Amrita 6: Asana through the ages - Magazine - Page 48
A New Movement
Vocabulary
In this piece, LAURA GILMORE outlines how we can adapt the practice
of asana according to the most recent understanding of fascia
WE LEARN ANATOMY by dividing the body into each separate part, bones, muscles and their ligaments or tendons. But
woven throughout the body, is an integrated web which
holds these structures in places and gives continuity in the
form of a network of nerves. This “fabric of the body” is fascia.
Research into fascia is ongoing, and with each new discovery fascia becomes more amazing and more relevant
than ever for yoga. For a start, fascia contains ten times more
proprioceptors than muscles, giving us the felt sense of body
in space and movement. The different types of nerves and
nerve endings within fascia, respond to all sensory input including the breath, sending and receiving information between body and brain. Perhaps fascia’s lack of clear start and
end-point made it hard to identify its significance, but this
cohesiveness is what makes it so important. Fascia is a body
wide sensory organ, the crucial connection between the
body and the mind. The very crux of the matter for yogis
who have sought to understand the connection between the
physical and consciousness.
Fascia is also the store house for elastic energy, recent research suggests that the recoil and rebound of our “muscles”
comes more from the tendons, which are composed of fascia, than the muscle fibres. Fascia is woven through each
muscle as well as surrounding the muscle; each muscle fibre
is wrapped in a cling film like layer, a bunch of fibres form a
bundle which is wrapped in fascia, and there are many bundles wrapped together, bound in another fascia layer, to create a muscle. When we lengthen a muscle, this is the fascial
layers gliding past each other to allow the release.
46 AMRITA Issue 6 / Spring 2021
