About Fascia in Motion

Hi Elizabeth Larkam. Thank you for being here and I would like to send my gratitude to you and I think everyone will agree for writing this amazing book and providing our industry with this collection of your education, your expertise and wisdom. Can you share this with us please, the cover of your book, "Fascia in Motion?" Thank you so much Amy, and Pilates Anytime for welcoming me here. This is "Fascia in Motion: Fascia-Focused Movement "for Pilates." This book was probably a good five years in the making, and I remember that every time I came to Pilates Anytime to film in January, I would always mention my book, and so throughout the year people would say hmm, how's that book? Where is that book?

It's not done yet? So I'm so grateful that it really exists, it has its own life now. I carried it for five years and now it's everyone's. It's for everyone. This is exciting.

What motivated you to write the book? Let's start with that. Ah, you know Pilates has been my fascination and my joy and my interest for over 30 years, and during this time I've always wanted to contribute to the evolution of Pilates in a respectful way, a way that honors the work of Joseph Pilates and in a way that integrates the interdisciplinary information that informs our work as Pilates teachers. So my motivation for writing this book was to bring the research from fascia together with the practice of Pilates to see what we come up with. If you haven't checked it out, you need to check it out.

It's more than a book, though, those of you who have it already if you don't, you'll see that it is deeply different than just a textbook. Different contributors, pictures, historical images. Can you differentiate a bit how it's different? Yes indeed. Being a Pilates teacher myself for so many years and living in the community with Pilates teachers, I know that all of us, we'd rather move ourselves, if we're not moving ourselves then we'd rather be teaching other people to move, if we're not teaching others, then certainly we could be looking at them move on Pilates Anytime, and I don't know too many Pilates teachers who will be fascinated enough to just read a whole page of text.

So I thought what a good idea if we have really rich, really rich images, really rich photos that convey movement as in time-lapse photography with overlaying with computer graphics, so that the moment you see the page you go oh, that movement is interesting to me, I can feel what that's like through my mirror neurons or I would like to try that photo out. So we start with, we have rich images and not only do we have rich images of contemporary applications, but very rich images from historical photos from Joseph Pilates that are overlaid with computer graphics that show the myofascial continuities. Now I'm exceedingly fortunate and grateful to Ken Endelman who opened his Pilates archives to me for the research and for the study and Ken gave permission for use of some of the historic photos in the book, so it's thanks to Ken that I have that opportunity. These are previously unpublished photos that show Joseph Pilates with equipment he invented and showing the myofascial continuities. Joseph Pilates was so way ahead of his time, we've always known that, and now we know that the fascia research is catching up with him.

Exactly, yeah, it's fascinating to say the least. In addition, and furthermore while I'm still on this story here, this book is a collaboration between Pilates Anytime and Handspring Publishing, Handspring Publishing in Edinborough, such that the end of each chapter there are QR codes and you can use your device to scan the code which will take you immediately to a Pilates Anytime portion of the website so that you can see the video clip from the classes that we filmed that correspond to this specific fascia research that we're writing about. Lucky us. I hope! Fortunate us. What do you hope the Pilates world will get from this book?

I would hope that the Pilates world, Pilates teachers will re-appreciate the genius of Joseph Pilates, recognizing that fascia research in the past five, 10 years is reinforcing what Joseph Pilates knew intuitively and practiced in his physicality. So a re-appreciation of our forefather and the people who teach his sequences, his work. I would also like for Pilates teachers to be inspired and emboldened to recognize that fascia research is moving, encouraging our field to move in the direction of a multitude of vectors and a variety of different movement planes such that we can honor the work of Joseph Pilates and appreciate movements in the Pilates environment that still have integrity. Wonderful. May I ask what fascinates you so much about fascia?

You personally? Right. Well in all of these years in teaching Pilates since 1985, I have been looking for research that validates why the movements seem to work, seem to be so effective, and I can probably, I could name any number of research projects and concepts from physical therapy and from anatomy research that have impressed me and so I've followed them for awhile. But it was the research of fascia that seemed to fit my intuitive response, my physical response to moving in Pilates, the feeling of well-connected wellbeing, and the feeling of, we talk about the feeling of whole-body movement, that is I find not only physically reassuring and necessary for structural integrity but I find that it gives me an emotional sense of centeredness and wellbeing also. Basically it decreases my base level of anxiety.

(laughs) So when I found that there was, perhaps there was a physical reason for that, I wasn't just making stuff up, I wasn't just bizarre, well we know I'm bizarre and weird, but it wasn't just making stuff up, you know, that the neuromyofascial system has emotional as well as physical applications. Where can people buy your book? Ah, thank you for asking! If you go to the Handspring website, www.handspringpublishing.com, and you subscribe to their e-newsletter, then you get a 20% discount coupon that you can apply to any book on the Handspring website and if you go to Amazon, you can buy it there too. Thank you. May I ask one more question?

Please do, I love talking to you about myself! What's next for you? You've put so much time, so much energy and commitment to this book for yourself but for the industry, but what's next? What's next? Right-o. Well what's next is predicated on my wish for the book.

My wish for the book is that it will move everyone's, each person's personal and professional evolution forward in the highest interest and the greatest good. It's a big wish, but it is my wish. Because I would like for everyone who comes in contact with the book as an instructor, as a practitioner, as just a curious scanner of like whoa, that's a cool move, I wanna try that, let's go to Pilates Anytime and see it, I would like for their personal and professional evolution to be encouraged in the highest interest and the greatest good. Because I can't, I don't have the feeling that I can control the global warming, no, nor do I have a whole lot of say in Washington currently, but when it comes to our movement world, I can make a contribution. So now that I am well into the second half of my life, no matter how much good genes or how much self-discipline and good fortune, I'm still over halfway done, so I would like to build on this book to continue contributing to the evolution of our field such that we have a movement system that's not only good for the physical structure, or benefits the physical structure, but also contributes to mental clarity and to a sense of emotional centeredness and calm.

And if I can support myself, I trust I'll be able to support myself doing that, then I'll keep right on going if I'm fortunate, to around 100, and then I'll be done. And we'll be very fortunate too. Thank you so much, Elizabeth. It's my pleasure, Amy, I really enjoyed being with you. Oh no, here we go.

Here we go. Thank you Pilates Anytime. Thank you. Bye bye.