your practice
ANATOMY
76
april 2018
yogajournal.com.au
Feel your fascia
YNTHIA SING; STYLIST: JESSIC
RACE
OUR PROWriterTom Myersis the author ofAnatomy Trainsand the co-author ofFascial
Release for Structural Balance.He has also produced more than 35 DVDs and numerous
webinars on visual assessment, Fascial Release Technique, and the applications of fascial
research. Myers, an integrative manual therapist with 40 years of experience, is a member
of the International Association of Structural Integrators and the Health Advisory Board for
Equinox. Learn more atanatomytrains.com.
The benefits of thinking of the body as a whole organism, instead of
in parts, are profound. When we truly comprehend and feel this in our
own bodies and see it in our students, we can move and teach with
more integrity. That said, as yoga becomes physiotherapised, or made
into a practice resembling physical therapy that helps people restore
movement and function (a necessary and positive process in general),
asana are often reduced to which muscles are stretched—think
“Downward Dog is good for your hamstrings.” In reality, while tight
hamstrings may be a common experience, your edge in this pose
may be deep in your calves or butt, or along the fronts of your
shoulders. It depends on your patterns—the way you were grown
and what you took on.
Try this exercise to help you feel that your anatomy is more like a
plant than a machine, and to help you move away from separating
yourself into parts:
Adho Mukha Svanasana Downward-Facing Dog Pose
Move into Down Dog. It is easy to feel your back body in this pose as you lift
your hips, drop your heels from the middle of your legs, and lengthen your
spine. But take time to spread your awareness and attention throughout your
entire body in order to find points that lack awareness and are unique to your
experience of this pose. Here are some points to ponder:
- Track the front of your spine in this pose, as if you were rolling a warm red
ball up the front of your spine from your tailbone, up the front of your sacrum
and the lumbar and thoracic vertebrae, then behind your guts and heart. - Relax your voice box, then your tongue, then your jaw. Let your head
dangle. Let yourself be stupid for a moment, then re-establish the length in
your cervical spine without the tension. - Move your breath into the back of your ribs, which can be frozen in your early
work in this pose. Can you feel the ribs moving under your shoulder blades?
Are you moving your lower ribs behind your kidneys? - Move your weight around your feet while in the pose. This can be subtle
but powerful. If your heels are off the ground, move slowly, medially then
laterally, on t
rest of your b
like a clock: A - Because the
limiting in thi
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keep working
Remember, y
Someone ma
you as a mac
not the scien
wholeness is
fi bres and the drier the mucous, the less the
fascial web allows molecules to fl ow through it—
nourish-ment in one direction and waste in the
other. Yoga helps both stretch and ease the fi bre
webbing, as well as hydrate the gel, making it more
permeable.
New research shows that this web of proteins
runs down through the membranes of each cell
and connects both aspects of the connective-tissue
web through the cytoskeleton to the cell nucleus.
This means that when you’re doing yoga stretches,
you are actually pulling on your cells’ DNA
and changing how it expresses itself. Thus,
the mechanical environment around your cells
can alter the way your genes function.
We’ve known for a while that the chemical
environment (hormones, diet, stress catecholamines,
and more) can do this, but these new connections
explain some of the deeper changes we see when
people start practicing regularly.
More on that mechanical environment:
Cells are never more than four deep from your
capillaries, which excrete food, oxygen, messenger
molecules (neuropeptides like endorphins),
and more. Tension in your body—slumping your
shoulders forward, for example—prompts the
fi broblasts (the most common cells found in
connective tissue) to make more fi bres that will
arrange themselves along the line of stress.
These bulked-up fascial fi bres will form a barrier
that will slow or stop capillary-sourced food from
reaching your cells. You’ll get enough to survive,
but function will slow down. In addition to a
thicker barrier of fascial-tissue fi bres, the mucus
that completes your fl uid fascial network will
also become thicker and more turgid, which
contributes to stopping the fl ow to your cells.
And because the exchange of goods from
capillaries to cells is a two-way street, with cells
delivering messenger molecules and CO2 and
other waste products back into the bloodstream,
a hardened fascial network can trap unprocessed
cell products (toxins or metabolites) like a
stream eddy traps leaves.
The fi x: deep strengthening and stretching
squeezes your fascial network the way you would
squeeze a sponge. Those metabolites that were
trapped in the mucousy bits rush in hoards to the
capillaries and your bloodstream. Many of us may
feel out of sorts after we release deeply held
tension-—that’s your liver dealing with the
metabolites you squeezed from the tissues.
Try an Epsom salts bath, or go back for more
movement to keep the process going.
Over yoga time, fascial fi bres will slowly thin out
and unadhere over weeks, sometimes months, but
the mucus can change to a more liquid state in as
quickly as a minute, allowing more sliding, less pain,
more feeling, and less resistance. Use your yoga—it’s
a great tool to get fl uids and information fl owing to
their maximum sensitivity and adaptability.
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