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I have been given the honour of being allowed to carry out various investigative dissections of cadavers.  I say an honour, because that is exactly what it is.   I find it a humbling experience to be allowed to advance my knowledge through the gift of a person leaving their physical body to the advancement of medical science.

They have taught me more than any textbook or teacher possibly could and I owe them and their families an immense debt of gratitude.

When looking at an anatomy text book and you see all the different layers of the skin and muscles, but actually there is no separation.  Every muscle fibre is surrounded by something called facia.  Every bundle of muscle fibres is surrounded by fascia. Every space between muscles is filled with fascia. It is only the dissectors knife or surgeons scalpel that produces these layers. As far as your body is concerned they are all one and interconnected.  If you remove the fascia around a muscle fibre the muscle fibre just falls apart. It is not connective tissue and without the fascia it can not function. 

The same applies to all of the bodies organs.  They are not just hanging there, as shown in the textbooks,  but they are all surrounded and connected to each other and to muscles by (yes you’ve got) FASCIA.   Once you understand this, then you begin to understand how the treatments offered by us are so effective.  Both MLD and the Bowen Technique work on fascia.  The techniques use light touch, but have a very powerful effect. Where ‘less is more'

I have seen for myself the effect on a cadaver of a light skin move and how deep the effect is, right down to the bone.

I have also seen that the semitendinsos – sacrotuberous ligament – and erector spinae are one continuous tissue.  They are not separate individual ligaments and muscles.   You can pull the soleus at where it becomes the tendo calcaneus and feel movement at the rhomboideus major.

Or in less medical language you can pull the heel and feel it at the shoulder.

It is not muscles that slide over each other, but the fascia that surrounds them is what slides and touches each other.  The quality of this fascia is what helps full movements and effortless motion.  If this is allowed to deteriorate then it has to have an impact on this movement and motion.  It must then also be that anything that helps to release sticky or stuck fascia will help to improve movement and motion.

You may wake in the morning stiff, but do a few stretches and start moving and it goes away.  Whilst asleep and not moving (too soft a bed) the fascia was allowed to get sticky. Now imagine you have hurt your shoulder and to protect it your body sends messages not to move it.  You wake on the first morning and don’t move it.  You go all day without moving it in fear that it will hurt.  You go to bed again and wake the next day and not move it.  You now have two nights and one days’ worth of built up sticky fascia.  This must be more that one nights worth.  What happens if you carry on not moving this joint?  You increase the build up and reduce the range and flexibility of movement.

I have experienced a situation with a cadaver where you could slide your hand under one shoulder blade, but not the other, because the gap between it and other components was full of a solid mass of sticky fascia.  This was, I imagine, a shoulder that had not seen full movement for sometime.

Once you grasp this understanding that the body is the sum of its parts (synergy) you can understand why a client who has had a treatment for a recently sprained ankle may also find that a neck or shoulder issue they had has also improved.  Similarly why a practitioner faced with treating a lower back problem, may treat an ankle and neck.  Or why someone who has a treatment for a back issues, finds that thier PMS symptoms have improved.

Also to reduce swelling in one limb (say for severe burns) you can treat the other limb and reduce the swelling.

A traditional lymphatic massage squashes the lymphatic system of the largest organ of the body, the skin. Remember the initial lymphatic system starts 0.40mm - 0.70mm below the surface of the skin. Treat the skin lymphatic system gently and you must then also be treating all other lymphatic vessels.  This aspect of ‘less is more’ is the accepted method of treatment of Lymphoedema by the NHS. 

It's like the old saying look after the pennies (initial lymphatic system) and the pounds (other lymphatic vessels) will look after themselves.

As mentioned on the home page, if you suffer from any bronchial conditions then give the Bowen Technique a try.  I am always amazed at the improvement I’ve seen in our clinic. See the 'case study' page for further evidence.

The conventional treatment is to be prescribed steroids.  Now I do not know enough to put up a strong offensive against these, but all I know is that anabolic steroids are a banned substance and I’m not sure that the medical world can explain how steroids actually work.  Apart form the fact they do work and that they don’t like you being on them too long.   

You may also receive physiotherapy and I know that there are physiotherapists trained in respiratory treatment, but I recently approached a general practice physiotherapist and was advised that the diaphragm is treated.  I asked where the diaphragm finished and was told, by pointing, that it finished at the bottom of the ribs. 

Now it’s your turn to try a little test for me. 

I want you to sit up straight in a firm chair (kitchen or dinning chair will do) feet flat on the floor.  I want you to take a deep breath in and feel the volume of air inhaled and judge how deep a breath you have taken.

Now do the same whilst holding a pelvic floor (all you mums will know what I mean), for you others it’s the movement you do to stop you from peeing. Hold this pelvic floor all the time you are breathing in. 

Now compare this second in breath with the first.  If you did it properly the second breath should have been less that the first.  Proving the diaphragm is connected to the pelvis.

We all know what the pelvis is connected to, hamstrings, knees, and ankles etc.   Apart from all the internal muscles there is a complete sheet of fascia that goes from the ribs to the pelvis.

So in a Bowen treatment for asthma we may reset your pelvis or even treat your hamstring or your ankle to help relieve your bronchial symptoms. Treatment of the neck would certainly help plus there many other Bowen moves for asthma.

Thus relaxing the diaphram and helping the body to breath better.

The Bowen Technique will not cure you of ashtma, but it might take away the bodies trigger points.