Our bodies communicate information from one area to another via the connective tissues, a continuum of fibres and cells, reacting to each other, passing messages in a process that is twenty times faster than the nervous system. This is an instant reactivity. Take the example of an insect flying onto your eyelash. The blinking of the eye is so fast it is beyond that which is mediated by the nervous system.

Our Connective Tissues are essential to the dance between stability and movement – crucial in high performance, central in recovery from injury and disability, and ever-present in our daily life from our conception to the last breath we take.

In addition, these ongoing reactions are truly electro-magnetic. There is within the body a process known as a piezoelectric response. As soon as any tissue is bent or stretched, there is an outpouring of electricity (energy) that, in turn, creates a magnetic field. Thus a circuitry is created through which energy flows. This constitutes the piezoelectric response and provides the basis for acupuncture meridians. These meridians support the flows of energy from the piezoelectric effect, but they also support many other kinds of regulatory flow, including those involved in emotional expression. This flow of electromagnetic energy is also the basis of transmission of information and even the evocation of the chemical reactions within the body.

Energy flows best when everything is coherent (when our cells are communicating unimpeded by blockages and tension.) This is the ideal “zone” of exceptional human performance, or the “zone” of exceptional human health.

Furthermore, this flow of electro-magnetic energy can be detected beyond the body, creating electro-magnetic waves that some people call the “aura.” We all have experienced certain “vibes” and even speak about “being on the same wavelength” as someone. Most of us are sensitive to a good environment or an unhealthy environment, a good person or one who may not be so good. This is an energetic exchange between people or between a person and their immediate environment.

Our body’s connective tissue matrix is a tensegrity structure (tension + integrity); that is a dynamic balance between the rigid bones and the elasticity of the soft tissues. If we put strain into a tensegrity structure and the deformation will get distributed all over the structure. Where will a tensegrity structure break under strain? At its weakest point.  If our body is a tensegrity structure, the ‘load’ that is causing pain or strain in the low back may be sourced in the foot or the shoulder – so we have to be able to see the pattern to know where to intervene. See my blog article How Did the Diplodocus Hold It’s Head Up? for more about the Connective Tissue Tensegrity Matrix.

The techniques I use are designed to release tension in the tensegrity matrix. Positive changes to this matrix are more likely to occur with a very gentle specific contact than with a forceful one, because a forceful contact may cause the matrix to go further in a rigid protective mode. With the release of tension there is a greater flow of energy throughout the body causing increased strength and flexibility and improved function of organs, the brain and nervous system, the blood and lymph systems and the digestive system.