To me, tightness is lack of space. Most of the things we do to our bodies, and to the bodies of our horses are compressing in their nature.
Each movement that we take, or that we apply to our horses can be compressing or decompressing by it’s nature. If you look at the breathing, breath-in is by nature opening and decompressing, and breath-out is by nature compressing.
The same happens when you move your body: You can shake your hand to create more space in the joints, and this will be decompressing movement, or you can clench your hand, and this will be compressing movement.
In other words, each movement can create more space, or can take away some of the existing space.
During bodyMarc DUO I see how by putting relaxed, very specific energy into the movement, we can get resistance out of the movement through decompression. We don’t do it mechanically, as normal myofascial decompressing methods‼️ We do it through entering the state of deep relaxation, in this state we relax fascia, and then we extend this state onto the movement in a very specific way to keep fascia relaxed all the time.
How is it possible? Fascia is very well connected with the nervous system. Fascia reacts to stress, by compressing and tightening body internally. It is an mechanism developed through evolution to protect organs from bleeding during the fight. When body relaxes, it relaxes through the fascia. I believe that the decompressing communication through the fascia when it relaxes can be phicially felt by other beings, for example horses. It’s real movement of the tissues, only on a very subtle level. This would explain why some horses are very relaxed with one person, and turn very tight and stressed with other person as soon as the person who interacts with them change.
Fascia makes compressing and decompressing movements all the time, but we do not experience/feel them directly. We feel their results, expressed by tighter or more free body, smaller movement availability or bigger flexibility.
When you provide deep relaxation to the body, fascia starts to relax, and you can see that the range of movement increases. This is exactly what happens during BodyMarc DUO – we provide deep relaxation to the body, and we then make this state ACTIVE. The body is moving using the whole range of movement, and thanks to this the brain LEARNS & MEMORIZES the true possible range of movement.
This combination of relaxation and movement is very important to create new movement patterns. When brain learns that the body can move differently, it is more open to explore the new possibilities later during the normal activity (in your case), and during the training (in the case of your horse).
TO ELIMINATE TIGHTNESS from your, and your horse’s lives, and to support healthy & beautiful movement patterns it is important to:
– TAKE CARE OF CALM ENVIRONMENT,
– LEARN RELAXATION TECHNIQUES for yourself and your horse,
– LEARN TO LIVE, BE and ACT in a way that doesn’t tense the fascia but promotes it’s continued relaxation.
