With so much going on about fascia in general, Anatomy Trains in particular, and this site in the middle, I though I would share a clarifying piece of an email I just received from James Earls, the head of Kinesis in UK. He and I are coming out with a book soon on Fascial Release. So, are we doing fascial release, Anatomy Trains, of KMI? (KMI is our flagship training in a Rolf-evolved integrative bodywork).
Fascial Release is a technique, a way of getting malleable but tough tissue – the sinews that hold us together – to relent long enough for the movement pattern to change. There are lots of people using such techniques, and other techniques that can be incorporated into the fascial release domain. It’s this simple: some massage techniques done deeper, slower, and with an awareness of the ‘wave’ in the fascia become Fascial Release Technique – by definition, but not necessarily in origin. ‘There is nothing new under the sun of manipulation’, said Ida Rolf, and I still find this true 30 years and many brand names after her death.
Anatomy Trains is a model – a map of how the myofascia connects in longitudinal slings around the body. As a map, it is neither definitive nor exhaustive, and it certainly is not the territory of the lived, whole body. But it is a useful map with explanatory power, especially in long-term problems where postural compensation has set in.
KMI – SI is a process whereby we gently and progressively unfold the client’s pattern toward something more complete, more open, more aligned, and juicier. We use the Fascial Release techniques as a modus operandi, and we use the Anatomy Trains as an organizing map, but KMI is a modus vivendi – a way of bringing all this to bear on the art of life and living in a structured, moving body.