This week I had the honour of taking part in a two day dissection of the upper body organised by Julian Baker (Head of European College Bowen Studies) at St. George's Hospital Medical School in London, under the watchful eye of Professor Ceri Davies and his highly skilled assistants.
What set this dissection apart compared to the norm, was that it was working on the physical form layer by layer. There are few people in the world that have had the privilege to witness such a dissection let alone take part.
I was one of a handful of Bowen Therapists attending this event. The purpose from my point of view was to understand more fully what it is that I am affecting when I make a Bowen move on the body. Many body workers believe that we work on muscles, to alleviate tension and bring about change. After this dissection I can say with certainty that I have spent the last 3 years working on 'Fat & Fascia', and will continue to do so for the rest of my Bowen career or until humans are built differently.
What I have learnt more than anything is that :
A) Fat (adipose tissue) & Fascia (thin tough layer surrounding practically everything) has a significant role to play in the health and general well-being of the individual. And that our attitude towards Fat as being 'BAD' is quite evidently wrong and probably dangerously stupid.
B)That anatomy books although useful to a certain point can not only be unhelpful at times, but down-right misleading at others when one begins to look at the body as a whole and the interaction supposedly separate muscles have on another area of the anatomy, only to find that there is no division of muscle at all, except the one a surgeon decided to make 500 years ago.
C)The effect immobility in a given area of the body can have on the make-up of layers on the body, which in turn can affect other aspects of the anatomy.
Understanding what I have learnt and applying in clinic will be an ongoing process. But what I can say is that the last few days have been a real eye opener on many levels, and an invaluable experience which will hopefully help me to help others more effectively.
My special thanks go to the two donors who bequeathed there physical forms for the study of medical science. This work is only possible due to their incredible generosity, together with their families who have acquiesced to these donations. I feel enormously privileged to have been granted such an opportunity to learn so much.
My thanks also go to Julian Baker whose tireless commitment to Tom Bowen's work and the Bowen Technique has enabled us to push forward the boundaries of our understanding of how the body heals, and how we can as practitioners help it along the way.
Cheers
Austin Burn-Jones ECBS MBTER
Bowen Technique Practitioner
