Yoga: Fascia, Anatomy and Movement: Fascia, Form and Functional Movement

This does not mean there is no need to learn your anatomy. It does mean that you should recognise it as a (topographical) map within a continuous territory that senses itself in space and in response to gravity, continuously: “read in your anatomy the neglected story between the lines; that is the continuity”.

Our bones (which Levin refers to as “starched fascia”) are designed via the day-to-day management of forces, of our reaction to the ground (or pull of gravity towards it). We

In a biotensegrity structure there is a continuous tension network in which discontinuous compression elements are suspended. The compression struts do not touch each other. This is the first challenge to notions derived from general anatomy books. Our bones do not touch each other and, according to Levin, the cartilage lining our joints in the liv

“The neuronal circuit controlling the rhythmic movements in animal locomotion is called the central pattern generator (CPG). The biological control mechanism appears to exploit mechanical resonance to achieve efficient locomotion.”

How this body-wide sensory system works could be likened to a kind of hierarchy in a walled city, where everyday details of the housekeeping do not bother the “head office” of the central nervous system: the brain. In this metaphor there are gatekeepers, regulating at various levels of management, throughout the whole connected sensory architecture

motility.

Accusing an anatomist (or several generations of them) of designing anatomy instead of revealing it rocked a very big boat.

Fascia responds all the time, so we can consider what we do in our default patterns as part of its training and loading history. Ignoring it all day and then remembering to “sit right” just for the yoga session, is asking a lot of that yoga practice.

Mae-Wan Ho, The Rainbow and the Worm: The Physics of Organisms, 3rd edition, World Scientific Publishing,