From the Film Fascinating Fascia
For Those Local to North London
Yoga for Healthy Lower Backs Course - Starts February 23rd 2024
7 Places Left!
A twelve-week course which supports you to better understand and support your back.
We’ll work with posture, breath, relaxation, anatomical approaches, the physiology of pain, mindfulness and much more. This is a holistic, scientifically validated approach that has changed many people’s lives for the better.
New Weekly In-Person Holistic Yoga Classes at Shiva-Shakti Studio!
Starting on Tuesday, March 5th 7pm - 8:15pm - Holistic Yoga Ease
Starting on Thursday, March 7th - 10am - 11:15am - Holistic Yoga
Dear Yoga Practitioner,
Life keeps getting in the way of me finishing the series of posts about samkara in the kosha, the engrained patterns, or habits in the five layers or aspects of our being. Right now I am surrounded by textbooks and printouts of research papers on hypermobility spectrum disorder, chronic pain, sacroiliac joint dysfunction, non-specific lower back pain and my favourite topic of all, fascia.
It feels like the essay I’m writing has been brewing within me for decades. Now it is starting to take shape I’m feeling all the strands of my own experience of living with, learning from, feeling and sensing into, experimenting with and being humbled by this incredible living, aware, responsive, container that is the fascial network of my body.
What is Fascia?
Fascia is a confusing word as it has many meanings medically. The way I describe it to people sometimes is, that it’s the white parts you see on that diagram of the muscles. The white strip you see down the side of the thigh is the iliotibial or IT band, made of fascia. The sole of the foot has strips of fascia running from the heel towards the toes, which is where we can get plantar fasciitis. There is a sheet of fascia around and above the sacrum that is called the thoracolumbar fascia. You might notice some or all of these areas might get a little grumpy in. your body, on occasion. And that is one of the properties of fascia. It tells you how it feels.
Tom Myers, who has been studying fascia for decades, explained in a lecture that we talk to our muscles (motor control of the muscle fibres). But we listen to our fascia (sensory impressions come from millions of nerve endings sitting within the fascial network).
The Fascial Network
The other way I describe fascia to clients is fascia is the the white or clear stuff, that isn’t fat that surrounds, segments and contains and holds all the other parts of the body together. This stuff is continuous with the white bits we see on the muscle diagram but it goes deeper, there are layers and layers of it under our skin, around each segment of each muscle, around and within the joints, around the organs and parts of the organs, and around each blood vessel. Fascia is found at both the macro and microscopic levels of the body. It surrounds each individual muscle fibre and is even found at the cellular level. Cells are not just amorphous blobs or bubbles, they are structured in a particular way following the principles of tensegrity.
If we took away all the other stuff in our body, except for our fascia, we would still be recognisable to our friends. This is the level of detail of the fascial network. This living, sensing, intelligent structure holds all our wobbly bits together. It gives us support and padding and transmits forces through our body. The fascial network also tells us how we feel, and where we are in space. It lets us know about temperature, stretch, release, twisting, pressure, texture and load.
Movement Medicine
Mindful movement such as yoga may be viewed as a deep communication with the fascial network. By consciously moving the fascia, we encourage sliding and gliding of the layers of fascia and muscles, thereby unknitting stuck planes of fascia and creating more mobility, freedom and comfort. Our fascia knits up into firmer and stiffer structures the more we sit still. This is why we feel achy after sitting at a desk or in a car for too long. The achiness is an invitation to mindful movement, which reverses this knitting-up process, and eases out the built-up tension.
Knowing Where We Are
Moving with awareness also enables us to feel where we are in space, thus improving our balance and enabling more dexterity and control of our movement within the surrounding environment. This is known as proprioceptive and exteroceptive awareness. This helps us to feel more “in” our bodies, more grounded and present, and more aware of what is around us. In my own experience, it helps me to feel more safe and at home in the world. This kind of awareness helps me to feel more confident and calm.
Knowing How We Feel
Fascia also communicates sensory data about how we are feeling within, this is called interoceptive awareness. The feeling of fullness after a meal, the sense of relief as we lower into a warm bath, the butterflies in our tummy, the lump in our throat, the creepy sensation between our shoulder blades… All these sensations are communicated through fascia. Interoception is linked strongly to our sense of intuition, gut feeling and inner wisdom. Fascia is communicating with us all the time… all we need to do is take the time to listen.
I’m so looking forward to teaching more in-person classes in March! If you’ve not been able to make the Monday 1:30pm class at Union Church, there soon be more possibilities. The Tuesday evening will be similar to Monday’s classes, I’ll share therapeutic accessible yoga which is ideal if you feel tired, achy, stiff or are new to yoga. The Thursday class is a more general hatha yoga class with some somatic movement, meditation and yoga philosophy threaded through.
With love and good wishes,
Julia
Fascinating! I'm very intrigued by the idea that fascia plays a part in "our sense of intuition, gut feeling and inner wisdom". Thank you.