When you look at the image below, what do you see? The lines representing the collagen architecture or the fluid-filled compartments in between?
According to the Fascia Research Congress website:
“The fascial system consists of the three-dimensional continuum of soft collagen, containing loose and dense fibrous connective tissues that permeate the body…” Their eyes are clearly looking at the collagen architecture.
Enter the “new” discovery and eyes that are now seeing the spaces between. Layers long thought to be dense connective tissue are actually a series of fluid-filled compartments researchers have termed the “interstitium.”
Did the spaces just appear out of nowhere? Have they not been there since the beginning of time? Now that modern science has decided to put name and recognition to them, perhaps now, rather than seeing one or the other, we can allow our eyes to see both-coexisting, impossibly separate, dependent on one another as the makeup of the tensegrity model.
A few months back, impassioned by media’s “new organ” discovery, I took the time to listen to a discussion, hosted by Robert Schleip PhD, between the Fascia Research Congress’s Carl Stecco, MD and Neil Theise MD (interstitium discoverer). I was surprised to hear these brilliant scientists – who have provided much of our American fascial understanding – present two very closely related viewpoints, yet miss the LINK and the totality of this remarkable aqueous web.
Essentially, with their eyes looking from a slightly different vantage, and through varied lenses, they are seeing the same anatomy and physiology. One perceives the walls of the room; the other the contents of the room within the walls. In the end then, is it BLACK or WHITE?
It is my hope that we can broaden our view to see that it is neither black nor white, but instead black AND white.
The OsteoArticular Pumping courses (LINKMedicalCenter.com/SomaTherapy) that I lead in Southern California explores the clinical application of both camps. First-year students learn the basic foundational principles of SPACE (made by the walls of the room) and FLOW (the contents of the room). Osteopathy teaches us that if we maintain the SPACES, which allow for proper FLOW of all the fluids, the result will be improved tissue quality, function and overall health.
Dr. Amstutz is a 13-year practicing Chiropractor in Newport Beach, California, and a 7-year Osteopathy Student of Guy Voyer DO/Sutherland Academie of Osteopathy in Montreal, Quebec. Expected completion of his DO in 2021.
* For further reading, as mentioned above:
https://fasciaresearchsociety.org/online-lectures
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