Is Fascia Still Fascinating?
If we could release, free or deform our fascia in the way that we once thought; our feet would collapse by walking, our face would look rearranged after vigorously washing it, our bum would be flat after sitting and falls would be frequent and could be fatal.
What we know for sure is that fascia is an extremely tough fabric of the body that can withstand immense force in order to hold us together.
And it is simply not significantly changed by foam rolling, massage or yin yoga. Any release is temporary and mainly due to factors surrounding nervous system response much more than any manipulation whether that’s hands on or a pose.
Good ideas circulate around fascias qualities all the time and that’s only ever exciting to us as movement optimists – but we need to stick to the current evidence rather than overly invest In emerging but unsubstantiated claims.
Is it a magical, incredible communication network? Yes!
Is it untapped in its potential ? Very possible yes.
Does it have wonderful properties? Absolutely.
Is it fascinating? Undeniably.
But the problem with speaking like that, without context, is we have possibly, particularly in yin yoga,have overly sold it.
Substitute this with say, the kidneys, tendons, our blood and try again.
Are the KIDNEYS a wonderful communication network? Yes.
Are TENDONS untapped in their potential? Very possibly yes.
Does our BLOOD have wonderful properties!. Absolutely.
Is the whole body fascinating. Undeniably.
And this is how anatomists, with no axe to grind, no product to sell, no trainees to attract will teach you. And anatomists teaching me is where I ended up on my lengthy fascia quest.
But before I wind the clock back and tell you how I realised I’d trained teachers with misinformation let’s clarify some common fascia misconceptions that persist.
Massage/rolling – we don’t break down scar tissue, knots or adhesions, and it would be bad news if we could, the body simply isn’t that fragile or easily changed in structure. Collagen fibres are as strong as steel so imagine the force needs to break them as suggested in physio or bodywork claims.
The feel good stuff from massage or manipulation comes from the CNS not fascia specifically or independently. We are humans who generally like and respond well to touch, we cannot ever specifically say we are interacting or creating a response from one system only.
Full remodelling of the fascia can take 3 years and that’s debated a bit but when we suggest that rolling and massage rehydrate tissues by creating natural lubrication and cell exchange we need to check again. It’s not as dramatically hydrating as it’s made to sound, it’s not water and if we were sedentary we would slosh like water balloons when we stood up if this was the case. There just isn’t enough solid evidence to support a lot of what we claim in movement in regard to fascia qualities and tissue characteristics.
The question we ask shouldn’t be how do I find definites but why do we need to?
The core is more and more viewed as a facial loop around the spine that integrates the centre of us with the limbs rather than just a set of muscles that always need to be contracted as many different movements methods advocate but we need to also be vigilant to the large amount of pseudoscience circulating the fanatical fascia fans.
I was once a member of every fascia forum, congress and society going. Quite simply I was determined to be right, to know the most.
Mostly fuelled by rage at a racist and nasty yin teacher who was mad at anyone who tried to teach it too. I attended all these events, travelled the country and subscribed to the American ones.
I met every big name in fascia and loitered in lobbies, put my hand up and accosted them to answer my questions and find what I felt was definite and supported whatever I needed it to. I enrolled on massage courses and movement therapy courses, joined physio forums and attended lectures in my bid for fascia domination.
Yin has a pivotal role for fascia which currently still plays out in trainings and teachings, this is incorrect and needs change. But where does that leave us yin teachers?
Well fascia can be considered important in postpartum care, muscle growth and other body aspects but we can’t claim its role in injury prevention because no there is simply no such thing, we don’t know enough about its role and pain just isn’t that reductionist.
So in summary what you learnt on your training was *probably accurate about some fascia properties but it’s been over sold on how we can affect it.. I created my digital yin yoga refresher course specifically for teachers who and been told all this and realised it wasn’t accurate after I gifted it to everyone I had previously trained.
You can find that here if you are ready to rethink yin too:
Finding The Yoga in Yin – Yoga By Rose
The big issue is the lens which we look at fascia through, as a cure, a panacea, if we can just work this tissue, if we can just fix this bit, if we can just invest in addressing this system, all will be well- and how many times does this theme re occur in Yoga globally?
If I can just fix my balances, if I can just nail the splits, if I can just smooth out the wobbles in this transition to an arm balance, when I achieve my pose goal, I will feel better, everything will be okay etc etc
As teachers from a philosophical angle not only is all this inaccurate and unnecessary, but this is literally the antithesis of what Yoga teaches us. And yin is no different, it’s the same patterns, the same cycles, but just dressed up in a slower pace, different language and a few reading thrown in for an atmosphere change.
In yin we have started to put such an inaccurate spin on fascia and how we are affecting it that we are pinning too much on it and about to become the next laughing stock in movement for our crazy claims.
To recap, we are absolutely not affecting it in the way we once thought , we are only affecting it in the same way we are in any human day, movement, or stretch, just like the kidneys, tendons, and blood we substituted for the word fascia earlier on .
It isn’t more important than any other tissue, it isn’t more special, or magical, or more affected than any other specific body part.
So why do we need it as such a crutch in our teachings?
What do we replace it with if we slide it to the sidelines?
How do we address the sudden gap or imbalance in our classes if it doesn’t take centre stage?
Who are we as teachers without it?
Well now we are into the real Yoga aren’t we?
The questions, the self inquiry is the heart of our philosophy learning. There are answers, there are alternatives and I do cover these out length with practical tips in my digital course but it begs the bigger question of not what is yin yoga without fascia but what are we as teachers without it?
Yoga is fine, it doesn’t need us and our fancy ideas, it’s been around for long enough, but we need constant reassurance, newness and seemingly concrete ideas around fascial anatomy – so maybe let that one sit and notice how open we are or not to other ideas around what we once thought to be true. Are you flexible enough to rethink and refresh yin?
