Myo-fascial Releasing (MFR) focuses on the network of fascia or connective tissue that can be accessed on the surface but interweaves deeply through out the body creating the fascial patterns that affect our posture.
Fascia is the web of varied thickness of fibers and sheer sheaths of tissue that holds our organs, muscles and bones together. MFR focuses on separating excessive fascia that has developed from overuse or fascia that has become adhered to other tissue inappropriately.
We look at how the whole body moves along stress lines and how fascial planes function together with a range of muscles rather then individual muscles moving specific joints.
The technique with fingers, fists, forearms or elbows is a slow, gradual but constant pressure and tension engaging the fascial barrier at each fascial layer until the tissue releases. Movement of the patient simultaneous to the stroke is used often.
In the 20’s Dr. William Niedner, DO and the physiotherapist Elizabeth Dicke simultaneously developed the “Fascial Twist”. The term “Myofascial” was coined in the 1940s by Dr. Janet Travell, MD. In the 1950’s Ida Rolf systematized a system of soft tissue manipulation with movement and assessment that has since spawned several contemporary schools of myofascial therapy.
We have taken classes with Donna Bajellis, a Washington State physical therapist and founder of Institute of Structural Medicine and studied some of the works of Tom Myers Anatomy Trains, a contemporary off shoot of Myofascial Release.