Not that long ago many yoga classes were very focused on achieving and holding a posture; nowadays they may very well concentrate more on developing our somatic awareness as we are encouraged to unfold, unfurl and unspiral our limbs, and to be aware of the effect on the whole body of one small movement. This change in approach is spreading across many disciplines as we start to understand our bodies differently.
We have tended to perceive the body, in the past, according to traditional biomechanical principles, with a sense of separation of one limb from another, the torso from the legs, etc., a view reinforced by surgical specialisations, even though many of us have found this counterintuitive. Our body’s intelligence relays back to us a sense of its full continuity, if we listen to it. When we work on our clients or encourage our movement students in their practice, just watching or feeling their bodies reinforces that sense of one, whole, organism that moves and flows in a fully connected way, that connectivity perhaps only disrupted by scarring or injury.
More and more, our increased understanding of the body as a whole, constantly adapting organism where body and mind inter-relate, rather than as the Cartesian ‘body as machine’, is not only making more sense but is being backed by research. As John Sharkey says, “Modern science may now be catching up with the natural and ancient wisdom of our unbroken, unified, ubiquitous fascial fabric that research is demonstrating may be the bridge between mind and body”. In this very accessible paper John takes us from “…dissection room to yoga practice”, looking at how this new awareness of our biotensegral nature can only affect how we teach our students or practice in our clinics. If biotensegrity is new to you, this paper also serves as a good overall introduction to the concept and how it is applied to our living form.
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Posted in tags: blog, Jan Trewartha
Jan Trewartha
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