The Floating Bones Journal
The physics of our musculoskeletal system, structural health, and the profound value of body/mind work.
22
2009
Here’s the basics of what I’ve learned over the last five years or so boiled down to eight principles. The list is crafted in such a way that both body/mind and technical types should be OK with the language.
Part 1: Structure
1. The best way to describe the relationship between the bones is a floating relationship.
2. The resiliency of our body is something we can consciously and deliberately alter over time.
3. The most important strength is the strength of the system as a whole.
4. Our superficial and deep muscles play fundamentally different roles.
Part 2: Body/Mind
5a. Stacking-based imagery is pervasive in our culture; such imagery literally holds us down.
5b. By carefully observing ourselves and nature, it is possible to realize a different metaphor: floating compression.
6. There is a brilliance to our bodies that is largely unexplored.
7. Body/mind disciplines are a systemic means of exploring the world of floating compression that somehow, strangely, we have forgotten.
8. A pattern of movement that strategically alters the tension in our bodies is a body/mind discipline.
(Example of #5a: a skeleton is used to represent our musculoskeletal structure, but lacks any tensile elements.)
Brief Discussion
#2: We know we can train at the gym for strength or aerobic capacity; we can also train for springiness. All three kinds of training are complementary. In particular, springiness training will give you resiliency to injury, less pain, and facilitate recovery from all your training. Many kinds of “springiness training” can be done anywhere.
#4: Much exercise emphasizes the superficial layers; body/mind generally uses all layers. In general, more awareness of your body allows you to engage deeper layers all the time and to relax the superficials.
#5a: Stacking-based imagery is everywhere in our society! It’s so pervasive that we don’t even see it: our toys, our vehicles, our buildings. It’s everywhere in our vocabulary: seeing if an idea stacks up, nailing a proposal, solidifying an idea.
When we know a truth, we know it in our bones. In the doctor’s office, the model of our structure is the bones. There are none of the soft tissues — muscles, tendons, and ligaments — in those doctor’s models. Why don’t we ever know it in our ligaments?
#5b: Floating Bones is a linguistic bit of floating-based imagery. Seeing floating compression models adds a dimension to the understanding. Touching and playing with them adds another. Conversing with the model adds another layer of richness to the floating models. That’s why I recommend getting a model.
We are always using some sort of imagery to control our bodies; that imagery is either compression-based or floating-based.
#6: Part of the brilliance of our design is our adaptability. Adaptability is our greatest strength, but it’s also our greatest weakness. We equate our adaptations to the truth—especially for adaptations that happened a long time ago or that we practice regularly.
#7 I use the word strangely because we all knew how to move with springiness and resiliency when we were little children.
#8 The tensions that hold our misalignments in place are invisible to us. If we knew that the tensions were there, we’d probably release them on our own. This speaks to the value of going to classes or working one-on-one with body/mind professionals.
You may also want to view a different cut on this from the presentation that I gave at Ignite Phoenix. To see that presentation, click on that link, then click on “Floating Bones” in the right column.
These are well-crafted; I keep finding new things when I look over the list. If you find new things, please post comments. If you twitter, please tell us about them in a #floatdujour.
5 Comments until now
On March 26th, 2009
AASI Said:
Hi Phil,
So, in reference to 5a&b, am I correct in understanding that it is not your intent to disprove or negate the stacking compression model, rather to include the floating compression, since you used the word “either” in relation to use of imagery?
And if so, then, could we not also say that possibly (a) combination(s) of both could be used?
This would then connect up with the use of the different ratios of co-contractions at the joint level and the trunk, which are places that we observe the different styles of pilates and other movement forms. So, to translate for the public or for somatic integration practitioners using AIM, you are coming from a science and technology(?–you would need to tell me, I’m only guessing)orientation, and it lends to an enriching of the embodied movement experience. How does that sound? 
Carole
On March 26th, 2009
phil Said:
Hi, Carol. The “either” in my comments was when I was talking about imagery. It’s pretty clear we all have both stacking-based imagery and floating-based imagery floating through our heads. Images are there based on what we think and imagine; they don’t really have rhyme or reason. My point is that, if we wish, we can choose the imagery we have, and that floating-based imagery provides something that we normally don’t have by default. In short, the imagery we have is separate from the model itself.
I have my own thoughts about the applicability of a floating compression model. Individuals can pursue the discussion about that: Levin’s papers on his website, Meyer’s text “Anatomy Trains” (with a 20-page summary available for free here), Tom Flemon’s wonderful models . They could also see what impact the model has on their movement (and I’d recommend doing that through body/mind classes). Simply thinking that one model is “right” will make little difference; I’m far more interested in having someone engage in the conversations.
As you are aware, there is a fantastic diversity of body-mind disciplines, and sub-divisions in many of those disciplines. I’ve thought for several years this is a testament to the nuanced and rich expressiveness of our bodies. Something like Flemons’s double-layered pelvis model is tremendously instructive, because it shows that a concert of muscles are always influencing the position of particular bones. One must remember that we’re able to alter the tensions of any of those tensile segments in the model. I like to think that the deeper layers provide a platform for movement while the superficials use that platform for the actual movement (but there is always an overlap in those two muscular functions).
It clearly makes a difference what ratios of muscular tension and sequencing we use to hold postures and accomplish movement. Any discipline opens up those ideas to students certainly sounds like a good thing.
On March 26th, 2009
AASI Said:
Hi again,
“Simply thinking that one model is “right” will make little difference; I’m far more interested in having someone engage in the conversations.”
So glad you said that. So many great models to explore. I am interested in how they hook up. I use AIM as a translation tool for my clients. Movement theory and practice that we use in the studio “match up” to and are enriched by other perspectives. Of course, it’s more like how it is an a cellular level or like connective tissue running throughout everything, all simultaneous and interwoven. I enjoy contemplating mental constructs.
I am also glad to hear that you are not out to dismiss the stacking model, since the imagery is helpful to a point. Even though we know the earth is round, it appears flat to us most of the time. It’s interesting to note our beliefs and how they manifest in our lives.
-Carole
On March 27th, 2009
phil Said:
I recommend against blindly dismissing or following any model. But: consider that we as a society have in fact been following a stacking-based model blindly for a long time. Mostly, we didn’t even realize it was a model.
Anyone reading Levin’s papers will soon grasp the insufficiency of a compression-based model to hold and move our structure. Anyone viewing movies of Tom Flemons’s models can intuit that those simple constructions are capable of demonstrating an amazing amount of human motion. The astronauts on the international space station are grateful that compressional loading is not essential to our day-to-day physiology, because they could not survive in a microgravity environment.
It’s clear that some other model is in play for those astronauts — and for us, and it’s not compression-based. The next question: if some floating/tensional mechanism is in play, why would nature also build a compression-based system? Nature avoids putting in redundant systems….
I’m not dismissing a stacking model; I am seriously questioning it. More to the point, I fondly hope that others follow the chain of reasoning of Levin’s papers and come to their own conclusions.
Can you give some examples of helpful imagery from a stacking-world? Have you seen if something from a floating-world would work?
On March 27th, 2009
AASI Said:
It’s part of human nature, I think, to follow blindly until something comes along that makes us question or causes us to recognize paradox.
Funny, I was just talking with my phenomenologist about the astronauts yesterday….
I would guess you are aware that the astronauts used pilates-like equipment in space called “the shuttle”(?). There is a continuum in deciding what’s best for the human body in microgravity and on earth. There are repercussions to the body in a microgravity field, right?
As an aside, the trampoline is often used in our studio, as well as a lot of hanging for some people….I don’t mean to sidetrack.
I think that different people/brains conceptualize differently and this is where it gets really interesting for me. Just as some people need proof from research that pilates works, some people might need to hear the info on tensegrity to understand qualities of movement. I came about my understanding through dance. Modalities like pilates, Trager, and understanding the work of Josephine Rathbone helped to understand what I was observing about movement qualities. I would love to see all the info hook up which as you said, starts conversations, which creates new topics for research, which leads to finding new and interesting ways to get people excited about movement practice.
Using different imagery is helpful depending upon which movement quality you are interested in creating in the body. The rolfing logo was helpful to get the modality this far…where will it go from there?
Thanks for your work, Phil.