Fascia: The Body Wide Web
What do you know about fascia? The first time I heard the word was in a yin class. And for years, this was the only context through which I encountered it - usually broadly referred to as ‘connective tissue’ with a quietly spoken assumption that this long hold style of practice was ‘good for it’ (when approached intelligently, it can be, but yin yoga absolutely isn’t the only way to experience the fascia).
Since then I’ve got more curious about how we can sense our fascia through somatic movement and the links between this tissue of connectivity, consciousness and a wider sense of wholeness. Much of the information here is informed by my recent Tiny & Vast training with Paula Andreewitch, in particular an informative and eye-opening lecture with expert in the field Helen Eadie. I’ve also taken inspiration from Joanne Avison’s wonderful book Myofascial Magic in Action and her excellent podcast which I fully recommend for anyone curious to learn more.
Fascia is a big broad curious topic and it’s pretty hot in contemporary anatomy right now. Here’s a breakdown on what fascia is and how it can change the way we feel in our practice.
What is fascia?
Yes, fascia is our connective tissue. But to give more detail, it’s also continuous, self-organising and multi dimensional. It encompasses the whole of you, forming a constantly evolving living matrix between all the other intricate internal systems at play in the body. Texturally, it is best described as ‘bound water’, rather than experienced as free flowing it holds a certain viscosity, existing as a liquid-crystal matrix of ever changing layers. In one word you could describe it as alive.
Anatomy literally means ‘to cut up’, with much of the classical approach to the discipline born of dissection, where the fascia was quite literally discarded in order to study the good stuff (the organs, the bones, the muscles). Early anatomists saw fascia as a packing material. From the growing perspective of contemporary anatomy, we learn that it is so much more.
According to John Sharkey’s interdisciplinary definition:
“Fascia is a pre-tensioned, dynamic, unified, uninterrupted, complex, body-wide network of fibrous, cellular and adipose tissues surrounding, penetrating, supporting and compartmentalising all structures from the cellular level to the organ system levels of the body.”
In short, fascia is the tissue that connects the whole.
Moving from and for the fascia
Your fascia wants to move. It’s in its emergent nature to adapt, to communicate and to constantly express itself. Through movement, the fascia is able to articulate this continuity, and through lack of movement it develops stiffness that we may feel through a reduced range of motion and limitations in the body. This is different from the range of motion defined by the shape and structure of your bones and instead, is a tightness that relates to holding patterns that form over time or due to a particularly narrow way in which you use your body.
The fascia listens, learns and repeats. What you do, your fascia becomes. That means when we move in surprising, curious, circular, rounded and spirallic patterns we open the possibility to so much freedom and potential through the tissues. Equally, if we move in very restricted ways, or even not at all, this is what the connective tissue replicates.
This is just one of the reasons why I seek to create moments of the unexpected in our movement practices (this is of course balanced with things that feel familiar and progressive too - a class of 100% surprises would be pure chaos for everyone involved!)
Fascia as consciousness
What if matter and form were a textural phase of consciousness itself? This is the theory suggested by Dr Iain McGilchrist - that matter exists as the expressed potential of consciousness. In this form, sensory nerves form an intricate web within the myofascial matrix, allowing us to self-sense. This is the dance of interoception we play with in somatic yoga practices, where the fascia can become a means towards whole body thinking and therefore, belonging.
As Joanne Avison said in a recent episode of her podcast:
“Spirituality is often described as transcendence but lived, practical spirituality often feels like a deeper in-habiting. More like deepening into the presence of being you. Feeling more yourself, more real, more coherent with your original nature. Fascia is what allows that inhabiting to be felt and experienced, to make sense of it. It’s the tissue of belonging. It’s all yours. It’s all animated by you in your way. As you have since conception.”
How does that sit with you? There’s a certain tingling and aliveness that I feel just from knowing that there’s this beautiful complex web intelligently working beneath the surface. Just an acknowledgement that this web exists, makes me want to move and explore.
This really is the briefest of introductions into a really huge topic that I’m incredibly excited to continue studying and sharing with you. Come to class this month to find out more.