The magic of Jacobs ladder

Question: What do books on Fascia and buses have in common?

Answer: You wait for ages then two come along at once.

I have been waiting for the books: Fascia in sport and movement and Yoga Fascia anatomy and movement to be published for years and then they both arrived in the same box, on the same day, an abundance of information and ideas, too much to digest in one go, and consequently I have the equivalent of information indigestion. The rich diet served up by the wonderful authors was just too much for me, so I have had to slow down and read in smaller portions.

I have the great pleasure to include many of the authors and editors amongst my friends and acquaintances and I know how long they have strived to bring this information into the public domain. I recognise and remember the birth pangs of some of the ideas from Summer schools and gatherings of Fascia devotees. 

If you are interested in Fascia and movement then please log onto the Handspring publications website (http://www.handspringpublishing.com/publications/) and secure your copies now, you will not regret your purchase.

As some of my clients know, I have had fun playing with some of the content, indeed the editors of the Fascia in sport and movement, encourage the reader to open a conversation with the content of the book, to discover and make up their own minds about the ideas suggested by the authors; and so I thought I would share one of my observations with you in this blog.

I was flicking trough the Yoga book by Joanne Avison, and came across a picture of the children’s toy –the Jacobs Ladder.

Immediately I was transported back to a lecture theatre in Brussels watching Stephen Levin holding up this everyday toy as be gave a lecture on biphasic movement, it was fascinating to watch the movement of the toy, to remember back to childhood when I played with my own Jacobs Ladder and to realise that this simple toy could demonstrate and symbolize so many principles of movement. Later Joanne bought a couple of the Jacob ladder toys and we spent a frustrating couple of hours getting to grips with the concept Stephen lectured about and finally in the wee small hours there was a light bulb moment, in fact it was several light bulbs which continue to flash over the intervening years. How could such a small event make such a big ripple through my Pilates and movement teaching?.

I am playing with that Jacobs ladder toy now as I am sitting at my desk, continuously fascinated by this simple wooden and ribbon toy. I have even made a chocolate bar version (which didn’t last very long) to understand the way it worked and now want to share one small but significant aspect with you.

If you want to know all about the bio-tensegrity and how it relates to yoga teaching and movement then please read the beautifully written chapter 7 in Joanne’s book.

However the bite sized aspect I am interested in here is finding the silent stillness at the point of perfect balance just before the biphasic movement of the toy, i.e. just before the wooden blocks tumble down. It is in that pregnant pause, the point just before ‘no return’ that the effortful becomes effortless, the tension between the ribbons is equalised and the blocks are held in a seemingly magic suspension. It is in this moment that we can play, we can suspend time and we can discover the hidden tension, which is always there in a bio-tensentric body. The tissues of the body are never in a state of ‘no tone’, we may say we are relaxed but that is never truly the case unless we are anaesthetized or dead. In the space between, as can be shown so perfectly by the Jacobs ladder toy, we have a choice, possibilities exist, balance and movement flow from that point.

In the Pilates studio we can place the body into shapes, which mimic this space between, where it is relatively effortless and where we can play with the possibilities. In the studio we played with recognizing these points of balance, tone but minimal effort, points of choice. The clients experienced the calm silence of the space, a time of self-perception.

All movement moves from and too, between these points, from a simple breath, to a complicated exercise. It is the magic of that point that I would love everyone to find in his or her own movement practice.

Over the last year we have been involved in a project where we took scientific concepts relating to our connective tissue (fascia) and using movement, we tested them. From out of this project has evolved a creative movement system Connective IQ movement and Self -perception is key to the way we teach.

Just like Christmas chocolate eaten quickly, the glut of detail and information quickly read in these two books is soon regretted as it formed a log-jam in my brain, instead, I realised that a little exquisite taste can be fully appreciated, digested and savored every once in a while and that is how I will now proceed. As invited by the editors, I will contemplate on the content and make up my own mind. There is so much that it may take some time, however, I look forward to opening that conversation with my own body and with my clients, I foresee lots of fun ahead.

Tracey Mellor

© 2015