Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/1476304
I INTRODUCING FR:EIA FR:EIA was brought to life through a historical collaboration between the expert anatomists and masters of plastination at Dr. Gunther von Hagens's Body Worlds and Plastinarium laboratories in Guben, Germany, and a team of leading scientific fascia researchers, educators, and fascial dissectors from the Fascia Research Society. To achieve a long-held dream of depicting the human fascial system in three dimensions as an integral, body- wide structure required the highest levels of knowledge, skill, creativity, problem- solving, and passion. Working side by side as the Fascial Net Plastination Project (FNPP), the teams of this three-year project shared a vision to revolutionize the universal anatomical view of the human body. (You can read more about the FNPP's early work on FR:EIA in the September/October 2018 issue of Massage & Bodywork, page 62.) FR:EIA's tissue was preserved through plastination, a process invented and perfected by von Hagens, which entails a series of chemical processes that removes water from the tissue and replaces it with plastic polymer, making detailed anatomical understanding of the body available to everyone—outside the cadaver lab. 1 This plastinate model was originally named Freya, after the Norse goddess of love, but the spelling was later changed to FR:EIA, as an acronym for "Fascia Revealed: Educating Interconnected Anatomy." An elegant female form, FR:EIA shows continuity of tissues from surface to deep, head to foot, in long sweeping lines, curves, and spirals depicting fascia's patterns in motion. A dancer's posture was chosen to evoke a sense of movement and to showcase the fascial system. The dissection was designed around her graceful shape to create a visual understanding of fascia's organization, connectivity, and force transmission capacity, while highlighting continuity of tensional relationships throughout the body. Once you see FR:EIA, everything you already know about fascia instantly makes more sense. "Every time I work in the dissection lab, I am reminded that our uniqueness is body-wide and body-deep; that the body has volume, depth, and continuous connections, not only along length or width but between the superficial and the deep. We move as a whole body, so we should learn about the holism of the body." —Tracey Mellor, Mid-Sussex, UK: Team FR:EIA dissector, Pilates studio owner, and fascial fitness master trainer 30 m a s s a g e & b o d y wo r k s e p te m b e r/o c to b e r 2 0 2 2 FASCIAL BRIDGES: SKIN TO MUSCLE When we look at FR:EIA's fascia, it shows complete continuity—from the surface to the depths. Though you can see distinctions in tissue organization, quality, and density, be careful not to allow different names or dissective cuts to cause you to think of them as more separate than they are. The team working on FR:EIA attempted to strike a holistic balance, showing her fascial distinctions while simultaneously showing how they are connected, all the while striving for a model that ref lects the reality of the living form. The Skin FR:EIA's skin is shown as a continuous ribbon following the contours of her body from below her right shoulder blade, f lowing SKIN TO MUSCLE FR:EIA's fascia has complete continuity from the surface to the depths. The dissectors attempted to strike a holistic balance with FR:EIA, showing her fascial distinctions while simultaneously showing how they are connected, striving for a model that reflects the reality of the living form. 4 2 1 3 1. Skin 2. Superficial fascia 3. Deep fascia of the gluteus maximus 4. Thoracolumbar fascia