Sensing Fascia in Movement

Today I want to talk a little bit about fascia in movement. I have been teaching anatomy for movement for about 20 years. At first, my inquiry process was mostly discovery-based with creative and embodied practice as the methodology. After my first significant injury (from dance training), I asked different questions and wanted more specifics. My road led to dance kinesiology and eventually to exercise science.

I first learned about fascia from either my first rental of Anatomy Trains from the University of Montana library in 2001, or my first introduction of Ida Rolf that same year, or my dear friend Dawn (who is a biodynamic craniosacral therapist and my somatic research partner). I am glad I met the fascial matrix in my body before I met all of the anatomy parts I would study so intensely in the years to come. I never lost sight of the interconnected web that we are, even when I added the titles personal trainer, corrective exercise and performance enhancement specialist.

I recall always being intrigued by systems and complex thought experiments. Living and unseen systems and the relationships in the systems to be specific (to this day I can barely understand the mechanical function of my own car). I was 17 when I remembered, “everything is in relationship to everything else and the wisdom lies in the relating”. That first major injury in my 20’s I eventually came to know as sacroiliac joint dysfunction.

The injury coincided with 15 years of dance training and my first pregnancy. My philosophical and spiritual connection with systems spilled over to my desire to find a way out of pain and immobility. Since then I have been designing bodymind movement systems. The first gift received (and it is a gift that keeps on giving) was Somatic Groundwork, who has been my companion my entire adulthood. The journey has also led to the creation of a creative framework and professional program called Interdisciplinary Movement & Somatics.

fascia in movement

Back to fascia. My knowledge about fascia got a huge update when I joined Embodied Biotensegrity in 2018. Chris Clancy, career yoga teacher and teacher trainer, designed the Embodied Biotensegrity platform to bring the most prominent educators of fascia science and biotensegrity together with avid learners from the movement education and body therapy fields. The timing was perfect for me as I had just started the somakinese platform which attracted an international circle of movement teachers and therapists. Together, for more than 2 years, we addressed the discrepancies between classical anatomy and biomechanics with biotensegrity and the current fascial research. Alongside our deep discourse and community embodied practice, we realized the wisdom in our somatic inquiry is largely generated through our fascial system. Presence – process – participation.

While writing this blog post, I remembered writing a list in my iphone notes after listening to a podcast earlier this year. In the podcast the guest was asked, “what is fascia?” I recall feeling their answer was incomplete and lacked dimensionality. I eagerly took to my phone and tapped out this list to answer the question what is fascia:

• our sensory fabric giving us the gift of feeling felt
• our structural container expressing all that we have ever been and are in the moment
• the thing that connects every cell in our body to every other cell
• the thing that separates every part of our body from every other part allowing for differentiation + * spacialization between structures and systems (*thank you Joanne Avison)
• a living field that consciousness arises from
• a tuning system that listens, adapts and responds to vibration from light, sound, touch, electricity, wind and gravity
• a living architecture that deforms and reforms to maintain our tensional integrity as a body

At this point you might be wondering, “if fascia is everywhere in my body as a ubiquitous, continuous tissue then how is fascia in movement particularized?” I am sure there are many answers fascial therapists and movement teachers might offer. My answer: through a process of somatic inquiry and creative movement. Sensing practices bring our attention immediately to our fascial system and shifts the quality of sensory feedback sent to our brain. As our richest sensory organ, our fascial matrix is the way we feel ourselves in relationship . . . to everything.

somatic groundwork practice

Somatic Groundwork is a gentle movement and creative dance practice for deep recovery, improved coordination and embodied pleasure. Somatic Groundwork builds sensing skills from the ground up and the inside out with yielding and unwinding practices as the base. There are many flavors to Somatic Groundwork because the practice is more about how we approach practice rather than what we practice. Here is a video I just recorded that introduces an approach to unwinding by starting with a low lunge. The practice offers a tracking recipe for sensing fascia in movement that you can apply to any posture or form. I call this flavor of unwinding slow flow (see this post for an example of rock and roll Somatic Groundwork unwinding).

fascia as soft matter

There are several properties of fascia that come to mind that help us appreciate why unwinding practices are so vital to our health and felt-sense of movement liberation. In this post I am called to name the property of fascia as soft matter. Most of us have been taught our body functions like a human-made machine. Classical biomechanics applies the rules of machines to describe how our body functions (see this short lecture by Dr. Stephen Levin, founder of biotensegrity). Classical anatomy reduces our body to parts and then adds these parts back together again without adequately weaving relationship back into the picture (listen to this podcast with Joanne Avison on the Liberated Body).

Our bodies are living processes. We are not compression structures or fixed shapes. We are soft matter organisms that are in-formed, constantly re-shaping by the patterns that move through us. Soft matter is easily deformed (undergoes phase changes) by thermal fluctuations and mechanical stress. Consider trying to get ketchup out of a bottle. Even when the bottle is upside down, the ketchup isn’t sure whether to pour out or stay put. Give a hard thump on the base of the bottle (mechanical stress) and it will move more easily. Or if the ketchup is warmed from the refrigerator by sitting on the counter for 30 minutes (thermal fluctuation) the ketchup will pour more readily.

Fascia as soft matter is very sensitive to changes in tension-compression forces and will respond differently if the force is quick and direct or soft and sustained. A soft and sustained quality is met with a receptive response from our body and feels like the melting of tissue under hands or ease in our movement (flow state of fascia). A somatic approach is necessary for a therapeutic intervention as it lowers sympathetic tone and creates a felt-sense of embodied safety and support.

Self-myofascial unwinding through movement and soft-touch manual therapies are good choices for altering fascial fluid dynamics (slow intentional conversation with the body and warming of the tissues through movement or touch). For years my clients and students have expressed the benefits of Somatic Groundwork. They mention things like the reduction and elimination of chronic pain and emotional dis-stress, increase in mental clarity and vitality, and feelings of spaciousness and easy graceful movement.

Our fascial matrix demonstrates behaviors of both liquids and solids (+ any mesophase in between) and self-organization toward stability and minimal energy states. Getting curious about sensing while moving and allowing for a creative dance to unfold in the process is like the tuning of our body instrument to a harmonic state. Sensing into the fascial system and participating with your body’s impulses for movement is a powerful addition to your self-care rituals. Unwinding practices can be done from any position or posture, with attention to any body area, in whatever space you like and for 5 – 20 minutes most days of the week.