I'm putting the finishing touches on the Active Isolated Stretching manual for our workshop this weekend.  We will be teaching techniques that involve a unique combination of movement and touch to access the spine and pelvis in ways that are otherwise difficult to reach. Dynamic movement within the context of our myofascial principles is powerful and yet still respectful of the tissue. 

While I was working, I revisited the writing and insights of Aaron Mattes, founder of this approach and technique.  I wandered through his introduction and came across some gems to share:

We are super excited to be presenting a synthesis of our manual therapy approach to the abdomen--specifically focusing on chronic digestive patterns in the small intestine (such as SIBO)--coming up next weekend. 

As many of you who treat these conditions know, they can be complex and often defy available diagnostic categories and treatment protocols (e.g. patients often relapse, symptoms can be beguiling and mysterious, and lab results can run contrary to the patient experience).   In our course, together we will explore a holistic understanding -- combining a felt-sense approach to the abdomen with insights from both osteopathic and classical Chinese medicine.  We hope it will serve towards the further understanding and treatment of these difficult cases.

Hi all,

I have been engaged in some ongoing subterranean contemplating about the vagus nerve and our touch-oriented work. One of my favorite means of studying is to hold within myself what I call, "open questions". Questions that are difficult to answer but the pursuit of them can continue to deepen and evolve my understanding about the topic in question. Open questions are fun because they just exist out there (or in here) and often insights will be stimulated by encountering some seemingly unrelated idea or phrase or poem or perspective - something that allows me to see the question or topic slantwise. I like slantwise seeing.

I’ve been wanting to share this web article since I found it a couple weeks ago. The images are incredible – please go look now before reading any further – you can find them here.

Working with the myofascia gives us a distinct and practical orientation within the tissue realm. The myofascia orients us to the specific manifestation of connective tissue as it serves the movement and stabilizing properties of the musculature.

Why focus on this specifically? One reason is that it is readily accessible and, because it is so involved with how we move through the world, it is highly communicative.

On a Monday afternoon in early November, the self-taught fascial explorer (somanuat) and seminarian of the body, Gil Hedley, gave a stunning four-and-a half hour talk.  His talk centered around the question – “What is my body?”.  The talk plumbed at depths that the question doesn’t immediately reveal.

Guess what!? Fascia researcher Jean-Claude Guimberteau compares our inner form to the complex, chaotic branchings within forest structures. He says (in a thick French accent):

“Very often people think that chaos makes no sense. But in fact if you look to a tree in your garden. Try to find a sort of order along the branches.  There is no order as humans consider order.  The branch repartition is chaotic.  It’s a disordered pattern. But it’s a tree. And it’s a perfect tree.  
 

We have to accept how our body is made with a similar architecture.”

Raise your hand if you have felt a little bit like this lately. Lot going on these days, no? 

We found this stark and stunning representation of the human nervous system while getting prepared for upcoming workshop season and couldn’t resist sharing it with you! 

Check out this passage on the embryological origin of the meridian system! If you've been in classes with me you may have heard me talk about the possibility that the meridians were laid down in the fascial matrix along the embryological path of migration taken by their respective organ.

A new patient recently came in with acute sciatic pain. She was 69 years old, super spunky and hardly able to walk. She had been immobile for about a week. She said that the day of the appointment was the first day she was able to walk. She walked into the clinic favoring her right side and slightly bent forward. Walking up the stairs was quite difficult for her. She had nerve pain referring down to her foot following the gall bladder channel. 

I could not appreciate my good fortune. My first year at Bastyr University a classmate and massage therapist introduced me to craniosacral therapy. A few weeks into medical school her teacher offered a seminar, which several of us took–we students couldn’t get enough.

(Photo Credit: Cira Crowell)

The name comes from Zen Master Dogen’s Mountains and Waters Sutra. We like to think the name connects us to landscape. The landscapes that shape our sense of place in the northwest like Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams, the Umpqua, and the White Salmon.

This “mountains and waters” world is home.

I like to think of reconnecting to our felt sense as a re-wilding of the body: shutting off and turning away from mechanized ways of knowing and interacting, and reconnecting with ourselves and each other more organically.  

I was thrilled to see this short article on the Thoracolombar Aponeurosis (or thoracolumbar fascia, TLF, as it's termed in the article). If you have studied with me you know how important I think this structure is! The TLF is primary to treating any issue that involves the low back or the pelvis.

Jean-Claude Guimberteau, surgeon and fascial researcher, posits that the fascia is not just connective but that it is constitutive. His research led him to the idea that fascia is the constitutive component of the human form. 

Ahoy Somonauts! Some of you may be wondering what exactly a Somonaut is . . . Well, it's a term one of our compatriots, Gil Hedley, coined, it means "explorers of the body." Gil - the original Somonaut - has amazing fascial dissection seminars available for free viewing online at gilhedley.com 

I love this article on the Long Thoracic Nerve.  It's so clear and it helped me to understand why some of the approaches I'd found for treating shoulder issues were so helpful. Somewhere along the line I began exploring treating the lateral ribs, just anterior and inferior to the lateral border of the scapula (or just below the armpit). I began working in both the intercostal spaces and on the serratus anterior and lat.

In the days after I posted the tumblr article discussing Lynda Barry's influence on some of my approaches to teaching, I came across this article in the New York Times about medical schools’ use of art as a way to cultivate students’ perceptive skills. I have long been fascinated with blending art and medicine in multiple ways and it's fun to see examples like this.

This book is never far from reach and, often in my mind. The concepts I encountered in this strange little book have altered the way I understand the inter-relationship between content and medium. Meaning, there is a content we are endeavoring to explore and understand – the body. And then there is the medium, or way, by which we do that. Syllabus changed my understanding of the medium.

As promised, I want to discuss another article from the current issue of Massage and Bodywork Magazine.  The timing is so fortunate with our workshop season about to begin (MFR I is next weekend!).  This article is written by the French surgeon, Jean-Claude Guimberteau.  Many of you will be familiar with him from his film, Strolling Under the Skin.  Here’s a link to a half hour excerpt – totally worth watching!