What Can Qigong Teach Us About Fascia?

I've explored fascia from both sides…

I've had my hands inside the human body in the dissection lab, looking at the physical continuity of connective tissue.

And I've explored that same sense of interconnectedness from inside my own body through Qigong.

They are very different ways of knowing.

But putting the two together has completely changed the way I think about movement.

First: what actually is fascia?

Fascia is connective tissue found throughout the body. It surrounds, supports and connects muscles, bones, nerves, blood vessels and organs, and forms part of an interconnected three-dimensional network.

Which is already quite different from the way many of us were taught to imagine our bodies.

We tend to think in parts rather than continuities.

Hamstrings.

Shoulder.

Pelvic floor.

Abs.

Back.

But when you actually see the body in a dissection lab, the way bodies are depicted in the anatomy books looks all off.

Everything is gloriously interconnected.

And this is one of the reasons I love Qigong so much.

Qigong gives us a way to explore connections

Qigong is an ancient Chinese practice of cultivating and working with Qi, often translated as life force or vital energy, through movement, breath, awareness and intention.

Qigong movements aren't particularly about working muscle.

They're interested in the whole of the body.

You shift your weight and something changes through your pelvis.

You rotate at the waist and your arms respond.

You spiral through the body.

You open.

Close.

Rise.

Sink.

Expand.

Contract.

The movement becomes less like operating a collection of separate parts and more like moving one interconnected organism.

Which, anatomically speaking, is exactly what you are.

Fascia loves movement

Fascia is kinda sticky ground substance.

It's alive and it responds to movement, loading, hydration and our physical environment.

And because connective tissue is continuous throughout the body, movement isn’t necessarily isolated to the place where it began.

Raise an arm and you feel it in your side body, maybe even in the front of your thigh.

Turn your torso and you're rotating everything.

Shift your weight through your feet and the mechanical effects travel through your whole body.

This is something Qigong allows us to feel.

Especially because we move slowly.

Slow movement lets you notice more

This might be one of the most underrated aspects of Qigong.

When you slow movement down, you can pay attention to what's happening more easily.

Where does the movement begin?

Where does it stop?

Where am I bracing?

Can my shoulders/ jaw/ brow soften?

What happens in my ribs when my pelvis turns?

Can I feel the connection between my feet and my hands?

You're not necessarily trying to achieve a bigger stretch or perform the movement perfectly.

You're investigating.

And the slower and more curious I become, the more information I seem to receive.

Then there are the spirals…

If you've watched Qigong or Tai Chi, you'll probably have noticed that there are a lot of circular and spiralling movements.

This is another place where understanding fascia and Qigong become particularly interesting.

The human body isn't constructed entirely around straight lines and single-plane movements.

Connective tissues wrap, interweave and transmit forces across the body.

Qigong's spirals, rotations, weight shifts and coordinated whole-body movements give us an opportunity to explore those relationships rather than simply flexing and extending one joint.

Sometimes you can feel the consequences of a movement surprisingly far away from where you thought it was happening.

And that's where Qigong becomes a kind of laboratory.

Is fascia the same thing as Qi?

Same, same but different, maybe?

You'll sometimes see claims online that fascia is Qi, that the meridian system has been scientifically proven to be the fascial system, or that fascia explains exactly how Qigong works.

There’s a lot of nuance to it though.

Qi belongs to a traditional Chinese understanding of the body and fascia belongs to contemporary anatomical language. There are interesting areas of research and intriguing parallels, but they're separate concepts.

For me, something much more interesting happens when we allow the two perspectives to sit with each other.

One asks:

What structures physically connect this body?

The other asks:

What can I perceive when I explore this body openly?

Anatomy from the inside

That's perhaps what I love most about Qigong.

A dissection lab gives us an extraordinary opportunity to see the architecture of a human body.

Qigong gives us an opportunity to explore the living architecture of our own body.

Not through an illustration.

Through sensation.

Movement.

Attention.

Experience.

Curiosity.

You begin noticing relationships.

Your feet and pelvis.

Your pelvis and spine.

Your ribs and shoulders.

Your breath and belly.

Eventually, the body can start to feel less like a collection of troublesome individual parts that need to be stretched, strengthened or fixed.

It starts to feel like a conversation.

And perhaps that's one of the most useful things fascia and Qigong can teach us together:

Nothing in the body exists entirely on its own.

Nor do we exist separate to the nature surrounding us.

It is all one big DIVINE wed of continuity.