ABSTRACT Tensegrity has been used as a concept in structural integration (SI) going back to Ida Rolf, and elaborated further as we have benefitted from the paradigm shift from tensegrity to biotensegrity for living organisms. Bond discusses tensegrity and biotensegrity, then introduces the idea of ‘perceptual tensegrity’ as being present in our orientation to ground and space. She discusses how to bring this into our work with clients to enhance the embodiment possible through SI and Rolf Movement sessions.

Mary Bond

 

Diversity is everywhere, and there is endless variety. We can see ropes, rigging, harnesses, transparent sails, and dewdrops, with rings that reinforce the solidity of some fibers like an articulated bamboo stem. Tissue continuity is total . . .

Jean-Claude Guimberteau (2015, 46) on the view through his endoscope.

 

Tensegrity Buzz

In tandem with the fascia research that has galvanized the structural integration (SI) and fitness communities (including Pilates and yoga) and the ‘body world’    in general, there has been a smaller but equally dynamic buzz about tensegrity.

Like many SI practitioners, I have a Skwish™  toy  in  my  office  and  show   it to clients to make the point about interconnectivity. I got it  about  struts  and tensioned cables, bones and soft tissue, diffusion of compression through the continuous-tension network, and returning  to  equilibrium  after   removal of constraint. It seemed a cool mental exercise.  But  geometry  wasn’t  really my thing. Little did I know that it’s the tensegrity principle operating in our bodies that makes movement possible. Tensegrity ensures that the interior spaces, large and microscopic, that deform when we move can always return to spacious equilibrium when we stop.

That gets my attention.

Tensegrity came to life for me when  I saw Dr. Jean-Claude Guimberteau’s endoscopic video images of living fascia (see Figure 1). The tensional integrity of those tissues as they changed shape  was beyond doubt. Until then, tensegrity had been of historical interest because Ida Rolf had talked about it, and about Buckminster Fuller, when I studied with her. But it never seemed  central  to  SI for me. Dr. Rolf and most of my other teachers were mainly looking at human structures through the lens of classical Newtonian mechanics, basically a top- down system where gravity holds the body together like hinged and levered stacks of blocks. I had lived with the Little Boy Logo for a long time.

 

The Biotensegrity Nerds

While the fascia aficionados have been making strides in their research, there have been tensegrity enthusiasts waiting in the wings. The common themes of ubiquity, continuity, spaciousness, and equilibrium have motivated communication between these two cohorts, making the past several decades a fertile time for re- conceiving how our bodies function.

It started, of course, with Buckminster Fuller, architect and systems theorist, who sought a structural design that would be light, strong, and energy-efficient. Although famous for inventing the geodesic dome in the 1940s, he was actually reinventing (and claimed the patent for) a structure made decades earlier by a German engineer. Nonetheless, it was Fuller who popularized the continuous tension / discontinuous compression design. Inspired by the ‘floating compression’ sculptures of his artist student Kenneth Snelson, Fuller coined the term tensegrity. He also introduced the concept of synergetics (Wikipedia) – the behavior of a system that is not predicted by the sum of its individual parts but rather by their interactions – and coined that term long before the word ‘synergy’ became widespread.

In the 1970s, orthopedic surgeon Stephen Levin, troubled by the Newtonian thinking  of  classical  biomechanics,   had an epiphany after viewing Kenneth Snelson’s Needle Tower on the National Mall (see Figure 2). He was then inspired to apply the principles of tensegrity to living matter. Levin subsequently coined the term biotensegrity and  introduced  the concept of equilibrium between structures, a major advance in the understanding of the organization of anatomical structures, “from viruses to vertebrates” (Guimberteau 2015, 139).

Cell biologist and bioengineer Donald Ingber has applied the tensegrity principle to the nanosphere.  His  work  on tensegrity led him to investigate mechanotransduction, the molecular process by which cells convert mechanical signals into changes in intracellular biochemistry. He has shown that the effects of mechanotransduction can occur at a distance from local stimuli.

Artist and inventor (of the Skwish toy) Tom Flemons, already fascinated by geometry, was inspired to pursue tensegrity designs by attending a Buckminster Fuller lecture in the 1970s. In 1985, Flemons noticed   a similarity between tensegrity  masts  and vertebrae. His eloquent work with dowels and  cords  demonstrates  how the tensegral architecture of the bones eliminates the need for levers or fulcrums in our conceptualization of biomechanics. Flemons later met Stephen Levin and the two have collaborated since the 1990s.

 

Figure 1: A simple tensegrity structure (A) and endoscopic video image of living fascia (B). Fascia image courtesy Jean-Claude Guimberteau and EndovivoProductions.

 

Figure 2: Needle Tower, drawing of the sculpture by Kenneth Snelson.

As mentioned, micro-surgeon Jean- Claude Gimberteau has demonstrated the biotensegrity of the fascia  through  his endoscopic images. He demonstrates how the dynamic properties of the microfibrils  within  fascia  act   together to maintain internal spaces (the microvacuoles) during movement.

According to these tensegrity researchers, the complexity of the balance of tensions and compressions within the body is the best explanation  for  the  maintenance  of the body’s volume. It is the only biomechanical hypothesis that adequately explains our capacity to resist the force of gravity in a way that lets us change shape as we move about. The interactions of these tensegrity researchers with one another and with the fascia research community seem to demonstrate the synergy or synergetics that Fuller talked about.

 

Ida Rolf

When I studied with her in the late 1960s, Dr. Rolf was already familiar with Fuller’s work. Tensegrity was a fertile metaphor for Rolf because it allowed the body to be conceived as spacious rather than solid. The concept of tensegrity may also have helped her articulate the continuity she felt under her hands.

Tensegrity was pertinent to Rolf’s theory because it understood fascia as a changeable and responsive element in structural organization. But the tensile characteristic of fascia wasn’t consistent with the compressive model of structure portrayed in the Little Boy Logo (Figure 3). It may have been that she was loath to let go of the illustrative power of the logo to market the concept of “gravity is the therapist.” In the block model of the body, fascia was regarded as a glue that hardened when the blocks were out of alignment. For the most part, SI training had to do with getting the glue unstuck. Developing her work in the period prior  to significant fascia research, Rolf had it both ways: the body was a stack of blocks and a tensegrity structure. Thanks to her genius as a manual therapist, she was able to communicate her vision despite its theoretical inconsistencies and to inspire several generations of practitioners.

 

The SI community understands that tensegrity (or biotensegrity) makes it possible for living  beings  to  navigate  the gravitational field without solidifying or collapsing. But we have not clearly articulated how a human body achieves optimal tensegral expansion other than receiving a Ten Series. Our clients’ bodies become observably more spacious, but perhaps we can do more to help them sustain it.

For clients who truly embrace the emancipation of their inner space – those who feel it – the tensegrity principle can begin to function to their benefit right away. But if we are honest, we know that not all clients have the same interoceptive capacity or refinement of body awareness, or the same degree of interest in helping themselves. It’s our job to educate them about the necessity of beneficial self-use. But what are our tools for doing that? Well, Rolf Movement work.

What features of our movement education support tensegral expansion? Certainly three-dimensional breathing helps – re-training those aspects of breathing biomechanics that are not functioning efficiently. What else? Unless we are teaching stand-alone movement sessions we don’t have  very  much  time. We teach balanced sitting, sit to stand, folding and unfolding the spine, walking, and with certain populations – dancers musicians, yoga practitioners, and athletes – we may have input into performance.  We  coach   our   clients  so that their movement makes use of expanded internal space. But although we strive to focus on the sensation of movement rather than the form of the movement, most clients, when they get home, translate sensation into form. Form is easier to relate to. For example, most people more easily manage the intimate sensation  of   spaciousness   between sit bones and coccyx as a prescribed position of the pelvis. But whereas freedom in the posterior triangle of the pelvic floor can emancipate contralateral motion of the spine, positioning of the pelvis does little for the play of the spine when the person walks.

 

Figure 3: The Little Boy Logo.

Perceptual Tensegrity: Experiencing the Support of Spatial Orientation

Ever since I first met Hubert Godard in 1994, I’ve been an enthusiast of his tonic function theory of body organization, and of the idea that to help someone find a new way to move, it’s essential to help him/her find new body perceptions. For over twenty-five years I’ve  been  trying  to embody this way of being in my own life. I keep writing books about it. This  fall I publish my third attempt, Your Body Mandala. In the middle of writing, it occurred to me that the orienting polarity between ground and space – earth and sky – that I’ve taught since 1994 amounts to tensegrity of  perception.  When  a body yields weight to the ground and is simultaneously oriented in the surrounding space, then the person’s movement acquires a welcome elegance, fluidity,  and connectivity. Coordination changes for the better. We’ve felt this in our own bodies and we see it when it takes hold in our clients: the body’s compression members are floating more willingly in their soft-tissue matrix because the person’s orientation has shifted. Spatial perception makes the body more expansive inside, tensegrally expansive, and thus, more able to fully function as a whole system.

Neuroscientists have told us that the space around our bodies, our peripersonal space, is mapped in our brains (Blakeslee and Blakeslee 2007). It helps to point this out to clients – that the space around  our bodies is part of the body neurologically. Otherwise spatial perception may seem too flimsy to provide actual support. For most people, expansive spatial perception has to be experienced many times before it becomes a reliably supportive factor in their posture and movement. Culturally, physical education has been Newtonian, focused on muscles and levers, not on what we feel. It can take time to create new maps of stance, support, openness, adaptability, responsiveness. Perceptual change can change our outlook as well as our coordination, and thus can re- direct behavior.

Awareness of the space around your body helps maintain the space within your body. We embody more space when we occupy more space. This is powerful. And, it’s a rare client for whom new embodiment is automatic or even easy. The body-mind connection isn’t a straight line, and often the journey to becoming bigger inside and out requires some careful navigation. What has kept this client occupying so small a space? This question must be alive in the therapeutic field between the client and practitioner. Titration is always appropriate in our interventions.

Three Ways to Go About It. I’ve used three main approaches to helping clients experience and value spatial awareness. I think of the first one as ‘marketing’ – selling the client on the benefit of paying attention. I first invite the person  to  focus tightly on an object. Once s/he is doing that, I ask for self-observation in various ways – how s/he  is  breathing, for example. I then challenge the client’s balance either by giving  a  small  push, or asking the person to stand  on  one leg. Most are able to feel a moment of imbalance and insecurity. Then we build a contrasting state by bringing attention to peripheral vision and sustaining the sense of peripheral awareness while looking again at the object. Most people feel more grounded and balanced when they allow themselves to be aware of their surroundings.

The somatic meditation from Your Body Mandala below (Bond 2018, 49) is an example of my second approach. It invites the client to become familiar with the back of his/her body. Most people’s lives are so sagitally-directed that becoming aware of the space behind their bodies is novel. I have found this intervention to be a helpful shortcut to awareness of the ‘backspace’.  It  has  the added benefit that the client feels his/her cervical vertebrae moving more freely. The lesson that spatial awareness helps decompress the body is built into this intervention.

 

Somatic Meditation: Moving from the Back of Your Head

Standing comfortably, turn your head to look to your right as far as it feels comfortable. Then look to your left. Look up to the ceiling and down to the ground. Notice how it feels to move your neck.

Remind yourself that the ground is supporting your body  from  below and take a moment to consciously yield the weight of your ankles into the ground. Yield your pelvis, your shoulder blades, and your elbows. At the same time, be aware of the space surrounding your body.

From there, mentally divide your head into a back and a front. Everything behind your ears is the back of your head, and everything from your ears forward is your face. Spread your palms and fingers across the back of your head (see Figure 4). Close your eyes and take a moment to let your head feel the contact of your hands. It’s easy for your hands to feel the contact: let your scalp feel it also.

Next, turn your head in various directions by using your hands to move the back of your head. Your face remains passive.

Notice that when the back of your head is going to the left, your face turns to the right. When the back of your head moves to the right, your face turns to the left. When the back of your head goes down, your face tips upward. When you look down, the back of your head goes up.

Now, relax your arms and continue looking around, letting the back of your head lead the action. Your face is a passenger, riding on the back of your head. Notice how your neck feels when you move your head in this manner.

My third approach involves using ideokinetic vectors. Implying magnitude and direction, a vector in this context is a potential for action. Any point on or within the body can be the source point of a vector. If you locate bregma on the crown of the head and find the perineal node    in the center of the perineum and then   let those two points move in opposite directions, you invite expansion through your midline.

The arm-rotation exercises (see https:// bit.ly/2TSAmyd) that Dr. Rolf taught employ idiokinetic vectors.  Expanding the arms’ midlines between glenohumeral joints and palms and carefully going through those quarter-turn rotations invites tensegral organization of the arm and shoulder girdle.

Another effective vector point is the tibial tuberosity. When these ‘shin points’ are active in walking, the feet land  toward the fronts of the calcanei rather than on the back edges, softening heel strike and promoting resilience through the whole system. Of course, this is most effective when the midline has lengthened.

Vectors can be located along the vertebral bodies, giving each vertebral segment its own trajectory (see Figure 5). For forward folding we can imagine vectors extending from the vertebral spines. In the yoga cat/cow movement we can alternate between vectors on the back (cat) and vectors on the front (cow). When a vector is hard to imagine or access, it may be the locus of an emotional holding pattern or compensation from injury. Such places need careful negotiation to return to functionality. (Chapters 10 and 11  of  Your Body Mandala offer several ways to work with vectors and emotional holding patterns.)

When I practice yoga, I let my attention travel along these various vectors – midline, arm lines, shins, front and back spine vectors – all expanded into the space around me (Figure 6), supporting me as I move from asana to asana. Sometimes I imagine the same silken threads that you see in Guimberteau’s magnifications (Figure 1) as being present in the space around my body, vectors that move through every cell and organ, sustaining me in the space. Like the microfibrils, dividing and rearranging to maintain the volume of the microvacuoles, my imaginary filaments dynamically revise their relationships as they maintain my interior space. When I practice living within an environment of vectors, it feels as though I don’t have to work so hard to maintain balance.

Figure 4: Let your hands rest lightly on the back of your head for the Moving from the Back of Your Head somatic meditation.

Figure 5: Vectors along the vertebral bodies in forward and backward bending.

 

Figure 6: Various vectors in triangle pose.

 

Synergy

The 360° field of awareness that kept our ancient forebears alive has been replaced by narrow, sagittal focus on a screen or traffic lane, or on whatever symptom currently troubles us. Our responsibility as practitioners is twofold: first to cultivate mindful body awareness in ourselves so that we may model it to our clients, and second, to promote that awareness as a primary benefit of SI sessions.

SI releases restrictions, emancipating space within the body and facilitating balance and integration. This changes how we occupy  our  bodies  and  how  we move through our lives. Too often, however, the somatic epiphanies of a session fade with re-entry into the hectic world we live in. SI practitioners can help clients sustain the emancipation and grace of a session by anchoring those moments to conscious proprioception. Those perceptions need then be anchored to daily interactions. Spatial orientation is key to the maintenance of tensegral expansion.

Buckminster Fuller considered tensegrity to be a law of the universe, viewing planets as compression elements held in place by the invisible but pervasive tension force of gravity. He thought that everything in the universe tries to stabilize itself and conserve energy through continuous tension and local compression.

Tensegrity of perception might not really be a thing – after all, I made it up. But I like thinking that the way humans perceive has the same structural organization as a molecule or a solar system.

Mary Bond studied with Ida Rolf from 1969 to 1972. Formerly Chair of the U.S. Rolf Movement faculty, she has been involved in the development of movement education for SI from the early days with Judith Aston and has been profoundly  influenced  by the work of Hubert Godard. She is the author of Balancing Your Body, The New Rules of Posture, and Your Body Mandala and producer of Heal Your Posture: A Video Workshop. It is her joy to share her perspective of movement education.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Blakeslee, S. and M. Blakeslee 2007. The Body Has a Mind of Its Own. New York: Random House.

Bond, M. 2018. Your Body Mandala: Posture as a Path to Presence. Maitland, Florida: MCP Books.

Guimberteau,  J.-C.  and  C.  Armstrong   2015. Architecture of Human Living Fascia. Edinburgh: Handspring Publishing.

Wikipedia, ‘synergetics.’ https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Synergetics_(Fuller), retrieved 11/25/2018.

Perceptual Tensegrity[:]