Don’t Be Fooled By Architecture
You, like me, have done it.
You use normal words and language to stabilize images of yourself. Bones that support you seem like bricks. Your body seems like a building stacked up, like a house. Tidy or messy, it’s built solid and sound.
It’s just not true.
You’re not a house. You’re not cement, brick, or wood.
You’re wrapped in fascia.
The image of being a building disrupts real feelings.
You don’t feel like a house. You expand upward while sinking down. Your bones can twist and stretch. So, when you seek internal lifting or that relaxing sink, your image of a built body stops you short. Your vision of health and healing is limited by your idea.
The idea of resembling a house or a brick building limits your real feelings. You could feel lift and buoyancy, but not when you’re a house. Lifting and relaxed sinking are natural and inherent inside of you, me, and everyone. But not in a house. (Not in the same way at least, Architects.)
So break open…and wonder for a bit…how can you support your architecture when your bones never meet? They articulate on slick, slippery surfaces. And they do not fuse (not a single bone in your head is fused to another, until you die). So what now?
How can you see yourself, for real? What wraps your mind, your body, your soul? What keeps you from falling down and falling out?
It’s not siding, not paint. Try tension-integrity….
You’re more like that tensegrity thing than a building. Note that, in the Tensegrity model, none of the sticks touch…rather, they are tied by stretchy strings. Your bones, like the sticks, are discontinuous too. And the strings are continuous, like your skin and fascia: integrate your whole body…as one.
You’re more like that. Tension is natural and intrinsic.
It’s what gives you integrity.
Okay, I admidt: I’m a fasciast!
As in so many things, the “images” that in-form our thinking and doing are so often based on incorrect models — like your example of wrongly comparing the body to a brick building. Even when we “know” our bones are not holding us together, we hold on to them for dear life.
Until we learn better.
Good word, Walt. I’ll have-ta use it.
Wrapping Taiji teachings in tension seems contrary to common thought…but…hey…it’s really how we’re built, eh?
Here’s a great visual resource for converting static, bony concepts: AnatomyTrains.com
or try my Amazon book resource.
Thanks, Steven. I had looked at that book before, but will look more closely now.
Without pretending to know what interests you, you might find the books by Eric Franklin to be useful, especially this one.
You’re welcome to swipe the term “fasciast” — I did!
The analogy of house as self may have strarted out as a helpful metaphor. And I love metaphors, they connect me to meaning and life. But when a metaphor turns into a fact-ish sort of notion, that when weirdness happens. Let’s burn down the house and assemble reality and fluidity!
Steven,
I hadn’t heard the analogy of comparing our bodies to houses before, only in reference proper training techniques. I’m going to have to think about this one for a while.
You’d think with all the thinking I do all ready I wouldn’t need more time, but it’s going to take some time to get my head around this.
John
Thanks for your comment of movingwatertaiji.com
I think the problem arises when we equate structure with rigidity. A house needs rigidity to carry all the weight of material and to create the empty space that is immovable. The structure of the body is geared for movement So I think it always useful when using analogs to keep from literal interpretations.
Though wouldn’t it be nice if we created a living flexible house that would shift and change with our needs.
Oooo, can I swipe “fasciast” as well?
Excellent post and I agree – it does seem awfully limiting to imagine our bodies like a house. Constantly changing, cells being created, cells dying – in this context can the complexity of a human being truly be compared to a house?