Fascia: The Tensional Network of the Human Body The Science and Clinical Applications in Manual and Movement Therapy

The publication is composed of fortyeight chapters with contributions from fifty-three authors, divided into three sections: theory, assessment, and clinical application. Because the book provides a lot of valuable information it can be recommend for anyone who practices or studies manual therapy or movement therapy. Nevertheless, it has some fundamental shortcomings. The presentation of the importance of fascia for movement and the practical consequences for movement therapy and manual therapy cannot do without sufficient consideration of the relationship between body structure, fascia as the organ of body structure and gravity as a third factor. The reason for this lies in the following context: If we talk about the structure of the human body, we are not only talking about the spatial relationships of its partial structures to each other, but also about the relationship of the body as a whole, i.e. its overall structure, to gravity. For all inorganic and organic physical entities respectively their structure are in close interaction with the earth's gravitational force. Gravity affects the organism throughout its life, shaping or deforming it, depending on how optimally its body structure is adapted to it or not. Harmony between the human energy field and the gravitational energy is therefore essential for the body structure and thus also for the quality of movement. In order to understand the more or less good adaptation of man to gravity, it is necessary to know that - according to the principle of actio = reactio - the force of gravity on the surface of the earth produces a counterforce. In physics, this is called the normal force or supporting force. While in biology, medicine and sport gravity is one-sided understood as a destructive force against which one has to fight, in reality it plays a positive role for humans due to the supporting force - if they know how to adapt to it optimally, both structurally and functionally. These facts are not taken into account at all in the book, or only to a completely inadequate extent. For example, there is no example of a comprehensive structural analysis in the Assessment section. A chapter that goes in this direction is the one by Leon Chaitow. However, it is only fragmentary and also incorrectly executed. Gravity as a superordinate reference point is only sporadically and completely insufficient perceived. When selecting and applying exercises, differentiation in relation to individual body structures is essential. However, this is missing in all the described approaches of movement therapies, especially conspicuous in the chapters on yoga and Pilates. Dr. Ida Rolf, the founder of Structural Integration, known mainly as Rolfing, pioneered fascia therapy by relating the factors fascia - body structure - gravity, both theoretically and practically. However, she and her method are not mentioned in the book. Neither does osteopathy, which was the first to recognise the importance of fascia. In Structural Integration there are various models of a comprehensive structural analysis, and it is surprising that this has not found its way into the chapter on assessment. It is also surprising that the editors in the clinical application section do not present a chapter on Rolf-Movement, the movement-related practice of Structural Integration. All the more so as one of the editors, Robert Schleip, is a Rolfing practitioner and instructor of the Dr. Ida Rolf Institute. It is also strange and puzzling that two other Structural Integration practitioners, Thomas Myers and Stefan Dennenmoser, make no reference to the Rolf Movement in their contributions.