Malleable: The fascial web constantly changes shape and composition to adapt to mechanical stress. KMI creates positional and functional changes to increase the potential of the body to assist fascia to reorganize and self-correct.
Physically and functionally continuous: Fascia invests through every tissue, provides the environment for every cell of the body, surrounds the organs, and gives the whole body its shape. The entire body can be effected by a local change.
Able to register information and transmit it through the body: The fascial web is a body wide mechanosensory organ (Schleip) telling us where we are in space. Mechanoreceptors communicate with the central and peripheral nervous system which helps controls coordinated movements.
Responsive to gravity: We are all under the effect of gravity and fascia organizes our structure according to the directional pull of this force.
Connective tissue is a remarkably versatile bit of biology.
Connective tissue forms every supportive tissue in our bodies from the fluid blood to the solid bone, and a host of sheets, straps, and slings in between. Muscular tissue moves us around, but it works through the connective tissue of fascia, tendons, and the ligaments at every turn, and it is the connective tissue complex that holds us in the shape we are in. When we are injured or stressed, no matter what the source, there is a neuromuscular response – usually involving some combination of contraction, retraction, immobility, and often rotation. These patterns put some muscles under strain when 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.
Anatomy Trains: The map we use to help integrate the body.
Anatomy trains are long continuous chains of myofascia, examining the connective tissue system together with muscle fiber direction. By tracking these continuous lines of force the entire body is covered through the series. THe “Anatomy Trains Myofascial Meridians”concept, was developed by Thomas Myers, who was a student of Dr.Rolf.
The anatomy trains system approaches the body holistically, with the underlying principle that strategies for healing should simultaneously be local and global.