Saturday, January 26, 2013
“Knowing is Doing, Doing is Knowing” is a quote by Dr. Humberto Maturana, Chilean
Biologist and Cybernetician who I greatly admire for his work in second order biological
systems. In fact, because of his work and Dr. Rodney Donaldson’s work with Gregory
Bateson I chose to enter the field of massage therapy after completing my Masters
Degree in systems theory.
I just completed a five day dissection lab with Thomas Myers of Kinesis Inc. and Todd
Garcia. Let me just shout it out--”it was the other side of awesome.” Gregory
Bateson stated that the “map is not the territory.” Indeed, this is the case with
anatomy and physiology.
Tom Myers open the door for manual and movement therapists to explore the body
through a fascial medium through his clearly defined theories of myofascial meridians.
When I began studying his work in 2005, and read a quote by Maturana and Varela on
autopoesis in his book my draw dropped open. I finally knew that someone else besides
myself understood the impact that bodywork can have on us individually to heal and
eventually change who we are as structurally determined systems.
This was my first dissection lab. It is rare for full dissection to be open to students and
professionals not training to be doctors, chiropractors, or physical therapists. What was
different with this group of fifty is we are all “fascialist.” We look for the fascial
connections in the body instead of dissecting it a way as if it was not important.
I began on the foot with the plantar fascia slowly removing layer by layer with concerned
regard to the connections of the “superficial front line, lateral line and deep front line.”
No anatomy book could have prepared me for what I experienced. The thickness of the
skin, the beauty of the retinaculum, the strength of tendons, how deep tibialis posterior
is, how wide tibialis anterior is and dominant in the frontal compartment. Then the
variations from the text books as Odin, our cadaver, had a three head SCM! His tibialis
anterior seemed more lateral then frontal partially due to his external rotation of the leg.
Forgive me if I have lost you here, but this was only the beginning of many epiphanies
and after five days I was gifted with a completely new ontological understanding of the
human body.
For all my colleagues and students start saving you money as the next one will happen
next year most likely in January. Go to http://www.anatomytrains.com and watch for the
upcoming announcements.
PS: Tom Myers is as amazing a teacher and human being as I could have hoped.
Om Shanti Om,
Kirstie
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