A Fascial Journey

with Mark Finch, KMI Practitioner
BY CATHY RYAN
From Winter 2007 Issue: “Getting a feel for Fascia”

As I read through the listing of workshops being offered at the 2007 Toronto Yoga Show and Conference, the title of Mark Finch’s certainly caught my eye: Anatomy Trains and Asana. Fascial lines and Yoga, does it get any better than that? My appreciation of Yoga was thoroughly expressed in an article that appeared in the Fall 2007 issue of the magazine. My fascination with “all things fascial” will become abundantly clear over the next few issues. I recently attended the First International Fascia Research Congress held in Boston and will be sharing that experience via a series of articles to come. My practice is primarily fascial focused so, of course, I have an appreciation for Tom Myers work (Kinesis Myofascial Integration- KMI). The few hundred or so post-it notes sticking out of my ANATOMY TRAINS, Myofascial Meridians for Manual and Movement Therapists text and voluminous collection of his articles makes it is easy to surmise my level of interest. How could any manual therapist not be intrigued by, the continuum web that connects all? Mark is a KMI certified practitioner and at his workshop offered that perhaps an alternative and equally good title for Tom Myers book would have been: ANATOMY TRAINS, A String of Tofu Sausages. The sausage concept quite aptly provides a great visual analogy! Our cells, tissue fibres, muscles, bones, organs, etc., all linked together like a string of sausages … and very politically correct to add in the tofu part. In addition to Mark’s wealth of knowledge, I also appreciated his engaging and delightfully humorous teaching style. If you ever have the opportunity to attend one of Mark’s workshops …I encourage you to go, go, go! My interview with Mark is on the following pages.

Interview
Question: At your workshop, you touched on a number of fundamental fascial characteristics, one being global fascial compensations. Can you talk a bit about that and share with us a couple of classic or common examples that you often see in your practice.
Answer: Yes, but let me first define what I consider a fascial compensation. The fascial system should be a responsive body-wide web that adapts to movement and transfers strain in a coordinated manner. When this web loses its responsiveness it prevents the involved structures from moving in an optimal manner. In some cases by providing too much resistance to movement and in others by not providing enough stabilizing tension. A common example is the Superficial Back Line losing its responsiveness and holding the pelvis in an anteriorly shifted position, which is usually coupled with a posterior tilt of the thorax. The symptoms that this compensation presents are varied, but a skilled therapist will treat the underlying fascial cause, that is, the global ompensation.

Question: On the topic of compensation ... you spoke about how the fascial aspect of the body will adapt or compensate following trauma or when placed under duress. Essentially the body will develop a strategy in order to remain functional. However, that does not necessarily mean that this “strategy” results in optimal functioning. One of the key points you identified is, rather than attempting to just dismantle the “functional strategy” the body created for itself, it is important to work from the perspective of REPLACEMENT. Replace the old (less than optimal) strategy with a new, more efficient one. Can you elaborate on this and give us an example or two.
Answer: This is a great question, which is hard to answer in print. The idea that you alluded to is that as manual therapists we are usually trying to make structures longer and able to move more easily. This is half the story. For the fascial web to be responsive, the muscles that are embedding in this web (we can call them fascial engines), need to function in a co-ordinated manner. The right tissue must be contracting at the right time. This involves the brain and the state we call awareness. There are many ways we can educate our clients about having a more optimal strategy. The easiest and most practical advice I can give is to, ask the client to move while you are “effecting” the tissue. Having the client move the tissue you are working on in a precise way firstly, ensures their brain is paying attention to the tissue being treated, and secondly educates them  about the optimal  movement.

Question: Share with us a few of your most fundamental or what you consider most interesting understandings of the “life of fascia.”
Answer: Well, these have been  enriched and reframed after the Fascia Research Congress (www.fascia2007.com). We can say for sure that fascia transfers strain, and helps mediate the shape of the whole organism. Perhaps the most interesting new discoveries are of the abundance of sensory receptors in fascial tissue and the new insights regarding myofibroblasts. The discoveries, as usual, create more questions than they answer, but undoubtedly understanding how fascia releases and its role in our structure is an exciting field. From clinical experience, I would say it is clear that the responsiveness and integration of the fascial system – i.e. the body-wide web existing in a state of tensegrity – is key to the health of the whole organism. (FYI: for more on TENSEGRITY… Mark has an article posted on his website. For more on fascial research, check out the upcoming articles in future issues of Massage Therapy Canada magazine and visit the website listed above.)

Question: When we sat down for a chat following the workshop you mentioned that your treatment approach is more principle based rather than technique focused. Not that I have an opinion or anything, BUT ... I was thrilled to hear you say that!!! Please share with us your philosophy on this topic.
Answer: The body has a person inside it. This is a good thing to remember when we are learning techniques for this structure and that. We are not so much a collection of structures (that can each have techniques attached to them) but a complex system of dynamic tissues all co-ordinated by a brain that is functioning in a perceptual environment. The first question I ask myself is, “what does the client need next?” I try to look from as many different angles as possible. I would say integration and responsiveness are two of the principles I gravitate toward. When you work in a principle-based way, the techniques are informed by the client’s body. Sure, there are tricks about how to access tissues and it helps to know the geography of the anatomy, but when it comes to changing the tissue, every person’s body is slightly different.

Question: As we (manual therapists) are well aware, tissue tension changes occur for a number of reasons. Can you speak to the classic features associated with neurological holding patterns vs post-injury/duress tissue compensations?
Answer: Well they are similar in my mind; the difference is that in an injured tissue there is afferent input coming from the tissue, which is likely to be driving the muscular holding pattern. In the neurological holding pattern (barring pathology) the holding is coming from the perception of threat in the brain, the distortion of spatial awareness, or what has been called aptly kinesthetic amnesia.

Question: In Anatomy Trains, Tom Myers talks about the “locked short and locked long” issue or as I was taught: eccentric vs  concentric tension. You noted that typically it is the locked long or eccentrically tense tissue that more commonly elicits pain. Why is that?
Answer: Another good question. Firstly, clinical experience confirms this time and time again. From a physiological standpoint, my understanding is that greater afferent input is generated from tissue stretched beyond its normal resting length than visa versa. After attending the recent Fascial research congress though, there could be many explanations.

Question: I read somewhere that Ida Rolf never intended for her work to be called ROLFING but that she referred to it as Structural Integration. From my perspective, the INTEGRATION element is really key. This year I attended a number of workshops at the Toronto and Grand Geneva Yoga Conferences. One of the common themes expressed by the various instructors was the importance of function in addition to form. Simply achieving a certain “look” or the form of the asana was not really the point. The more  expanded value being the function that is achieved along with one’s awareness of the shifts or changes. From the perspective of a Structural Integrationist, can you speak to this and the importance of the individual’s observation of the change in addition to achieving physical-restructuring.
Answer: The individual’s observation of change is probably the most significant predictor of making permanent change occur in the body. One of the ways I like to define integration is the ability of the brain to co-ordinate the myofascial system in such a way that all the involved joints are held in their neutral zone. The body image or the nervous system control that we call awareness or perception is the mechanism by which the brain knows where the body is in space, and how it is moving.

Question: Can you provide us with a couple of fascial line/associated asana examples?
Answer: The simple answer is to say that in a forward bend the superfiscial back line is stretching, in a back bend it’s the superfiscial front line etc. This is too simplistic though. In optimal function all the lines are active almost all the time, the question is how much and in which ways. Some lines are stretching strongly and others are stabilizing subtly. The goal is to free the tissues and educate the brain to the point we can move toward a state of coordinated fascial tensegrity. • For more information and a listing of Mark’s upcoming schedule, visit his website: www.markfinch.ca

KMI (Kinesis Myofascial Integration) was developed by Thomas Myers from the  pioneering work of Dr Ida P Rolf. KMI consists of a multi-session protocol (usually 12) of deep, slow, fascial and myofascial manipulation, coupled with movement re-education. The KMI method of structural integration concentrates on doing deep, lasting, and significant work. The KMI ‘recipe’ for structural integration is based around the “Anatomy Trains Myofascial  Meridians” www.anatomytrains.net. The goal of KMI is to unwind the strain patterns residing in your body's locomotor system, restoring it to its natural balance, alignment, length, and ease. Common strain patterns come about from inefficient movement habits, and our body's response to daily stresses. Individual strain patterns come from imitation when we are young, from the invasions of injury or surgery or birth, and from our body's response to traumatic episodes. What starts as a simple gesture of response, can become a neuro-muscular habit. The habitual movement forms one's posture, and the posture eventually changes the structure of the body's connective tissue ‘fabric.’ When we are injured or stressed, no matter the source, there is a neuro-muscular response – usually involving some combination of contraction, retraction, immobility, and often rotation. These patterns put some muscles under strain (where they develop painful trigger points) and also pulls at this fascial fabric, requiring it to shift, thicken, glue itself to surrounding structures, and otherwise compensate for the excess sustained muscular holding. Especially for chronic and long-held patterns, it is not enough to release the muscular holding, though that is definitely a good start. Freeing and repositioning the fascial fabric, along with re-integrating the movement patterns so that they stay easily in their proper  positioning, is the aim of KMI. Through a careful, progressive manipulation of the body’s ubiquitous organ of shape and structure, the myofascial web, a structural reorganization can take place in our bodies. The goal of structural integration is to balance the myofascial system of the body. Yoga is the ideal practice to complement structural integration. The yoga asanas (postures) each help to lengthen lines of myofascia. A consistent and thorough practice promotes and maintains balance over the whole myofascial system. Yoga also deepens the internal awareness and flow of the breath, two aspects of health that are
vital to full and efficient functioning.

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From Winter 2007 Issue: “Getting a feel for Fascia”