Australian Yoga Journal - April 2018

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


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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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