Gil Hedley posted a video on YouTube about fascia (watch it below) in 2005, way before we started talking about things like deep fascia or myofascial release.
In my first yoga teacher training, although we had a wonderful anatomy teacher, our learning focussed on muscles and joints….. but what about fascia?
Fascia is a thin casing of connective tissue that surrounds and holds every organ, blood vessel, bone, nerve fibre and muscle in place. This tissue does more than provide internal structure; fascia has nerves that make it almost as sensitive as skin. When stressed, it tightens up.
Although fascia looks like one sheet of tissue, it’s actually made up of multiple layers with liquid in between. In fact it’s like a super highway for hydration in the body. It’s designed to stretch as you move. But there are certain things that cause fascia to thicken and become sticky. When it dries up and tightens around muscles, it can limit mobility and cause painful knots to develop.
In his video, Hedley talks about fuzz or fascia. He explains that lack of movement in our body leads to the solidifying of our tissues or less mobility around our muscles, which some people wrongly refer to as “aging”. On the other hand, stretching and moving our bodies hydrates and keeps that fascia loose, therefore “healthy”.
The Fuzz Speech answers questions like: “Why do I wake up in the morning feeling so stiff?” “Why does stretching feel so good?” Above all, it is a call to action. A call to movement.
Stretching our fuzz is what keeps us mobile and feeling good. We can deal with it through yoga or any type of exercise that allows us to use our full range of motion.
So, the moral of this story??? KEEP MOVING!