Intro to Fascia

Purpose of Wisdom Training

This training seeks to help you understand the new science of fascia that is reshaping the world of movement, and how we can incorporate it into our yoga practice. We also hope to show you along the way that this new science is in perfect alignment with the original science of Yoga itself. The science of fascia is exciting exactly because it is in such perfect alignment with the most ancient precepts of the Yogic tradition. 

Patanjali’s original asana instructions of effortless effort and perseverance without tension are the same kinds of instructions that fascia has initiated in movement experts around the world. We are moving away from a  no pain no gain mentality, that seeks to command the body from the top down, to a smooth motion cures commotion reality that seeks to move with, not against, the body’s innate intelligence.

Fascia is a river, literally and figuratively, and with practice we can learn to swim with it as we move through our life. As Babaji puts it: "you open your heart and you let go of your little self. You surrender and you allow the energy to flow. Then wonderful energy and deep wisdom can come through” 

What is Fascia?

You have encountered fascia thousands of times in your life in various ways. One of the most obvious ways is when you eat and orange or a grapefruit. The white fluffy substance that surrounds the fruit itself is a superficial layer of fascia. When we encounter fascia it is usually when the organism is no longer alive, so we see it in its most crystallized form, but in our body the fascia is a gel like, mucuousy substance that acts a living bridge between layers of our body, as well as the muscles bones and nerves in those layers, down to the cellular level. The next time you look at an orange, notice not only the fluffy exterior of fascia between the skin and the fruit, but also the transparent layers that separate the slices, and the the even smaller pieces within that. 

How can fascia be so all pervasive? Because it has been forming alongside every cell in our body since we first divided as an embryo. “When the human embryo is about two to three weeks old, the fascia begins to form from the mesoderm.” as the connecting layer in your cell structure. And every time your cells divided or multiplied, it divided and multiplied too, becoming the link between every cell in your body. 

As the amount of cells in these networks increased, so did the fascia, eventually creating infinitely complex super highways capable of transporting both nutrients and information globally within the organism. Much like an overhead view of a modern city would look to us. 

This kind of team work was not always so abundant though. 2.75 billion years ago, this planet was populated by single cell organisms with no fascia. These cells (bacteria, algae, protozoans) each survived on their own, it was challenging and inefficient. 

For billions of years this was the way, until 750 million years ago when the first cells started to team up and work together. They formed loose communities of single-celled organisms, at first just 10- 100 cells. 

These cells had to communicate with each other about their internal and external environments, they had to share energy, fluids and transport waste— to do this a connective tissue itself was formed, a pathway for the cells to communicate and work together. Our Fascia is the physical infrastructure of our cellular communities, it is the road upon which goods are carried in and waste is carried out. But it is also the communication super highway, through which information is shared about our internal and external environment. This connectivity of fascia which made multi cellular life possible became an enormous advantage for survival, and soon these small groups become larger and larger and larger, always gaining advantage through their connectivity.

This ability soon created groups of cells that numbered into the millions, billions, and trillions. Humans are a conglomeration of almost 38 trillion cells working together— and the means by which they work together is through their fascia. 

This work did not just make the cell groups a little more efficient, it made them exponentially more efficient. 10 cells working together is not just 10 times more effective, it’s 10 to the tenth power more effective. You can feel this exponential quality when you see a gazelle or kangaroo jump— the muscles and bones alone cannot physically account for their springy leap, only the their fascial connective tissue can generate such exponential possibilities. 

IN our daily life we experience fascial miracles in every step we take. Did you know that humans walk with almost no caloric expense? It would seem that to take a step takes energy, but because of our fascia, the energy you use to take a step is stored and recycled into the next step, creating  near perfect economy of motion. 

Fascial work is exponential, and that’s why we don’t have to approach it like we do our normal ‘no pain no gain’ reductionist style fitness programs. The power of fascia is in its unity, in its team work— and anyone who has worked on a team knows that the sum is greater than the parts. It’s not about muscling through something, its about working as holistically as possible. 

As Shambhavananda has said about a sangha: “When we get the sangha together, we can move mountains of wood, mountains of tension, and mountains of fear. When we plug into the collective shakti, transformations are possible.” Team work is really how the dream works.