Wasn't too sure what the content of this weekends course was going to be ... but as I knew Valeria was leading it then I guessed that it would involve some of the following: structural realignment, soft tissue manipulation/ massage, visceral mobilisation, lymphatic drainage, cranial osteopathy, exercises and postural advice (taken from her web site).
Thankfully after the talk that the 4th Years had received from the Lead Tutor of 4th Year Technique about the general lack of fluidity in our soft tissue work ... this course was exactly what was needed as it concentrated on treating the superficial/deep fascia and muscles.
It has been said by myself on more than one occasion that the course at the BSO doesn't really emphasis much on its soft tissue work. It seems that after the basic cross fibre techniques have been shown in the Mixed Mode component then nothing further is done with soft tissue techniques until the 4th year electives of Strain Counterstrain and Visceral. This has also been suggested by various tutors in clinic.
Thankfully the course was going to look at myofacial release and soft tissue techniques.
CERVICAL AREA
After a revision of the anatomy of the different layers of fascia we moved on to the first practical elements of the course. I wont list every technique that we were taught, just the ones that are of a particular interest.
The first set of techniques we worked on were anterior neck structures such as sternocleidomastoid and scalenes. Having previously struggled with Scalene techniques Ive meet MET'ing then as shown by Linda Goddard (see entry dated 18/03/2001)with great success I hasten to add. But we were shown another technique which sounds quick aggressive however is in practice. It was to us the knuckles to hold back to superficial fascia of covering the scalenes and SCM and side bend the patients head towards and then ask them to rotate away. This technique is quite simple and quite effective ... looking forward to trying this one out.
Alison Durant was a massage therapist before she trained as an osteopath and still uses lots of deep massage in her osteopathic treatment. I was delighted when she demonstrated a number of techniques that she does with her elbow ... the reason why I was so delighted is that I too like to use my elbow as I find it a very effective tool, however it has often been criticised by clinic tutors due to the lack of proprioception in the elbow compared to the finger pads. What Alison does to improve this in her technique is to place the finger pads from her other hand next to her elbow to help her propriception of the tissues reaction of the techniques to ensure that she applies the correct amount of pressure on the tissues, this is what I now intend to practice in clinic to see how I can improve on my technique.
THORACIC FASCIA
To focus our understanding and to give us an opportunity to practice our newly acquired techniques Valeria got us to work on each others thorax. Valeria demonstrated her assessment techniques on one of the mixed mode students who was of a muscular build which helped identify muscular imbalances in his physique. She identified a tightening and pull in the fascia over his left pectoral region and she identified how on percussion of his clavicle there was a definite difference in the sound over the left dysfunctional shoulder/pectoral region.
The basis of the technique was to firstly work on the superficial fascia by creating a momentum the thorax and then treating with a pumping technique to mobilise the fascia. To work deeper was slightly more technical. Firstly we had to fix on the deep layer of fascia and then using functional movements either hold back on the fascia whilst the muscle glides underneath our fixed hold, or merely allow the fascia to move with the functional movements ... I'm looking forward to using and practising these newly found fascial techniques.
LYMPHATIC PUMP
Having been demonstrated a sinus drainage technique in the third year, finally I was given more instruction on a more general systemic lymphatic drainage technique during the course. Valeria demonstrated a quick technique which focus on all the major areas where lymph nodes are located and how to 'pump' them to encourage lymphatic flow and drainage.
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