I introduced the amazing body work concept and methodology of Structural Integration and KMI in my previous blog post......
Last week I went for my first KMI assessment with Angela, from Structural Balance.
I was already excited about seeing Angela, having found a real connection with my body and experienced the huge benefits of working with my own fascia, through self myo fascial release. But I knew that I had not even scratched the surface compared to what Angela could do for me and my body, with the knowledge and magic she holds in her hands, what could she unlock and open up!?
So I arrived for my assessment, she works from her home in Leamington Spa. We went up to her treatment room and must have just chatted for at least 20 minutes about my goals, my blog, my general health and history, MyoFascia, Anatomy Trains, Functional Patterns etc....it was great to talk to someone who totally gets it. Then she had me strip down to my underwear so that she could assess my body.....assess my structure!
Starting from the front view......"just stand relaxed and take some deep breaths" she instructed. My chest apparently expanded quite nicely and my horizontal alignment was pretty good. The main observations were around hyper extension in my knees and also slight external rotation of my femurs, a classic cause (or at least part of the cause) of over pronated feet.... 'duck feet'.
Then from the side, not too much to note here.....except the knees again, but actually, my posture is quite good. I've been working pretty hard on it recently, so I was pleased by that.
Then from behind, so she could observe my back line...........'oh'.......she said.......'your back tells me quite a different story!'
I knew this would be the case! I can feel the tension I carry in my neck, shoulders and back pretty much all of the time, and this was one of my main motivations for wanting to 'fix myself'. Caused primarily from slumping my head over a desk for most of my life.
She could see the tension in my back, especially up into my neck, also observed from the side. She had not laid a finger on my body yet. But from this posterior assessment, she also noticed a slight horizontal imbalance in my hips. Coming round behind me, she stood directly behind and firmly rested her fingers on the top of my hips as we observed my body in the mirror. Certainly there seemed to be a slight raise in my left hip, not much, but certainly a subtle difference.
Finally, she placed her hand on my back as I breathed. Observing cervical, then thoracic and lumbar regions. She was feeling how my breath traveled through my body. It was fairly high in my chest, not quite making it all the way down to my lumbar.
And that was basically the end of my assessment......no movement analysis or anything like that, no squats or lunges, or flexibility assessment. Just simple observations around how I stand, how I hold myself and what my structure is like. Sorry, I lie, she did ask if I could touch my toes....which I can't! So I showed her!
"Okay, would you like to go ahead with a treatment?", she asked.
Not that she needed to,,,,I was signed up for this before I even got there.
"YES!!!" Of course, was my reply.
"Okay, so this is session 1.....'The Superficial Front Line'. Get on the table and lie on your back for me"
The Superficial Front Line
as mapped by Thomas Myers - Anatomy Trains
She started at my feet....the top of my feet, not the soles...that will come later on (The Back Line), but this session is just the Front Line (as above), so it's just the top of my feet for this session.
The technique a KMI practitioner will use on your body is nothing like a typical massage that you might have had yourself before as part of a spa treatment, or even physio and sports massages etc. As I mentioned in my previous post about Structural Integration, they work very precisely with your fascia. Yes, they touch you with their hands, mostly just fingers/thumbs actually because it is that precise. But that is where the similarity to a 'normal' massage pretty much ends.
Aside from the precision applied by their touch, they will also ask you to move your body with them as they work on you, to help ease the fascial restrictions, so with my feet for example, she had me slowly flex and extend my toes while she worked them...then progressing to flexion and extension from the ankle. The best way I can describe the feeling......(I'm not very good at this)....but it felt like she was pushing the restrictions in my feet away from toes towards my ankles. It was like a slow, but forceful, stroking of the feet away from the toes towards the ankles. She never went from my ankle back to my feet, always toes to ankle. And that was true for the whole treatment actually...she literally worked UP my body, never down! With one exception, but I will get to that.
So after my feet, she moved onto my shins and knees. I think she was going up either side of my tib/fib bones and in between as well, but I don't really know. Pushing those restrictions up and out of my body. Her touch and observation was amazing. She would hit a tight spot...I could feel the sensations myself from within, but she could feel that with her touch. Amazing! "This bit's really stuck she said, half way up my shin" and she must have worked over the same spot at least 5 times before continuing on up my leg to my knees.
She then kind of circled around my knees, which felt pretty good. Then she got to my quads!........
I am going to digress for a moment, just to talk about the quads, or quadriceps. As the name suggests, this is not just one big muscle of the thigh, but a complex of four individual muscles. Rectus femoris, vastus lateralis, vastus medialis and vastus intermedius, in case you wondering. They are powerful muslces that extend the knee, but also flex the hip as well, at least, rectus femoris does. Anyway...I digress too much now....my point is really just that they are separate muscles, held and separated by Fascia! Even though they work towards common goals, they should be able to glide smoothly past one an another when in motion, lubricated by this wonderful soft tissue web of fluid elasticity (Fascia). At least they should......... if you do not have any Fascial restrictions......guess what? I have some restrictions in my quads!
Now I've been working my quads quite a lot myself recently with my various collection of devices, rollers and balls, so I knew they were very tight, but I also knew I had made some progress into relieving some tension already, as I had improved range of motion and flexibility. But not according to Angela.....
"Your quads are very stuck she said. Literally stuck together, there's no movement between them".....and she went on to explain how there should be......
So she worked up my quads, as I slowly flexed and extended my knee, just so it raised around 5-6 inches off the table, as she worked on the restrictions in my quads....pushing them hard up my body, towards my hips. It almost felt like she pushed those restrictions out at my hips!
Then she worked on my belly. I have never had my belly massaged before that I can remember. Felt strange, but also amazing. I said to her that I'd never felt anything quite like that before!...as she did whatever it was she was doing......"no" she said, "you wouldn't have!"
After the belly, she worked my chest. For the chest she had me fully extend my arm in line with my shoulder, one side at a time, as I gently flexed my arm against the gentle pull of a resistance band while she worked between my ribs, releasing the restrictions from the inside out. She repeated this several times before moving onto to the other side and it really felt like she was pushing these restrictions, literally out of my body!
The sensations are hard to describe, electrical and tingling are the adjectives that spring to mind. Painful, you might say?....under different circumstances the sensations could certainly be interpreted as pain. But the words of Thomas Myers are stuck in my head on the topic of pain, in the context of myofascial release...."pain: is sensation accompanied by the motor response to withdraw"....and because I knew the benefit, so there was no withdrawal response. Angela would frequently ask if I was ok with the level of pressure and pain, "do I need to back off?", she would ask, as I ohh'd and ahh'ed!
Apparently, some of her clients do find the experience too painful to bear in the first instance. In these cases, she would refer them for a holistic acupuncture treatment before coming back to her for the KMI work. And that does the trick. Very interesting I thought!!!
This KMI process is going to be as much a learning experience for me, as well the actual physical Structural Integration aspect.
So after my chest, that was basically the end of session 1 and she was done with my Front Line for now. I should add...that's just my 'superficial' front line. Future sessions will go even deeper on the front!!!!
"Just get yourself up off the table slowly and stand up when you feel ready". She said.
I was not drowsy or light headed......I felt fine. So I stood up!
WOW!!!!! My chest, my shoulders!!! Oh wow! So open. I felt taller, bigger, more 'puffed up'...not in bloated kind of way. In a powerful kind of way. I rolled my shoulders back. It just felt so........goooooood!
To finish off and to "balance me out" a little. Angela asked me sit down. She then did this thing down my back with her hands either side of my spine, following my movement from my neck as I gradually curved my head, down through the cervial spine, to thoarcic and all the way down the lumbar vertebrae until I was bent over with my hands on the floor. Then she sat me up and repeated the process. Lovely.....it was just a lovely to finish the session!!!
Angela lives on the edge of Leamington Spa and her road ends in the glorious Warwickshire countryside, so after the treatment I took a walk, for about 30-45 minutes. She actaully recommends this on her website, to allow the "treatment to settle". Another reason for taking the afternoon off work.
I really enjoyed the walk, it was a lovely day and walked along feeling, the only way I can describe it, just more open to move......and that was just session 1. What will my body feel like after session #12??!
The following morning I woke up and got up out of bed, I actually felt like I had a different body. Usually, my feet click quite a lot when I walk, just clicking joints, nothing painful ,it's never bothered me, but I've always kind of noticed it.......well...not anymore!
But the most significant change to note, was my shoulders! Of recent years, they have always kind of 'clunked' in the joint on rotation. I have discussed this with physio's in the past and was told that the shoulder joint is a fairly weak and vulnerable complex. The clunking in the joint is just deterioration from age and overuse........."there is not much that can be done about it."
Ummmmm........guess what?! My shoulders do not 'clunk' on rotation anymore!!!!!! After just one KMI session, that didn't really even address my shoulder dysfunction, because this session was on the front line! A-maz-ing!!!
#ThePowerofPoster
#ThePowerofKMI
#StructuralIntegration
Last week I went for my first KMI assessment with Angela, from Structural Balance.
I was already excited about seeing Angela, having found a real connection with my body and experienced the huge benefits of working with my own fascia, through self myo fascial release. But I knew that I had not even scratched the surface compared to what Angela could do for me and my body, with the knowledge and magic she holds in her hands, what could she unlock and open up!?
So I arrived for my assessment, she works from her home in Leamington Spa. We went up to her treatment room and must have just chatted for at least 20 minutes about my goals, my blog, my general health and history, MyoFascia, Anatomy Trains, Functional Patterns etc....it was great to talk to someone who totally gets it. Then she had me strip down to my underwear so that she could assess my body.....assess my structure!
Starting from the front view......"just stand relaxed and take some deep breaths" she instructed. My chest apparently expanded quite nicely and my horizontal alignment was pretty good. The main observations were around hyper extension in my knees and also slight external rotation of my femurs, a classic cause (or at least part of the cause) of over pronated feet.... 'duck feet'.
Then from the side, not too much to note here.....except the knees again, but actually, my posture is quite good. I've been working pretty hard on it recently, so I was pleased by that.
Then from behind, so she could observe my back line...........'oh'.......she said.......'your back tells me quite a different story!'
I knew this would be the case! I can feel the tension I carry in my neck, shoulders and back pretty much all of the time, and this was one of my main motivations for wanting to 'fix myself'. Caused primarily from slumping my head over a desk for most of my life.
She could see the tension in my back, especially up into my neck, also observed from the side. She had not laid a finger on my body yet. But from this posterior assessment, she also noticed a slight horizontal imbalance in my hips. Coming round behind me, she stood directly behind and firmly rested her fingers on the top of my hips as we observed my body in the mirror. Certainly there seemed to be a slight raise in my left hip, not much, but certainly a subtle difference.
Finally, she placed her hand on my back as I breathed. Observing cervical, then thoracic and lumbar regions. She was feeling how my breath traveled through my body. It was fairly high in my chest, not quite making it all the way down to my lumbar.
And that was basically the end of my assessment......no movement analysis or anything like that, no squats or lunges, or flexibility assessment. Just simple observations around how I stand, how I hold myself and what my structure is like. Sorry, I lie, she did ask if I could touch my toes....which I can't! So I showed her!
"Okay, would you like to go ahead with a treatment?", she asked.
Not that she needed to,,,,I was signed up for this before I even got there.
"YES!!!" Of course, was my reply.
"Okay, so this is session 1.....'The Superficial Front Line'. Get on the table and lie on your back for me"
The Superficial Front Line
as mapped by Thomas Myers - Anatomy Trains
She started at my feet....the top of my feet, not the soles...that will come later on (The Back Line), but this session is just the Front Line (as above), so it's just the top of my feet for this session.
The technique a KMI practitioner will use on your body is nothing like a typical massage that you might have had yourself before as part of a spa treatment, or even physio and sports massages etc. As I mentioned in my previous post about Structural Integration, they work very precisely with your fascia. Yes, they touch you with their hands, mostly just fingers/thumbs actually because it is that precise. But that is where the similarity to a 'normal' massage pretty much ends.
Aside from the precision applied by their touch, they will also ask you to move your body with them as they work on you, to help ease the fascial restrictions, so with my feet for example, she had me slowly flex and extend my toes while she worked them...then progressing to flexion and extension from the ankle. The best way I can describe the feeling......(I'm not very good at this)....but it felt like she was pushing the restrictions in my feet away from toes towards my ankles. It was like a slow, but forceful, stroking of the feet away from the toes towards the ankles. She never went from my ankle back to my feet, always toes to ankle. And that was true for the whole treatment actually...she literally worked UP my body, never down! With one exception, but I will get to that.
So after my feet, she moved onto my shins and knees. I think she was going up either side of my tib/fib bones and in between as well, but I don't really know. Pushing those restrictions up and out of my body. Her touch and observation was amazing. She would hit a tight spot...I could feel the sensations myself from within, but she could feel that with her touch. Amazing! "This bit's really stuck she said, half way up my shin" and she must have worked over the same spot at least 5 times before continuing on up my leg to my knees.
She then kind of circled around my knees, which felt pretty good. Then she got to my quads!........
I am going to digress for a moment, just to talk about the quads, or quadriceps. As the name suggests, this is not just one big muscle of the thigh, but a complex of four individual muscles. Rectus femoris, vastus lateralis, vastus medialis and vastus intermedius, in case you wondering. They are powerful muslces that extend the knee, but also flex the hip as well, at least, rectus femoris does. Anyway...I digress too much now....my point is really just that they are separate muscles, held and separated by Fascia! Even though they work towards common goals, they should be able to glide smoothly past one an another when in motion, lubricated by this wonderful soft tissue web of fluid elasticity (Fascia). At least they should......... if you do not have any Fascial restrictions......guess what? I have some restrictions in my quads!
Now I've been working my quads quite a lot myself recently with my various collection of devices, rollers and balls, so I knew they were very tight, but I also knew I had made some progress into relieving some tension already, as I had improved range of motion and flexibility. But not according to Angela.....
"Your quads are very stuck she said. Literally stuck together, there's no movement between them".....and she went on to explain how there should be......
So she worked up my quads, as I slowly flexed and extended my knee, just so it raised around 5-6 inches off the table, as she worked on the restrictions in my quads....pushing them hard up my body, towards my hips. It almost felt like she pushed those restrictions out at my hips!
Then she worked on my belly. I have never had my belly massaged before that I can remember. Felt strange, but also amazing. I said to her that I'd never felt anything quite like that before!...as she did whatever it was she was doing......"no" she said, "you wouldn't have!"
After the belly, she worked my chest. For the chest she had me fully extend my arm in line with my shoulder, one side at a time, as I gently flexed my arm against the gentle pull of a resistance band while she worked between my ribs, releasing the restrictions from the inside out. She repeated this several times before moving onto to the other side and it really felt like she was pushing these restrictions, literally out of my body!
The sensations are hard to describe, electrical and tingling are the adjectives that spring to mind. Painful, you might say?....under different circumstances the sensations could certainly be interpreted as pain. But the words of Thomas Myers are stuck in my head on the topic of pain, in the context of myofascial release...."pain: is sensation accompanied by the motor response to withdraw"....and because I knew the benefit, so there was no withdrawal response. Angela would frequently ask if I was ok with the level of pressure and pain, "do I need to back off?", she would ask, as I ohh'd and ahh'ed!
Apparently, some of her clients do find the experience too painful to bear in the first instance. In these cases, she would refer them for a holistic acupuncture treatment before coming back to her for the KMI work. And that does the trick. Very interesting I thought!!!
This KMI process is going to be as much a learning experience for me, as well the actual physical Structural Integration aspect.
So after my chest, that was basically the end of session 1 and she was done with my Front Line for now. I should add...that's just my 'superficial' front line. Future sessions will go even deeper on the front!!!!
"Just get yourself up off the table slowly and stand up when you feel ready". She said.
I was not drowsy or light headed......I felt fine. So I stood up!
WOW!!!!! My chest, my shoulders!!! Oh wow! So open. I felt taller, bigger, more 'puffed up'...not in bloated kind of way. In a powerful kind of way. I rolled my shoulders back. It just felt so........goooooood!
To finish off and to "balance me out" a little. Angela asked me sit down. She then did this thing down my back with her hands either side of my spine, following my movement from my neck as I gradually curved my head, down through the cervial spine, to thoarcic and all the way down the lumbar vertebrae until I was bent over with my hands on the floor. Then she sat me up and repeated the process. Lovely.....it was just a lovely to finish the session!!!
Angela lives on the edge of Leamington Spa and her road ends in the glorious Warwickshire countryside, so after the treatment I took a walk, for about 30-45 minutes. She actaully recommends this on her website, to allow the "treatment to settle". Another reason for taking the afternoon off work.
I really enjoyed the walk, it was a lovely day and walked along feeling, the only way I can describe it, just more open to move......and that was just session 1. What will my body feel like after session #12??!
The following morning I woke up and got up out of bed, I actually felt like I had a different body. Usually, my feet click quite a lot when I walk, just clicking joints, nothing painful ,it's never bothered me, but I've always kind of noticed it.......well...not anymore!
But the most significant change to note, was my shoulders! Of recent years, they have always kind of 'clunked' in the joint on rotation. I have discussed this with physio's in the past and was told that the shoulder joint is a fairly weak and vulnerable complex. The clunking in the joint is just deterioration from age and overuse........."there is not much that can be done about it."
Ummmmm........guess what?! My shoulders do not 'clunk' on rotation anymore!!!!!! After just one KMI session, that didn't really even address my shoulder dysfunction, because this session was on the front line! A-maz-ing!!!
#ThePowerofPoster
#ThePowerofKMI
#StructuralIntegration
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