Session 1

Session 2

Session 3

Session 4

Session 5

Session 6

Session 7

Session 8

Session 9

Session 10

Session 11

Session 12

The superficial sessions

Session 1

The Superficial Front Line

The anatomy - key structures

Ankle retinacula and crural fascia – ankles, shins and thighs
Rectus abdominis, subcostal arch and sternal fascia
Sternocleidomastoid. Front of the neck myofascia

The structural intentions and goals

A successful introduction to deep, direct fascial work
Open the ability to breathe fully in the front, disengage patterns of fear
In general, lift the Superficial Front Line, and open the Front Arm Lines distally

Energetic intentions and goals

Create an energetic uplift
Make space for the future possibilities
Unlocking and opening the front of your body and allow for a feeling of expansion

Movement assessment and developmental practice

Backbends. Where does the breath move? Shoulder mobility and stability?
Sitting on knees – Japanese style
Calm, natural breathing
Lie on your back, on the floor, face up, and then simply roll onto your belly. Reverse the action to lie on your back again, and repeat to the opposite side. What are the possibilities for this simple movement? Where is the ease or effort in this movement? How did you roll? What was your first choice? Can you find the many possible ways in which to simply roll from you back to your belly and back again? What do you do with your head, your pelvis, your arms, your ribs, your feet? Can you find the easiest and the most difficult ways for you?

Ideas to get the most out of this session and prepare for the next

What brings you down? Where do you feel lift? Where feels dropped/pulled down in your body? How do you grow tall, and how do you grow small?
Is it easier to breathe in or breathe out? Are you stuck in inhalation or exhalation? Introvert or extrovert?
It has been said we life in a flexion-addicted society. How flexed are you right now? How much time in your day do you spend in flexion, i.e bent over or sitting? Computer time? Driving time? Couch and TV time? The amount of time in a chair of any type? Exercising – sit-ups, cycling, rowing, seated gym work?
Can you change some of these patterns? A little move radically, can you to a more floor based way of living?

Session 2

The Superficial Back Line

The anatomy - key structures

Plantar fascia
Hamstring Fascia
Erector Spinae
Suboccipital muscles

Structural intentions and goals

Deepen the contact and enliven sensation to the denser fascia and endurance fibres on the back of your body
Grounding in sensation. Developing a firm contact with the ground, bringing awareness and sensation to your feet and legs
Initial balancing of the primary and secondary curves, from head to toe.
In general, dropping the superficial back line and evening the tone of the back arm lines

Energetic intentions and goals

‘Standing on your own two feet’
Direction, clarity, and vision
Spreading the back and top of the wings

Movement and developmental practice

Long leg sitting
Walking backwards
Positioning on your belly can you find the extension of your neck and back. Then using your natural tendency to move (with ease and efficiency), continue this extension, with some rotation, to find yourself sitting upright on the floor. Reverse the action, then try to the opposite side and explore with mindfulness to your movements. What moves when and how?
Segmentally opening your spine, primarily in flexion and extension and also exploring lateral and rotational functional ability of the spine as a whole.
How do you sit? How do you use your spine? Sitting on a stool (or floor) use the whole of your spine. Use your eyes to lead and orchestrate the movement. ‘Wherever you look, there you will go’.

Ideas to get the most out of this session and prepare for the next

Explore movements that open, stretch, strengthen and bring sensation to the back of your body.
Pay attention to the sensations (sensate information) along the SBL as you work and act through your day.
Where do you feel tight, or weak, or strong, or painful, or light, or heavy, or irritated or free and feeling good? Notice, these sensations and the actions that may be contributing to them. Do all these sensations or feelings change from morning to evening?
Mindfully and carefully walk backwards in the park, barefoot if you can, to bring awareness, sensation and feeling (proprioceptive feedback) to the back of your body. This will help to retrain your gait and strengthen the intrinsic muscles your feet and a lot more!

Session 3

The Lateral Line

The anatomy / key structures

Peroneal fascia
Iliotibial tract
Quadratus Lumborum and scalene myofascia

Structural intentions and goals

Open the body’s sides ‘spread the ‘wings’ of your arms
Open greater possibility for lateral expansion of your ribs and breath
Contact and balance the body’s stabilizing system, your lateral line
Contact the body’s ‘lateral core’

Energetic intentions and goals

Initial openings to the core. Challenging deeply held beliefs, held emotions, and holding patterns
Preparation for the core sessions

Movement assessments and developmental practice

Open the sides of your body from your head to toe. Use your full breath to assist in the opening of your lateral body.For example, bend to the side with – 1. arms at your side, 2. arms overhead, 3. be inventive using your arms, legs and body moving in an exploratory, multi-directional manner. Can you get your hands to the ground? Use a chair, a tree, a wall to deepen the contact. Push, pull, rotate, hinge or pivot. Be open to exploring what is possible while staying balanced and at ease.
90/90 or Z sitting rest position. Is it restful equally both sides?
Side lying on the floor.
Position on the floor in your easy cross-legged position. Here you can interact with the world with your hands available to explore, reach and grab and hold things steady in your hand and gaze. Try and explore reaching out in all directions. Where does or could this take you? Then, spiral your away back to lying on your belly. Here you can motivate, move by creeping, i.e. staying on your belly using your limbs to move you along! How can you more forward (and directionally) in this position? Reverse the action and move from your belly to sitting up both sides and directions.

Ideas to get the most out of this session and prepare for the next

Can you identify any restrictions in your lateral line?
Do you balance easily standing on one foot?…with your eyes closed?…for 30 seconds?
Note your eye dominance. How does your eyesight affect your postural expressions?
Develop your movement practice and activities of daily living to include your lateral line. Reach out to others and find fullness and ease of breath and being.
Notice when you are closing down, holding your breath or withdrawing needlessly

Session 4

The Spiral Line

The anatomy / key structures

Rhombo-serratus structures
Abdominal obliques
Tibialis anterior-fibularus longus sling

Structural intentions and goals

Easing any superficial rotations or restrictions
Setting the balance of the scapular ‘x’
Setting the arch balance via the lower sling, pelvic tilt and knee tracking
Complete the work on the superficial lines and prepare your body for the core sessions

Energetic intentions and goals

Unwinding and letting go of outer restrictions for helpful change
Release outer holding patterns

Movement assessment and developmental practice

Positioning in your easy cross-legged position and find your way to your hands and knees. We are back to motivation, moving through space. Explore the movements of crawling, to sitting (interaction), to creeping (motivation), and back to lying on your back again, face up (interaction)
Cowboy sitting or half kneeling ‘ready’ pose.
From 4 point crawl position can both hips reach the ground using a twisting motion at the torso?
Practice / exploration of flexion and extension, lateral movements and the cross-crawl of human movement

Ideas to get the most out of this session and prepare for the next

Do you notice any circumstances where you are always rotating in the same direction?
How much do your arms swing during walking gait?
Do you always hold a bag over the same shoulder?
Notice how you move to get up and down from the floor, the chair, the car, the bed. How do you position during rest and relaxation after a days work? How do you position while sleeping?

The Core Sessions

Session 5

The Lower Deep Front Line (DFL)

The anatomy / key structures

Deep posterior compartment of the leg
Adductor complex
Psoas complex attachments at lesser trochanter

Structural intentions and goals

Open the lower DFL and build support through the inner leg
Release the core tissue into a deeper grounding
Release the organs from below

Energetic intentions and goals

“Surrender” letting go of any long-term tensions or traumas that reside in the lower core (DFL)
Find that sweet release
Enliven andbring awareness, freshness, vitality, energy openness to your legs, pelvis, and torso

Movement assessments and developmental practice

Listen to your walking gait. How does your foot fall to touch, or reach and contact the ground?
In standing where do you predominantly place your weight? Is it on your right or left foot? Is it more to your heal or outer edge of your foot, or the balls of your foot or toes?
What is the shape of your footprint? How does this pattern relate up through your kinetic chain?
When you look at the outline of your legs can you see an X leg, O leg pattern? Is there an evenness of tone to the inside seam of your legs? Short leg/long leg? Where do you see the 'bow strings' pulled long and short? How does your inner leg line (DFL) relate to your outer leg line (LL)? Is there medial or lateral rotation at the knee?
Hip rotation? How do your hips move?
Is there an evenness of tone to the 'master complex' of the fascia lata?
From your 4 points crawling position find your way to standing and follow into walking. Reverse the action and repeat in the opposite direction. From a cross-legged sitting or long leg sitting or Z sit siting come to standing and walking and move back to the floor. Rising and falling. Ensuring that the movement is natural without effort or strain and without the need to hold your breath. As a qualifier, the movement must be easily reversible at any point within the movement, and a readiness to interact with the environment.

Ideas to get the most out of this session and prepare for the next

Go for a slow walk. Practice going slow while going about your day. As a balance exercise super slow walking can bring clarity to how you use yourself in this everyday action. Now walk backwards! There is no better way to repattern how you walk.
Walking, barefoot style training. Build or find your own rock garden to walk over, get down to the beach or park and connect your feet to the earth. Your lower back and body may thank you for it. Your feet are as richly innervated and sensorily rich as your hand and the information or sensations from them shape how you move. The clearer the sensation the clearer the movement.
From a standing position place your hand on the floor and spiral around it to sit on the floor cross-legged and happy. Now reverse the action. Can you repeat in the opposite direction? Can you stop and reverse this action at any point? Be on the floor cross-legged sitting or tailor sitting. Can you find the rolling surface of your back to find the ground?
How do your shoes affect your posture, how you walk and ease of movability?
Breathe into your pelvis and lower back when you are sitting in any pose or position you find yourself. How does it differ when you lie on your belly or on your back?

Session 6

The Upper Deep Front Line

The anatomy / key structures

Psoas
Diaphragm
Deep laminae of abdominal myofascia

Structural intentions and goals

Balance the psoas and diaphragm to release and find a ‘deeper breath’
Find appropriate support and positioning for the lumbar vertebrae
Find reciprocity between the pelvic floor and respiratory diaphragm.
Connect the deep front arm line into the deep front line

Energetic intentions and goals

Free any breath holding patterns in the sense of showing the body where it is stuck, unused, or forgotten.
Bring spaciousness, ease and clarity to the upper deep front line in a 3-dimensional expansive sense of being.
Exploring the inner self, the ability to let go, and be adaptable to the unforeseen events as they arise and fall away.

Movement assessments and developmental practice

Watch your habitual and exaggerated breathing pattern. Notice the everyday situations that change your breathing pattern. What do you think of as breathing?
Is there freedom of movement in the ribs. 12th rib, lower ribs, heart ribs, upper ribs. Front, back, sides, omnidirectional, expansive and compressive.
Lumbar and pelvic response to breathing. Both in relaxed and exaggerated breathing.
How does your lumbar spine move in walking? Are there differences between psoas lengths? Do where do you feel rotations? How easy is it to turn-around yourself in standing, to look over your shoulder right and left?
In a backbend do the ASIS and pubic bone lift (i.e the front of your pelvis go up)? Are there any hinge points or sharp bends along your spine? Do you feel a loss of stability or security or strength? Do you experience strain or pain? At what point and where?

Ideas to get the most out of this session and prepare for the next

Walking from the iliopsoas. Check out the Swing walkers and the beautiful use of lumbar fascia in walking.
Move from your core. The fluid dynamic shape shifting core of you. This is what you see when you notice a person move with poise and grace, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers or the modern dancers of your generation.
Move with the intention of feeling easy, light and smooth, with the attitude that you choose. Choose different attitudes, be an actor and see what works best for you.

Session 7

The Deep Back Line

The anatomy / key structures

Piriformis and deep lateral rotators
Pelvic floor muscles
Calcanei (heel bone)
Multifidi and transversospinalis muscles

Structural intentions and goals

Align the bony support in the back of the body
Free the intrinsic motions of the sacrum
Ease spinal bends and rotation

Energetic intentions and goals

Expand the dorsal Kinesphere (new awareness and sense of what has been left behind)
Bring the comfort of support from behind. There to back you up. You are supported internally every step of the way.
Free, enliven and engage the sacral pump, from the floor to the core.

Movement assessments and developmental practice

The happy baby rolling
Pelvic rocks and clocks on your back, to kneeling, and standing
Discover the movements of the pelvis. How does the pelvis move in walking? Can you imagine or find a bilateral figure of 8 as you walk? Does each hemipelvis move differently?
How does your sacrum move? Watch, feel, notice the response in breathing, in standing, in walking, in lying down and in response to imagined or real movements or situations.
How do your spine and ribs change their shape to allow for easy movement, from one position to the next.

Ideas to get the most out of this session and prepare for the next

Go for a walk in nature, barefoot for a time
Exaggerate the movements of walking, in many ways, it can be a lot of fun. Just like the ministry of funny walks! It does look funny but it can be seriously good for you.
Move your hip and dance when and wherever you can
If you have the ability to fully squat, use it as a rest position and find a moment of repose as you travel through your day.
Imagine someone standing on your shoulders. How would you position yourself to stand? Can you see your ankles by glancing down in an upright standing position? If not your hips may be to forward, placing excessive strain on your lower back

Session 8

Head, neck, and jaw of the upper Deep Front Line

The anatomy / key structures

Sphenoid bone
Temporomandibular joint
Hyoid complex
Cervical vertebrae, deep anterior neck muscles

Structural intentions and goals

Align and balance your head atop the body
Balance your jaw and ‘viscerocranium’
Begin more integration ideas via the neck, head and jaw

Energetic intentions and goals

Gently but firmly bring you back ‘home’ with less of a mask and consequently more awareness with your senses refreshed
Find that easy lift of your entire body with your head easily resting on your shoulders
Find that easy feeling, that inner smile
Increase awareness of the senses
Completion of differentiation series and beginning of the integration

Movement assessments and developmental practice

Symmetry comparison between right and left. Eye depth, dominance, direction.
Neuro-cranium, visceral cylinder, motor cylinder dominance?
Dental history, your teeth’s story. Allergies? Sphenoid (sinus) balance.
Facial expressions. Tongue movements and expressions?
Eye movements and corresponding movements of the spine and outward to the limbs.

Ideas to get the most out of this session and prepare for the next

Which of the 5 senses are sharp and which are dulled? Is your kinaesthetic sense growing as you progress through the series?
Just for fun walk with something on your head, swing walker style!
Eye movement exercises. AEIOU facial expression exercises. Alternate nostril breathing and seated medatation.
Stand on your head, if you dare and are able! Life looks a little different when you are upside down.
Wherever you look, there you go. What you look at you get. What are you looking forward to? Bring awareness to what you are drawing into your life through your senses.
Where are you going from here? What’s next?

The Integration sessions

We have travelled along all of the anatomy trains lines as our guide and map in the exploration and organisation of your structure and movement patterns.

Using these lines of myofascial continuity we worked to open, reawaken, differentiate, separate, balance your ‘muscular tone’ and shift the myofascial planes to best organise your body under the pervading force of gravity.

Now our job is to integrate these structures and lines of force transmission into a coordinated whole. To bring forth those lost sensory motor programs, to uncover and restore a complete body image; a functional, easy feeling of ‘acture’ (posture in action) that can adapt to everything that life throws at us.

Session 9

Integrating the lower girdle

Anatomy / key structures

The ball of the big toe, arches, and heal of the foot
Ankle joint and calf complex
Knee joint (flexion/extension)
Hip joint (inside/outside/adduction/abduction/flexion/extension)
Pelvis and lower back

Structural intentions and goals

Balance the lower body around its 'new' core
Three-dimensional flowing movements in the pelvis
Balance and alignment of the legs in walking and or movement intrest

Energetic intentions and goals

Call forth any areas of sensory motor amnesia, (places that area still not ‘lived in’) and bring life and integrated movement to these darkened areas. Let the force go through you, all of you.
Find orderly and coordinated communication between all the Anatomy trains lines.
Bring balance, grounding, spaciousness, openness, freedom, lightness, a sense wholeness and understanding to the lower girdle
Find a strong base of support and integrate with the effortless flow of movements in action and postures of repose.

Ideas to get the most out of this session and prepare for the next

The integration sessions are inventive and open for exploration and what interests you now. What awaits, is whatever the energy brings. Everything in its own time. What are your needs and goals now?

Session 10

Integrating the torso and breathing

Anatomy / key structures

Ribs and intercostals
‘The four pillars’ – lateral raphe and outer edges of rectus abdominis.
Quadratus lumborum, iliacus – Psoas – rectus abdominis – diaphragm

Structural Intentions and goals

Integration of movement in your upper body
Integrate your breathing with the rest of your body
Create rib and pelvis balance through the four myofascial pillars of the abdomin

Energetic intentions and goals

Find fullness, openness, and adaptability to the breath.
Omnidirectional and full expansion and expression of your breath that comes from within with no blockages, gaps or stuck areas.
A final release to find unity of intent, clarity of direction and ease of action.

Ideas to get the most out of this session and prepare for the next

The integration sessions are inventive and open for exploration and what interests you now. What awaits, is whatever the energy brings. Everything in its own time. Who are you today?

Session 11

Integrating the shoulders and arms

Anatomy / Key structures

Clavicle, scapula – Rombo-seratus / Pectoral-trap slings
Rotator cuff, levator scapula, triceps, hypothenar muscles
Trapezius, deltoid, wrist extensor group
Pectorals, coracobrachialis, brachialis, radial periosteum, thenar muscles
Medial intermuscular septum, wrist flexors, flexor retinaculum, palmar aponeurosis.

Structural goals and intentions

Balance the shoulders over the ribcage
Ease and tune the arms
Integrate the shoulders and arms into the new structural arrangement that has been achieved so far

Energetic goals and intentions

Create a connection to the world
Ease of reaching out to others
Ability to give and receive

Ideas to get the most out of this session and prepare for the next

The integration sessions are inventive and open for exploration and what interests you now. What awaits, is whatever the energy brings. Everything in its own time. What does it mean to be centered? When do you over reach?