Practical details
Date: Sunday 17th November 2024
Time: 17.00 – 20.00 UK time. Check your timezone here
Presenter: Jaap van der Wal MD PhD, Anatomist-Embryologist and Phenomenologist
Title: Beyond the 'Anatomy of Fascia' - What the Embryo has to Tell Us. A phenomenological approach.
Summary:
For many decades Jaap van der Wal MD PhD has not only worked as a researcher and teacher in the functional anatomy of the musculoskeletal system, but he has also given seminars, webinars and lectures on phenomenological embryology. From the embryo he has learned that our body is not a spatial structure but a continuous process (which is true of all living things). In fact, the common anatomical view of the body corrupts the latter reality and has partly led to the shockingly false understanding that our body is like a biological 'machine', as the first great anatomist Andreas Vesalius (16th century) proposed in the first modern anatomy book ever published, entitled On the Fabrica of the Human Body.
In a three-hour webinar, Jaap will explain this complementary concept regarding the 'construction' of the human body and the role of fascia within it. Are we rather 'fabrica' (Vesalius) or 'fabric' as Stephen Levin (2012) quotes: "Fascia is the fabric of the body; not the garment (vestment) covering the body, but the warp and weft of the material". Who is right? The anatomist? The embryologist? Or are they both 'right' according to the complementary morphologist? Jaap will present his ideas from the point of view that the human 'embryo' is not a 'past' (just a phase in your early development), but in fact the biological actuality of the body as a process. "More than a body we are, more than a being we are becoming".
The dominant anatomical mindset in science (which always thinks of the whole as made up of parts) has led to a deeply ingrained view in our science that human movement is caused by a so-called musculoskeletal system, which should be thought of in biomechanical terms. Jaap's research into the organisation of connective tissue in the so-called Postural and Locomotor System (PLS) led, among other things, to the conclusion that the PLS should not be thought of as consisting of bones, muscles and joints, Similarly, proprioception is not organised in anatomical units such as bones, muscles and ligaments, but the architecture of the connective tissue (fascia) is the functionally shaping principle. Today there is even a tendency to speak of a fascial system that permeates the whole body.
The embryo can also provide a completely new and complementary insight into the organisation of our posture and movement. The idea that the human body is made up of three germ layers does not hold up phenomenologically. This tripartite arrangement of the human body can also be explained as a body concept with the fascia as the primordial inner self of the human being. This webinar will therefore argue that we should stop talking about the 'anatomy' of fascia and distinguish between 'fascia in the narrower sense' as part of the postural and musculoskeletal system and 'fascia in the broader sense' as an organ or domain or tissue of our inner self. All this is presented in a grand concept of coherence that appears in the embryo as a trans-anatomical triad, essentially related to the fact that we are not only body but also mind/soul. In other words, "beyond the anatomy of Vesalius".
See also Jaap's website https://www.embryo.nl/en/
What participants will learn from this presentation:
- That the four-century old anatomical view of man has corrupted the functional view of the human body and led to a biomechanical view of human posture and movement that is wrong. Or at least it is incomplete and needs to be supplemented by a complementary view of the organisation of fascia in the human body.
- Our morphology is also an expression of the fact that we are beings of mind and body, but that the Cartesian duality of mind and body can be overcome in a view of the body where polarity is central, and where the inside is constituted by the dimension of mesenchyme (including blood), which can then be considered as the real domain of fascia 'in a broad sense'.
- That we are not made up of cells, organs or other parts, but are, like any living being, an autopoietic ('self-creating') whole. "We created the body, we created it cell by cell” (Rumi). --That we as consciously perceiving and moving beings do not come out of our bodies, but through our bodies.
Supplementary information:
Classical morphology gave rise to the concept that the early embryo is organised into three 'germ layers', that our body is made up of these three 'building blocks', and that organs can be interpreted as derivatives of these three elements. Based on the embryology of Erich Blechschmidt, Jaap has developed a different concept. It is not about three equivalent germ layers, but rather that from the first week the human body consists of two body walls (parietal and visceral), represented by the ectoderm and the endoderm, with an 'in between'; a dimension that could be called the 'inner (tissue)' of the body. This dimension of the body is usually incorrectly referred to as the 'mesoderm'. It provides the primordial (connective) tissue of the body and could be seen as the precursor of fascia (in a broad sense). This approach to the threefold organisation of the human body may provide a far more logical and 'true' understanding of the functional architecture of the so-called PLS. It may also make us aware that the traditional, reduced muscle-focused view of the musculoskeletal system should be expanded to include the functional concept of biotensegrity as the architecture of the postural and musculoskeletal system.
In our normal daily movements, as well as in the widespread habit of 'stretching', for example, the muscle(s) do not appear to be the functional unit(s). (Even 'the brain' knows nothing about muscles). Also, the widespread idea that muscle/muscle tissue has a so-called contractile quality should be extended to the idea that muscle/muscle tissue is an integral part of the so-called fascia, similar to the skeleton.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION
All ticket holders will have access to the recordings of all the presentations until midnight 12th January 2025, UK time. An email with the link will be sent out soon after the event.
Sales of recordings will continue until 5th January ’25. Access ends 12th January '25.
After that date recordings will only be available in our On Demand Video Collection (see Home Page) at these prices:
Standard price: £45
Member price: £25
Presenter
Jaap van der Wal MD PhD, Anatomist-Embryologist and Phenomenologist
Dr. Jaap van der Wal worked until 2012 as senior lecturer (Associate Professor) in Anatomy and Embryology at the University of Maastricht, Holland. He is now retired from university and dedicates himself completely to his project Embryo in Motion training in Phenomenological Embryology and Dynamic Morphology. Since his graduation as a medical doctor (1973) he has become an anatomist-embryologist and specialized primarily in the functional anatomy of the locomotor system. In 1998 he graduated as an MD in this field with a dissertation on a ‘trans-anatomical’ view of human propriocepsis (sense of posture and locomotion). To read more about Jaap van der Wal please visit: https://www.embryo.nl/en/
IMPORTANT INFORMATION
All ticket holders will have access to the recordings of all the presentations until midnight Sunday 12th January ‘25, UK time. An email with the link will be sent out soon after the event.
Time/Date of Event
Event type
Online
Limited Replay
Zoom
5:00 pm UK time
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