a clip of "Strolling Under the Skin"
Fascial structure is an incredible phenomenon. I recently re-viewed this awesome video called "Strolling Under the Skin", a film about movement in human fascia. It's a pretty old film, but the microscopic images of moving collagen fibers are absolutely stunning. The images were largely recorded because of work by Dr. Guimberteau, a surgeon who has spent the last 30 years working with fascia and muscular structures. Guimberteau postulates that there is a shared architecture to all living, moving things that can be partially explained by the concept of "tensegrity".
Tensegrity is undoubtedly more complicated than what I am writing here, but from what I understand, "tensegrity" is a word that describes structures able to distribute stress throughout the whole body - meaning there is no "weak point" in the entire structure. This is because the whole structure acts to support itself by compression (movable points) and tension (non-movable points). Pretty cool, huh? It's sort of like communist architecture. Above is the "Needle Tower" by Kenneth Snelson, one of the pioneers of tensegrity architecture. Below are some more pictures of tensegrity in action.
Also, for anyone interested in scientific research on biolgical tensegrity, here is a 2009 study on the existence of pre-stress in ankle joint structure.
This is my absolute FAVORITEST subject and it is SO COOL that you are on to this!
ReplyDeleteYou have a pretty good rundown of what tensegrity achieves. Here's an idea of HOW it acheives it.
Imagine your skeleton. Imagine it as bones stacked on top of one another. This is how we have mostly come to conceive of it.
Now make an adjustment. Imagine your skeleton as bones floating near each other. This is the magic of tensegrity! There is tissue between our bones holding it apart. It is live tissue and under our voluntary control. At a certain level of mastery it is possible to expand each and every joint individually AT WILL. (I can't totally do this yet but I've studied with someone who can and it is AMAZING).
The point is this- muscle above your ankles holds up your shin bone, above your knee holds up your thigh bone, above your thigh holds up your pelvis, so on between each and every vertebrae and every single joint, such that each and every joint in the body only supports the bone above it and nothing more. There's essentially a "reset" of force distribution at EVERY bone, which is how our bodies prevent our ankles from having to sustain our entire body weight all by themselves.
Check out http://www.movefreeblog.com/joint-mobility/fascial-tensegrity-how-can-floating-bones-work-for-you
where I've written on this in more detail, PLUS included a quick and easy trick to apply this to all of your movement. The concept is totally awesome but it's NOTHING compared to how it feels to apply it to your own body.
Keep being awesome!
Brian
Biological structures are based deeply and thoroughly upon tensegrity - this includes at the cellular and intracellular level - read up on microtubulin and actin and also the dynamics involved therein.
ReplyDeleteWell, it even goes further than biology, at least to a small handful of us working on things like quantum relativity and some new models of space-time and the manifestation of form and structure as matter (particles). But it's easier to keep the discussions mostly to the more tangible levels of biology and our own visible bodies.