Sandwiches and Tai Chi

Authored by Dianne Bailey

“Be water, my friend.”  As a longtime martial artist, I am, of course, familiar with this famous quote from the legendary Bruce Lee.  I was recently introduced to a new imagery at a conference entitled, The Science of Tai Chi and Qigong as Whole Person Health put on by the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine in association with Harvard Medical School.  

The first presenter was Helene Langevin who is the Director of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health at the National Institutes of Health.  Her presentation was titled, “Physiological Connections Through the Fascia and Interstitium Network.”

The focus of this presentation was the importance of connective tissue to overall whole person health.  She introduced the idea that fasciae and interstitial tissues are a body-wide network that might be considered a “system” much like the respiratory, digestive or cardio/vascular systems. This network of connective tissue is essential to health in many ways. 

She discussed how healthy fascial layers will glide against one another with shear force or stress (see the narrow blue lines in the photo below on the left).  This sliding actually reduces tension and friction and is instrumental in the overall mobility of our bodies. When the fascia is injured or inflammation takes over, it can no longer slide and the layers adhere to one another (see the thick blue line in the photo below on the right), thus causing stiffness in the muscles and joints.  Dr. Langevin then showed 2 pictures:  a ham sandwich and a peanut butter sandwich.  She described “healthy fascial layers” as that of the ham sandwich – able to move and glide easily against each other.  The peanut butter sandwich represented “adhesions” in the fascial layers – stuck together and not at all mobile.  Sedentary lifestyles along with injury can create the environment in your body that can cause this loss of mobility.

As she concluded her discussion, she related the open, smooth, effortless movement of Tai Chi as possibly being an exercise to promote and maintain a healthy connective tissue system.  She commented that Tai Chi could be thought of as “active whole body fascial massage.”

So, be like a ham sandwich, my friend.  As this conference pointed to, Tai Chi can be one of the best things to include in your life for overall whole person health.

About the Author: Dianne Bailey, CSCS, Functional Aging Specialist, Tai Chi instructor and fourth-degree black belt of Taekwondo, is the owner of The Conditioning Classroom, a private personal training studio in Denver, Colorado that has served the mature population since 2006. She has also created an online training program called Open the Door to Tai Chi that equips people to begin to teach Tai Chi. Dianne is a frequent presenter at fitness conferences and is the author of several books. You can find out more about her at www.taichisystem.com and reach her at Dianne@taichisystem.com.