Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/72195
appearance as a master's degree to follow an undergraduate degree in dance, education, medicine, or the like. Like many old-timers in this industry, I essentially constructed my own education. Educational opportunities in the 1970s were few and far between—some spotty, some brilliant—and there was little opportunity for comparison among methods. Most of us were inspired by a particular teacher or therapist—Ida Rolf was among the first sparks for a bonfire that came to include Moshe Feldenkrais, Judith Aston, Louis Schultz, Emilie Conrad, Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, Jean-Pierre Barral, Oscar Ichazo, and Werner Erhard, among many others—but the available trainings were limited in scope and surrounded by New Agey gobbledegook that sounded good but had little to nothing to back it up. • "There are 70,000 nerve endings in the feet that are neurologically connected to the organs they serve!" Uh, no, actually. • "Reflex points are connected to the organs they serve, because they were adjacent embryologically." Gee, how would you determine that? • "You create your own reality." Although ultimate reality is in the hands of the philosophers and physicists, this should always be rendered: 'You create your own experience of reality." • "You are sick, because of your unexpressed emotions." And the environmental degradation has nothing to do with it, I suppose? • "Massage relieves the muscle of lactic acid and other metabolites trapped in the muscle." Even this shibboleth has fallen before investigation. Half of what I have taught over these last two decades (including some of my favorite ideas—there's nothing so sad as the destruction of a beautiful theory by an ugly fact) I have had to revise in the face of fresh data. I have left behind the biomechanics of levers in the light of tensegrity geometry; left behind the idea that fascia is not elastic in the light of the isometric muscles of elite runners; left behind the idea that fascia cannot actively contract as we discover myofibroblasts with significant pull on the fabric; left behind the anatomy based on single muscles working from origin to insertion in the light of kinetic chains, fascial continuities, and the lateral spread of forces through the extracellular network—the list will go on and on. It is the fate of immature professions to rely on the torchlight provided by plucky pioneers forging on into the dark cave of our ignorance. And it is the fate of these pioneers to be left behind as ultimately obsolete, as their ideas are tested in the full light of day and found not so much wanting as necessarily incomplete. With the advent of the Internet and the rapid turnover of information, we need to be sure our education for future bodyworkers leaves room and tolerance for changing premises within the field. With two provisos (1. both manual and movement teachers should be included and synthesized in this program, and 2. practitioners need to understand both culture and art, as well as science and craft in order to meet the challenge of the 21st century effectively), we will continue this line of thinking in the follow-on to this article, outlining what I feel we have enough grounding and scope to successfully start now—a Master's Degree in Somatic Education. bodywork for nearly 30 years. He teaches workshops internationally on anatomy, movement, and soft-tissue work. His book, Anatomy Trains: Myofascial Meridians for Manual and Movement Therapists, was published by Elsevier in 2001. He lives, writes, and sails on the coast of Maine. Thomas Myers has practiced integrative Half of what I have taught over these last two decades I have had to revise in the face of fresh data. NOTES 1. I. Rolf, Rolfing (Rochester, VT: Healing Arts Press, 1977). Further information and publications concerning Dr. Rolf and her methods are available from the Rolf Institute, 5055 Chaparal Court, Suite 103, Boulder, Colorado 80301, www.rolf.org. 2. J. Smith, Structural Bodywork (Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone, 2005). 3. See www.fascia2007.com for book and DVDs, as well as links to the next conference in Amsterdam in 2009. 4. This applies to the secrets revealing themselves about the properties of connective tissue and to the structural shape-shifting line of inquiry. This statement does not intend to ignore or denigrate the marvelous work of Dr. Tiffany Field, the Massage Research Foundation, or any of the other researchers in the larger field of massage, movement education, and manipulation. 5. A. Montagu, Touching, 3rd ed. (New York: Harper and Row, 1986). 6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly (TV_series) 7. R. Laing, The Politics of Experience (New York: Pantheon Books, 1967). 8. C. Pert, Molecules of Emotion (New York: Scribner, 1997). 9. Oliver Sacks, A Leg to Stand On (New York: Touchstone, 1984). 10. B. Lipton, The Biology of Belief (Santa Rosa, CA: Elite Books, 2005). 11. J. Pierce, Magical Child (New York: Plume, 1992). massagetherapy.com—for you and your clients 65