Introduction:
It is common knowledge that life began in the sea and is therefore adapted to the sea, and a common enough idea that we now carry the sea round inside us, one way or another, to allow our bodies to work. It is a very useful idea and allows us insight into the way our mechanics work. We are slung on bones, like a building on its timber frame, but we are much more than that. We are also 'plastic bags of salty water, all bound up to make a hydrostatic skeleton'. Our tissues form that hydrostatic skeleton, especially our connective tissue.
Tasks:
- Find us on Blackboard: all those enrolled on the course should have access. Let me know if you haven't, by comment here or email in to massage therapy. If you have, get on there and say hello!
- Listen to Elluminate if you were not there. Instructions as to how to find the recording are on Blackboard, but a big hint is that the recording comes up on the page for Friday 13th, not Tuesday 17th! Check that you can find our next one (Tues 24th, it should 'go live' at 11am and you can then click on it to enter the meeting), so that you are ready to join in.
- Reading:
I'd like us to be moving on to looking at tissues, with a heavy emphasis on connective tissues and, in particular, fascia.
- Try to read Chapter 3 in Job's Body. Its an old book, but has a lot of basic stuff written in a way that makes sense to massage. Chapter 3 is called Connective Tissue and contains various sections and subsections:
- Water Bags - orientates you, but can be skimmed if you find its familiar stuff
- The Main Ingredients - 4 sections that I'd really like you to read
- Hydrogen Bonding - 2 sections that I'd really like you to read
- The Supportive Network - skip if you haven't got time or it looks complicated, although the bit called Hydrostatic pressure is fun, even if it doesn't sound like it from the title, easy to understand and a useful analogy.
- Connective Tissue as Retort - skip unless you have time and interest.
- Connective Tissue as Organ - read if you have time & interest.
- Theraputic Manipulation of Connective Tissue - relevant to practise, but much less so to bioscience, so read if you have time & interest.
- Remind yourself about the tissues you studied in Bioscience 2. Especially connective tissue. Some of the key issues are: what is the ground substance & is it gel or sol, what kind of cells are there, what kinds of fibres, and how well is it supplied with blood?
- Try looking up fascia, in relation to massage therapy, or in relation to anatomy & physiology. Share any sites you find useful, use the discussion board. But don't drown in the information stream, there's a lot out there!
Juhan, Deane. 1987. Job's Body. Station Hill Press, New York.
Marieb (as usual)
Wikipedia (try fascia, and adhesion)
Other web sites?
