Sometimes I think the generally public has been duped into the viewpoint that the bony framework is no more than the home for. The spine is the central theme, so to speak. Well, in my massage continuing education classes, Structural Integration classes to be specific, I plant the seed of the non-Newtonian concept where tissue/muscle is omnidirectional, extremely mobile and flexibly hinged. Buckminster fuller again. The tension elements of the body are the connective tissues made up of all the soft tissue. Everyone has this notion that they are much like an engine in a car. Thought fires the engine and the structure moves…like scratching your nose. These trusses which consist of fascia, muscles, ligaments and connective tissue  are an integral part of the entire system and not secondary to the spine and its function. Its the tissue that keeps the spine in place. Anyone who has looked at anatomy pictures of cadavers can view the multi directional aspects of our “strut” system. Again I call into play the work of Buckminster fuller in my massage continuing education courses, because if the student can grasp the concept of structural integrity all the way down to the smallest aspects of our biological systems, the sub cellular structures. Fuller described the truss we can envision to fit this model, as an icosahedral structure. In this structure the outer aspects is always under a tensional force and the vertices are held apart by constant internal tensional struts that are floating within this tensional network.

Back in the late 1940’s, Kenneth Snelson a sculptor, who in many ways gave Buckminster fuller his ideas about the tensegrity model, created large scale models that I use in my massage continuing education classes. If the student grasps Snelson’s concept of how compression members provide a structural rigidity, yet maintain separate and not touching each other, then their bodywork changes forever as the begin to access layers as well as the origin and insertion concept of massage therapy. Snelson’s multi-story “sculptures” give a clearly illustrated example of how tension and compression work synergistically.

Using Snelson’s model for our spine the tension icosahedron space truss with the bones acting as the compression aspect and the soft tissue as tension elements, our bodies can shape shift as one aspect shortens and another lengthens and movement occurs through a stable shape that is omnidirectional.