply personal bodywork, and choosing a practitioner you feel comfortable with matters. I bring together around 250 hours of formal de-armouring training with The Gaia Method, and further training in Orgasmic De-armouring with True Tantra. This sits alongside almost a decade of teaching yoga, which gives me a strong foundation in movement, breath, body awareness and the relationship between physical experience and emotional states. My wider background includes coaching, trauma-informed practice, Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), Inner Child work, Family Constellations and relational approaches. Together, these experiences allow me to work with more than the body alone, paying attention to the relationship between your physical experience, emotions, nervous system, relationships and the patterns you carry. My approach isn't about pushing the body towards a dramatic release or trying to force anything. The orientation is towards creating the conditions for greater safety and openness, and working with what emerges from there. I'm more interested in supporting change that can develop and integrate over time than in creating an intense experience in the session. Sometimes this can lead to a significant emotional or physical shift; at other times, the change is much quieter and may only become apparent afterwards.
The video below features scenes of strong emotional release that may not be very comforting to some individuals. Please watch with care.
Everyone responds differently to this work. Some people release their emotions visibly through sound or movement, while others experience more energetic movements or connect to old memories. There's no "correct" way to process.
What Clients Say
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“As soon as I stepped into the space Binta created, I felt so held and welcomed and was able to drop in. Binta holds a beautiful balance of authenticity and professionalism in her sessions. Her level of presence, everything she is and everything she brings into a session allows deep healing and transformation to take place. The throat de-armouring we did released lots of emotions for me. I felt so safe that emotions were naturally flowing. It also loosened the tension around my whole jaw and throat area which were around my expression. I was so surprised how I was able to release so much.
Isik Tlabar, Intuitive Coach & Breathwork Facilitator
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“At first, I was sceptical and apprehensive regarding what I saw as ‘ alternative therapies’. However, I’m so glad that I embraced the opportunity to work with Binta. Through her calm, knowledgeable and intuitive approach I was gradually able to resist trying to understand everything, pull it apart to try to find out the magic secret and instead just trust in the process and reap the benefits. As a result, I have been able to release both physical and emotional tension. Sessions were delivered with compassion and integrity, enabling me to develop a deeper emotional intelligence, particularly towards nurturing and nourishing my own needs and helping me to reach out to others in a more grounded and rational way. It has been a revelation.”
Investment of 1:1 De-Armouring Sessions - 2 hours | £300
Each session is shaped around what you bring on the day. Working 1:1, we might draw on nervous system regulation and boundary work, somatic bodywork, sound, breathwork and hands-on techniques, with space to explore and process whatever arises along the way. We also allow time at the end of the session to integrate the experience and help you feel grounded before you leave.
I currently offer 1:1 de-armouring and somatic bodywork in London and Essex.
Understanding Body Armour & De-armouring
The idea of body armour has its roots in the work of psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, who observed that our emotional experiences can become reflected in habitual patterns of muscular tension, posture, breathing and expression. From this perspective, the body can develop ways of protecting us when something feels overwhelming, unsafe or difficult to process. We might brace the belly, tighten the jaw, hold our breath, contract the pelvic floor, restrict movement or become less connected to certain sensations.
These responses can be useful at the time, helping us manage what we're experiencing and continue functioning. Sometimes, however, patterns of protection remain even when the circumstances that originally shaped them have changed. Over time, they can become so familiar that we no longer notice how much tension we're carrying or how they influence the way we experience ourselves and the world around us.
De-armouring is a way of bringing greater awareness and choice to these patterns through the body. Rather than trying to force tension to disappear or assuming that everything needs to be released, we work with what is already present using practices such as conscious touch, breath, movement, sound, attention and nervous system awareness.
As you become more connected to your body, you may begin to notice sensations, emotions, impulses or movements that were previously difficult to access. This can sometimes involve crying, shaking, trembling, vocalisation or spontaneous movement, while at other times the process can be much quieter, perhaps noticing a change in your breathing, a softening of tension or simply feeling more present in your body.
If you'd like to explore some of these ideas in more depth, you may find my articles on When Catharsis Isn't Resolution and Understanding Neurogenic Tremoring and Nervous System Release helpful. They look more closely at emotional and physical release, shaking and trembling, and the role of integration in somatic work.
FAQ
It's natural to have questions before experiencing de-armouring for the first time.
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No. Although de-armouring can involve touch and may sometimes feel physically similar to massage, the intention is different.
Massage generally focuses on physical wellbeing, muscular tension and relaxation. De-armouring is more exploratory and somatic, bringing attention to the relationship between physical sensation, emotion, breath, movement, boundaries and nervous system responses.
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De-armouring and somatic bodywork can be therapeutic, but I do not present my work as psychotherapy or as a replacement for mental health treatment.
My work is focused on embodied awareness, body-based exploration and supporting you to develop a different relationship with your body and experience.
If you are working with a mental health condition or significant trauma, I may recommend working alongside an appropriately qualified therapist or healthcare professional.
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This is one reason people are sometimes drawn to somatic work.
Talking can be incredibly valuable, but you may also notice that you understand something intellectually while your body continues to respond differently.
Somatic work offers another way of exploring your experience, through sensation, movement, breath, awareness and embodied choice.
It doesn't have to be either/or. Somatic work can complement existing therapy or coaching.
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There is no set number of sessions. Some people come for a single session or a small number of sessions with a particular intention, while others find it helpful to explore the work over a longer period.
As with coaching, working across several sessions can create space to explore patterns and experiences gradually, rather than trying to address everything at once. It also gives you time between sessions to notice what has shifted, what is emerging and what you may want to explore next.
If you choose to have more than one session, I generally recommend leaving around 3–5 weeks between sessions, and sometimes longer, up to 6–8 weeks, depending on you and the nature of the work. There is no need to follow a fixed schedule.
I don't believe in prescribing a programme or creating dependency. We work at a pace that respects your boundaries, capacity and readiness, reviewing together what feels useful as the work unfolds.
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Sessions are around 2hours and are currently held in person at Centre 151 in Hackney. Starting in November, sessions will relocate to Chigwell, Essex, just a 5-minute walk from Grange Hill Station on the Central Line.
Travel Note: A shuttle train service runs every 15 minutes from both Woodford and Hainault stations. For the smoothest travel connections, I recommend travelling via Woodford Station.
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A 1:1 de-armouring session is £300 for approximately two hours.
Your session time is reserved just for you. If you’re unable to attend, please provide at least 48 hours’ notice to cancel or reschedule.
You may reschedule once within the same month, provided sufficient notice is given.
Cancellations made with less than 48 hours’ notice will incur a 50% cancellation fee.
No-shows or same-day cancellations are charged the full session fee.
If you're not sure whether de-armouring is right for you, you can book a free 30-minute discovery call to help you decide. Email me@bintapatelcoaching.com
Resources
Further Reading
If you'd like to understand some of these ideas in more depth, you can visit my Insights pieces.
Why Does the Body Shake? Understanding Shaking & Trembling in Somatic Work | This article explains why the body shakes or trembles when it releases a block.
Why the body shakes | This Instagram post explains with a video
When Catharsis Isn’t Resolution
Processing Past Experiences | This blog explains how to process emotions and past experiences safely.
Is Stress in Your Head or Your Body
Pendulation - A Somatic Healing Practice
Fascia, Tension & the Body | What is fascia, and what role might it play in somatic bodywork? Explore the relationship between connective tissue, physical tension, movement and sensation, and why working with the body can sometimes offer a different perspective on patterns of holding.
The Vagus Nerve - Your Body's Stress Management System
Trauma and the Nervous System: A Polyvagal Perspective gives a basic introduction and overview of how trauma and chronic stress affect our nervous system and how those effects impact our health and well-being.
What happens when you add sound waves to anything that matches the same frequency | This video will help explain how sound removes blockages in the body.