Webinar Series 2022

Robert Schleip •  Markus Rossmann • Joeri Calsius • Tom Myers • Carla Stecco • Julie Hammond • Fabiana Silva • Karin Gurtner

Interviews with presenters

Each series has a specific topic and contains 4 webinars. While each webinar has a unique content, the webinars of a series are coherent, illuminating the overarching topic from different perspectives.

1. Series: Up & Running

2. Series: Kinaesthetic Intelligence

3. Series: Core Vitality

OVERVIEW SERIES

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WEBINAR DESCRIPTIONS

Up & Running

••• “Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.” Alexander Graham Bell •••

Imagine you could prepare the body for athletic activities without performing them yet. Then, imagine that once you get up and running, you have a somatic head start that gives you greater efficiency, minimised risk of injury, and multiplied enjoyment from the get-go. Possible? Indeed it is!

In this webinar, we will glance at key qualities for fascia-empowered running. However, the focus of both the theory and Slings in Motion practice will be on training the myofascial prerequisites for one of the world’s most accessible sports. As a bonus, the applied preparatory exercise strategies also enhance your walking ease, overall movement agility, fluid circulation, and energy regulation. Running or not, by optimising the capacity of your myofascial system, you can’t lose, only gain.

Walking properly every day gives your body good and healthy impulses every day!
Walking wrongly every day gives your body bad and unhealthy impulses!

A lack of exercise is the main reason for most physical problems. Many clients and patients are aware of this, and still, the majority of this ever-growing group does not have the time or the desire to become more active. The demand for “Minimal Movement Programs” continues to grow. How do I get people to do a lot for their health without sweating too much and with little time expenditure? How do I get people to enjoy moving?

The answer: Teach them to use their everyday walking for greater health. Many scientific studies prove that walking properly is beneficial for your health. Walking is a part of everyday life that may be done without any additional time expenditure, without sweat, and without having to change clothes. By walking properly and deliberately, you can give your body a right impulse every day. However, by walking like most people do, unmindfully and inaptly, you will give your body a wrong impulse. This can enhance physical and psychological problems or even cause them. Fascial science gives us a new point of view on walking fitly!

In this webinar, you will get a theoretical overview of the concept “Fascial Walk” and learn how optimal fascial activation can add easeful spring to every step. Fascial Walk is fun and motivates people to move more, which, after all, is the main goal.

Markus Rossmann

After Markus’ upbeat presentation, you are invited to roll out your mat for a Slings in Motion practice that aims to bring buoyancy to your walking. The multidimensional exercise sequence factors in myofascial principles and sensory aspects of gait, which will keep you fit with every step.

Karin Gurtner

What swimming is for fish, and flying is for birds, that is running for healthy humans: the most elegant style of locomotion. One for which our evolution has equipped us with dozens of specific adaptations in contrast to our closest siblings, like chimpanzees or gorillas. A bird that has been living on the ground may need to learn how to fly in a smooth and graceful manner. Similarly, we modern humans, with our mostly sedentary lifestyles, may profit from re-discovering how healthy running was practiced by our barefoot nomadic ancestors. This includes the optimal usage of elastic storage capacities in our plantar fascia, Achilles and patellar tendons, iliotibial tract, as well as several diagonal myofascial slings across the pelvis. 

A more fascia-oriented running style will also consider including frequent walking pauses, as well as variations in the basic running style, such as in-stride length, foot-floor contact, and running speed. The viscoelastic properties supporting these principles will be illustrated and discussed in this live presentation. Needless to say (unless you are German), rhythm is key! Finding the optional inherent resonance frequency for the specific stiffness and pendulum lengths of your body on a given day can be a fun and very rewarding task. 

A chicken jumping down a cliff may suffer some injuries, if not done wisely. Similarly, most modern runners are prone to troubling musculoskeletal dysfunctions due to overload of specific fascial tissues. Ready to start flying? Or maybe better, to run like a healthy nomad across the savanna and through the jungle? If yes, then you are happily invited to learn to explore human, fascial biomechanics supporting a more joyful and healthy nomadic lifestyle.

Robert Schleip

Following Robert’s uplifting, run-like-a-healthy-nomad presentation, you are invited to roll out your mat for a multidimensional and elegantly-sequenced Slings in Motion practice. We will elasticise the legs and hips for enhanced fascial spring, play with lots of exercise variations, and explore different rhythms to give you greater biomechanical efficiency and joy when running – if not in the savanna, then on a running trail in your neighbourhood.

Karin Gurtner

••• “I will be happy if running and I can grow old together.” Haruki Murakami •••

Few things are certain, yet we can say with confidence that movement is life. We are born to move. If in doubt, think of your breath; tune into it. Feel the rhythm of your heart. Envision the flow of your blood. Your ability to move keeps you alive and, at best, thriving. Walking and running are natural movements that keep the body fitter, stronger, and more youthful. They can unclutter and sharpen the mind and facilitate emotional self-regulation. By engaging in these activities regularly, we can deepen our sleep, support our digestion, and even unwind pain patterns. So, why don’t we do them more often?

In this webinar, we will explore this very question, starting by differentiating exercise from natural movement - because they benefit us in other ways. We will shift the perspective with which we view walking and running from structural to holistic. And maybe most importantly, we will look at what motivates an active lifestyle, discuss ways to foster movement love, and examine why exercise obligation is a precarious motivator that might work against us rather than for us. In short, the multifaceted lecture and corresponding Slings in Motion practice of this webinar are intended to motivate natural movements so we too can grow old together, walking or running.

Kinaesthetic Intelligence

••• At ease and thriving in the one place that truly belongs to you, your body. •••

KQ or kinaesthetic intelligence equates to meaningful perception of the world around you (exteroception), within you (interoception), and the manner in which you actively engage with these worlds (proprioception). If this sounds a bit out there, it is not. It is right here—in you—and absolutely vital for your inner ease and movement freedom.

In the lecture part of this webinar, we will differentiate sensing and experiencing. Conceptually distinguishing the two is of tremendous practical value. We will discuss how a fascia-focussed practice can facilitate integration of exteroception (outer body perception), interoception (inner body experience), and proprioception (movement orchestration). We will explore how neural interoceptive flow can be positively influenced to create inner equilibrium. In addition, the 3-Zone concept will be introduced as a practical tool.

The coherent Slings in Motion practice aims for the embodiment of the theory by incorporating contrasting movement sequences, the deliberate use of massage props, awareness to the way we touch and respond to touch, self-tactile cueing, and resource-oriented communication. At best, it fosters a feeling of togetherness - within the body and in relation to the world around.

Latest histological examinations have shown that the bodywide fascial net constitutes by far the richest sensory organ of the human body. What do we know about the major functions of this surprising capacity? Which role do the many sympathetic nerve endings play, particularly those that do not terminate close to blood vessels? And which specific fasciae have major interoceptive rather than proprioceptive functions? How specifically does acute emotional stress impact neurofascial dynamics? How about chronic stress? 

And finally: How can we use an improved understanding of these specific interactions for more potent interventions in the fields of manual and movement therapy?

Robert Schleip

Following Robert’s insightful presentation, you are invited to roll out your mat for a Slings in Motion practice that utilises the fascial system in its capacity as a sensory organ. In concert with a deliberate exercise selection, the specific cueing aims to train and refine kinaesthetic intelligence, and with it – I believe – emotional intelligence and inner ease.

Karin Gurtner

In this webinar, we will focus on an intriguing psychosomatic phenomenon known to bodyworkers as well as psychotherapists. Namely how does trauma-related tension settle itself into the body and, even more interesting, how can it be released again? In search of a scientific, unequivocal answer, we start by looking at the body as a layered phenomenon understood from a myofascial as well as a psychological point of view. Subsequently, based on recent findings, theories in developmental psychology, interoceptive and consciousness studies, and psychosomatic research, a clinical concept - the myofascial middle layer - is offered as a tool for a more solid comprehension of emotional release as a phenomenon in myofascial bodywork.

Joeri Calsius 

Following Joeri’s inclusive presentation, you are invited to roll out your mat for an ‘unarmouring’ (maybe even ‘enamouring’) Slings in Motion short lesson. The resource-oriented integrative practice aims to facilitate somatic and emotional freedom, while giving you meaningful exercise ideas and teaching strategies of personal and professional value.

Karin Gurtner

We are living at an historical turning point. Kinaesthetic Dystonia - alienation from our feeling sense - is neither a temporary nor a trivial challenge. We live in an increasingly disconnected society where the consequences appear more and more in personal health and potentially catastrophic social alienation. Complementing the other talks in this collective, this webinar overviews the larger trends that have led to our current situation, and proposes key areas where we might help to turn things around.

Tom Myers

Following Tom’s present-day talk, you are invited to roll out the mat for a uniting Slings in Motion practice. By tuning into our interoceptive, or feeling sense, we not only unite our inner world, we also strengthen our empathy for and sense of connectedness with the world around us.

Karin Gurtner

Core Vitality

••• Vitalising the fascial core positively changes – everything. •••

Fascial roundhouses are local specialisations with bodywide influence, for better or worse. In turn, these highly frequented structures receive information from throughout the body. It is up to us whether or not the influence they have or the information they absorb is physically empowering or disempowering. Through awareness and the deliberate use of fascial roundhouses within a resource-oriented exercise practice, we can bring ease to places of discomfort or pain, enhance movement freedom, and boost our energy.

In this webinar, we will place the spotlight on central roundhouses (pelvic floor, thoracolumbar fascia). Covered in the theoretical part are their locations, basic architecture, reach, and relationship. The corresponding Slings in Motion practice facilitates embodiment of the theory and brings a feeling of vividness to the fascial core.

In recent years, the fasciae of the pelvic floor have attracted the attention of gynecologists, proctologists, and rehabilitation doctors for their possible role in prolapses and pelvic pain. Besides, they are also at the base of new surgical treatments for prolapses. They consist of the use of strings to support the pelvic floor. This surgery is an intriguing technique, but it has many complications, above all post-surgical pain. A better knowledge of the fascial anatomy in the pelvic floor could probably help to reduce these bad outcomes. For example, it is still not clear how many fasciae are present in the pelvic floor and if they are isolated structures or are in continuity to form new fascial layers.

In this webinar, the focus is on the layered organization of the pelvic floor and how these layers continue with the fasciae of the inferior limbs, abdomen, and back. Only a clear understanding of such organization will permit a correct approach to the various problems of the pelvic floor.

Carla Stecco

Following Carla’s profound presentation, you are invited to roll out your mat for a Slings in Motion short lession in which you can experience the multilayered, myofascial web of the pelvic floor through multidimensional movement and deliberate self-massage. Muscle-focused and fascia-focused exercises are conceptually differentiated and practically integrated to facilitate dynamic balance in this central roundhouse. To fully integrate the pelvic floor, we will work from the inside-out (center to periphery) and outside-in (periphery to center).

Karin Gurtner

In this webinar, we will explore the amazing thoracolumbar fascia (TLF), a multi-layered, intrinsically tensioned aponeurosis that has important force transmission distribution in the human body. When expanding the vision, we can also see that sliding between the layers and sufficient hydration support tissue health and optimal functionality in the back – and beyond. At the same time, it is worth considering that the TLF is involved in pain perception, an issue that physical and movement therapists all too often encounter in their work with clients. Let's connect scientific research and practice to enhance the possibilities of health-promoting intervention in TLF.

Fabiana Silva

Following Fabiana’s integrative presentation you are invited to roll out your mat for a multidimensional Slings in Motion short lesson that enhances resilience, communication, and a feeling of ease in the TLF. By engaging in specific movements and self-massage exercises that focus on individual layers, the theory is embodied and of immediate somatic benefit.

Karin Gurtner

The passion for pelvic anatomy and gait are elegantly combined in this brand-new webinar. Explored are the intricate movements, and the fluidity of gait as the pelvis moves through three planes of motion. The pelvis creates a sinusoidal wave as it moves through the gait cycle. As well as discussing the normal movement of the bony pelvis, you will learn what happens to the pelvic diaphragm during walking. As part of the lecture, you will look at what can restrict fluid movement within the pelvis and the sacroiliac joint. How postural changes/adaptions within the pelvis will affect ease and efficient movement. And best of all, how restoring ease and balance in the pelvis will give fluidity and vitality to your walk and bring spring back to your step. A review of the latest research and how this information can inform your practice is an integral part of this presentation.

Julie Hammond

After Julie’s impassioned presentation, you are invited to roll out your mat for a coherent Slings in Motion practice. The smooth flowing exercise sequence aims to facilitate embodiment of the precepts and vitalise your pelvis, both of which is intended to benefit you off the mat, in every step you take.

Karin Gurtner

Purchase recordings as Vimeo On Demand album