Tracey Mellor Pilates: September 2012

Tensegrity

This wonderful Summer of sport is about to come to the end. Many of us in the UK will have had the experience of attending the Olympic games and Paralympic games in London. I was lucky enough to go to the Olympic Park last night and watched Oscar Pistorious win the 400 m imperiously.

The Paralympicans have amazed us with their athleticism. I heard many spectators say ‘how do they do that?’ How can a one legged man do the high jump or a one legged woman turn cartwheels after her long jump; check out the youtube video’s; I have attached one here for you to watch and be inspired to bigger and greater achievements.

The newspapers have had some spectacular pictures of athletes captured in mid air, making shapes in the air, holding form against the effects of gravity.

How do they do that? how can the body hold shapes in the air, defying gravity?

I think its all to do with tensegrity. The fascial ( connective tissue) network acts as a tensegrity structure, allowing supported movements of our arms, legs and body. A tensegrity structure is made up of compressed struts (bones) and elastic strings (connective tissue or fascia and muscles). The resulting structure holds space in the body, from both a cellular level to a full body level. We all use our internal tensegrity structures all the time. The paralympians use their fascial network to defy gravity everyday.

I have been making tensegrity models, yesterday I built one which mimics a spine, it’s great fun to do, but also by making the models you can appreciate how they divide space, make space and surround space. Look them up on www.biotensegrity.com,

Hope you have as much fun making the models as I did.

congratulations to everyone who got to the Olympics, competitors, officials, game makers and the great spectators.

Tracey Mellor

Sunday 9 September 2012