IMPLICACIONES CONTRACTUALES

1. Sir Winston Churchill, in a speech to the House of Commons on 28 October 1944.

2. Luigi Stecco and Carla Stecco, Fascial Manipulation: Practical Part, English edition by Julie Ann Day, foreword by Robert Schleip, Piccin, Padua, 2009.

3. Jaap van der Wal, personal communication, July 2013.

4. “Fascia is formed by undulated collagen fibres and elastic fibres arranged in distinct layers, and within each layer the fibres are aligned in a different direction”, Luigi Stecco, Facial Manipulation® (http://www.fascialmanipulation.com/en/about-fascial-manipulation.aspx? lang=en).

5. The relatively new field of Soft Robotics is using the principles of Biotensegrity (Ch. 4) to create a new generation of robots. Vytas SunSpiral (Thomas Willeke to 2005) is a computer scientist and roboticist at NASA who has shared many fruitful discussions and collaborations over the years with Tom Flemons. His website is http://www.magicalrobot.org/BeingHuman/.

6. Jaap van der Wal, personal communication, July 2013.

7. Jaap van der Wal, “The Architecture of the Collagenous Connective Tissue in the Musculoskeletal System – An often overlooked Functional Parameter as to Proprioception in the Locomotor System”. This article is published as supplement to a lecture at the Second International Fascia Research Congress, Amsterdam, 27–30 October 2009, with the title “The Architecture of Connective Tissue as a Functional Substrate for Proprioception in the Locomotor System”. (Jaap van der Wal MD PhD, University of Maastricht, Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Department of Anatomy and Embryology, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, Netherlands.) It includes a revised version of part of Van der Wal’s doctoral thesis, submitted to the University of Maastricht in 1988, entitled “The Organization of the Substrate of Proprioception in the Elbow Region of the Rat”.

8. Jaap van der Wal, private communication, July 2013. 9. Ibid.

10. Ch. 2 in Andrew T. Still, Philosophy of Osteopathy, A.T.Still, Kirksville, 1899. 11. Jaap van der Wal, private communication, July 2013.

12. See Dr Guimberteau’s work. Jean-Claude Guimberteau, MD (www.guimberteau-jc-md.com/en/). Both English and French versions are available at this address. His DVD: Interior Architectures, is available on the same site. See also The Architecture of Living Fascia: The Extracellular Matrix and Cells Revealed Through Endoscopy, Handspring Publishing Ltd., Pencaitland, 2014. 13. Ibid. 14. The author would like to express profound and reverent gratitude to all donors. 15. Introduction in Robert Schleip, Thomas W. Findley, Leon Chaitow and Peter A. Huijing, Fascia: The Tensional Network of the Human Body. Churchill Livingstone/Elsevier, Edinburgh, 2012. 16. Donald Ingber, “The Architecture of Life”, Scientific American, Feature Article, January 1998. 17. “When including intramuscular connective tissues, periosteum and superficial fascia as part of the body wide fascial net as outlined above, fascia can then be seen as one of our richest sensory organs. It is certainly our most important organ for proprioception (Schleip, 2003).” R. Schleip, D.G. Müller, “Training Principles for Fascial Connective Tissues: Scientific Foundation and Suggested Practical Applications”, Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies 17:103–115; 2013. 18. Jaap van der Wal, private communication, including the following references:

Drukker J, Mameren H van, Wal JC van der (1983). Connective tissue structures in the cubital region of man and rat. Their role in guidance of forces and their role as a substrate for propriocepsis. J Anat 137: 432.

Mameren H van, Drukker J (1984). A functional anatomical basis of injuries to the ligamentum and other soft tissues around the elbow joint: Transmission of tensile and compressive loads. Int J Sports Med 5 (suppl.): 88–92.

Mameren H van, Wal JC van der (1983). Comparison of the organisation of the connective tissue in relation with muscle and nerve tissue in the cubital region in man and in the rat. Acta Morphol Neerl-Scand 21: 169.

Mameren H van, Groenewegen W, Rensema H (1984). A computerized drawing method to make representations of the collagenous connective tissue structures in situ around the elbow joint. Acta Morph Neerl-Scand 22: 253.

Mameren H van, Lataster A, Rensema H, Drukker J (1985). The use of modern imaging techniques (CT-scanning and NMR) in the study of the locomotor apparatus. Acta Morph Neerl-Scand 23: 247–258.

Wal JC van der (1988). The organization of the morphological substrate of proprioception in the elbow region of the rat. Unpublished thesis, University of Limburg, Netherlands.

Wal JC van der (2009). The architecture of the connective tissue in the musculoskeletal system – an often overlooked functional parameter as to proprioception in the locomotor apparatus. Int J Ther Massage Bodywork (IJTMB) 2(4): 9–23.

JC van der Wal, “Proprioception, Mechanoreception and the Anatomy of the Fascia”, Ch. 2.2 in Robert Schleip, Thomas W. Findley, Leon Chaitow and Peter A. Huijing, Fascia: The Tensional Network of the Human Body, Churchill Livingstone/Elsevier, Edinburgh, 2012.

CHAPTER

4

Biotensegrity Structures

“That nature applies common assembly rules is implied by the recurrence,

at scales from the molecular to the macroscopic, of certain patterns, such

as spirals, pentagons and triangulated forms. These patterns appear in

structures ranging from highly regular crystals to relatively irregular

proteins and in organisms as diverse as viruses, plankton and humans.”

A biotensegrity structure is triangulated (see later). It occupies and encloses space in particular ways. There are three aspects of innate force transmission acting in three dimensions on the whole structure. It is not just triangulated geometrically. It occupies three dimensions and it integrates multiple means of force management simultaneously. For example, on the scale of the “musculoskeletal system”, the bony part can be tensioned to some extent, and the bony part can withstand compression to a much greater extent, and the fabric part is the main tensioning and, importantly, tensioned aspect. However, it does not respond well to compression; the

tensional part tends to fold under compression forces. There are different qualities to all the different fascial membranes but in

concert they can orchestrate multidirectional movement and appropriate response to a variety of dynamic stresses, by the principles of this model. They allow the continuous signalling of forces to be transmitted throughout the structure. Thus our soft parts can fold and then unfold, to restore their shape appropriately. The bones, being stiffened, act like spacers. They withstand compression of the tensioned layers around them. At the same time, they push or stretch those layers of the body suit into tension. Meanwhile, the whole myofascial aspect pulls the bones together into compression but (here is the part that is hard to grasp) they are organised regionally in the body in concert with the dynaments (dynamic-ligaments4) such that they also pull the bones apart from each other at the same time. This is clearer from the global pattern of muscles and bones in their connective tissue substrate. It is hidden when they are removed from their living context. It supports van der Wal’s findings (Ch. 3) that a joint is under tension at all angles.

The word “biotensegrity” is a shortening of “biological tensile integrity”. It refers to a type of tensional, three-dimensional structure that is formed under tension and compression. The “bio” part means “living” and the suggestion is that it provides a compelling metaphor for how we are formed and move around as a living architecture. It is a challenging idea.

A spider’s web, for example, is a tensional structure and can be said to have “tensile integrity”. However, it is not a tensegrity structure as such, because it requires an external frame. “Tensegrities are different – their forms are self-stabilized, independent of gravity and need no external support” (Tom Flemons2). Our ability to walk around and do yoga on one leg or balance on our heads is, in part, explained by these architectural principles. We carry our frame around with us, but it lives on the inside. Our tissues are tensioned around that frame (as they tension the frame in a reciprocal way) such that we qualify as tensegrity structures.

What does that mean?

“Biotensegrity” is the term coined by Dr Stephen Levin to describe biologic structures such as we are. What it means is that our forms are self-stabilising, they are independent of gravity and we need no

external support. We use the ground, but when we jump or dive or tilt, for example, we do not deflate, or collapse, or fall over or apart as a house would if there was, for even a single moment, no ground underneath it. Our form, unlike a house, is not a purely compression structure. We are quintessentially made of soft tissues, some relatively harder than others, some fluid and some soft, but all joined together, contained and organised by an essentially tensional network. Many traditional biomechanical models suggest we are constructed under linear rules that apply to compression structures. Biotensegrity offers a global model that possibly explains how we naturally organise all the elements of our moving “body architecture”, in all its roundness, volume and detail, as a whole animated body contained in (and containing) an intricate fascial matrix. Significantly, it is the relationship between tension and compression that is so crucial to understand. It is worth exploring.