Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/68008
FOUNDATIONS OF SOMATIC PRACTICE help our children adapt successfully to this environment we have created for them? Bodyworkers have a lot to say about this ability to adapt, and the proper use of the self.11, 12, 13 TISSUE PROPERTIES This area is very exciting right now in connecting research to everyday practice. More is being learned every day about the mechanisms of muscle contraction and holding, trigger points as minimum energy systems, recovery, and ability to train. Overtaking muscle research is a large wave of new material about cells and the connective tissues between them in the fascial web. We now know that every cell is not only "tasting" its local chemical environment, each cell is webbed into the connective tissue net and able to test, pull against, or rest easy in its tensional, mechanical environment. This new field of mechanobiology, which has been the holy grail of physiotherapy on the macro level— joint efficiency, biomechanics of sport, or rehabilitative actions—is now being supplemented, indeed overshadowed, by the new cellular level of mechanobiology: how cells stick together, communicate, and handle local tensions, and what kind of tissue responses there are to these forces.14, 15 We are discovering more and more about the relationship between the connective tissue that ensheathes the nerves (the perineuria) and blood vessels, again linking adverse mechanical strain to particular conditions and treatments. More information is arriving about manipulating the movements of the organs and the coelomic bags they come in (mesentery, peritoneum, pleura, mediastinum, etc.).16 We are seeing that the fascial net has more avenues of response than we previously believed. Then we include the interesting and recently discovered myofibroblasts, which are connective tissue cells capable of running into a telephone booth to change into their superhero form, which can exert significant pull into the connective tissue matrix, for better or worse.17 All this to demonstrate that a higher exploration of somatics and bodywork is not entirely an academic exercise, but rather has a vital real world application. We are living in an increasingly man-crafted environment start out with some background college courses to ready himself or herself for graduate work. Anatomy and physiology are a given, and since physiology is underpinned by organic chemistry, I don't see how this scientific track can be avoided by the upper level bodyworker/researcher (although if I take my own advice, this will be my hardest slog). We already Very important to the inquiry into somatics is the question "What shapes us?" where the usual biological and genetic bearings are few and far between. Simple and natural processes are now up for analysis, and bodyworkers are out front in this exploration. Our focus here is not on the details of an actual program, but an outline of what such a program could explore. A graduate degree in somatics, or MSE (Masters in Somatic Education), could follow on from an undergraduate degree in medicine, psychology, sociology, anthropology, or dance, as examples. Vocational tracks in a university—nursing, occupational therapy, or physiotherapy—would surely also qualify. A massage therapist would probably need to 84 massage & bodywork november/december 2008 mentioned in the last article that a junior year abroad—some time out of your own language and culture—is a very important part of being a good bodyworker. Some patterns are personal and individual, some belong to particular social groups, some belong to entire cultures; time out of your own culture gives you deeper appreciation patterns. Some courses in cultural and social anthropology are a must also, to understand the alternate norms in differing cultures from that of your youth and family of origin. Very important to the inquiry into somatics is the question "What shapes us?" Most of those questions of change of shape are currently answered