UNLEASH YOUR BODY’S POTENTIAL & EXPERIENCE INCREASED MOBILITY, STRENGTH, ENERGY & EFFICIENT FUNCTION IN ALL ASPECTS OF YOUR LIFE!
Fascia: An Endless Web of Connective Tissue
Structural Integration is a holistic system combining soft tissue manipulation and movement education to restore the body to it’s natural state of adjustment and balance. This is accomplished by lengthening, restoring, and reorganizing the FASCIA, the connective tissue matrix of the body.
Fascia surrounds and supports all of the muscles, bones and organs in your body in continuous web-like layers. This fascial net, or connective tissue matrix, is the body’s internal system of flexible support, which gives it strength and shape. The condition of your fascia is important, because its communications coordinate muscular actions. There is more efficiency and ease of motion when your fascia is healthy and the fibers are properly aligned.
The fascial system responds to injury, overuse, chronic tension, and habitual movement patterns, by shortening and becoming disorganized from both the forces of gravity and the mechanical forces of habitual movement patterns. When your fascia shortens, thickens and becomes glue-like, it locks in less than optimal patterns of strain and pulls your body out of alignment, ultimately promoting tightness and preventing smooth movement.
Structural Integration is based on the insight that your body is more at ease and functions most effectively, as a more adaptable and supportive form, when its structure is balanced along the vertical line of gravity, which is an unseen force that consistently interacts with the human body. In this place, gravity gently lifts and supports your body rather than pulling it down. By systematically restoring the integrity of your fascial system, your body becomes aligned and the entire system can be a smoothly functioning and coordinated whole, living in harmony with gravity instead of being in conflict with it.
The Structural Integration Series: Before & After Photos
Structural Integration dramatically alters your structure and posture and can resolve discomfort, release tension and alleviate pain. It can also restore and enhance flexibility, revitalize energy and have you feeling more comfortable in your own body. Structural Integration facilitates more efficient use of muscles, allowing your body to conserve energy, and create more refined patterns of movement with less effort. This reduces chronic stress, enhances neurological functioning and general physical and athletic performance.
Structural Integration is a “system” of 10 sessions used to align and balance the physical body within its gravitational field by freeing and reorganizing the fascia, or connective tissue that surrounds the muscles and other structures within the body. The Structural Integration Series must create length and space in the outermost layers, before working with deeper, more core layers of the body. The first three sessions are called “The Sleeve” and cover the superficial fascia, where you will start to feel three dimensional. The middle four sessions are called “The Core” and cover the deeper fascial layers and you will “feel your line.” The last three sessions are called “Integrative” and these sessions create structural and functional adaptability within the whole body and you will feel smooth movement.
Session 1: Opening the Sleeve You will get a sense of lift in your body. Your breathing pattern will be addressed by releasing the superficial fascia of the ribs and thorax.
Session 2: Support for the Body You will get a sense of grounding in your body. Your feet will be more fluid and adaptable as they support the vertical dimension in your body.
Session 3: Lateral Line You will experience the dimension of depth with front-to-back balance and freedom of the arms and shoulder girdle from the spine.
Session 4: Medial Line You will build up core support and strength from your feet, through your legs, to the bottom of your core. You will experience more lift in your body and start to get a sense of “The Line.”
Session 5: Anterior Line You will extend your line of support up to the head, along the front of the spine. This will further your sense of frontto- back balance in your body. You will also get a sense of leg movement from the core, rather than from the hips.
Session 6: Posterior Line You will feel a sense of length in the front and the back of the core. You will experience movement from your legs to your undulating spine.
Session 7: Adaptability You will feel the relationship of your head and neck as a fluid extension of your spine.
Session 8: Structural Integration You will experience a secure foundation in the pelvis and legs for the upper body, neck and head to be supported. This creates a sense of stability and adaptability in your body.
Session 9: Functional Integration You will experience contralateral movement in your body. You will feel the transfer of motion and energy from the core to the sleeve. All movement will start to initiate from the mid to lower back.
Session 10: Integration You will have a sense of “The Line” and of everything in your body being connected. You will have a full sense of your body in three dimensions and moving in any and all directions with equal ease.
To Learn More or Schedule Your Sessions Now, Please Contact:
Susan Bray MS, PT, BCSI, FAFS
(714) 401-9150;
susanbray1@me.com
www.performanceenhancement.net
