Let’s look more closely at the tissues that come in contact with the balls when you do Bodymind Ballwork, and how they respond. The four primary types of tissue in the body are epithelial, muscle, nerve, and connective tissue.
Epithelial tissue includes the skin, the linings of organs, and the glands. There are pressure receptors in the skin that receive stimuli by touch. The response to that stimuli varies, as we’ll discuss below.
Muscle tissue, whose main job is to contract, produces movement. There are three types of muscles: striated or skeletal muscles, which move the joints; smooth or visceral muscles, which move the organs; and cardiac muscles, which pump the heart. When we work with the balls, we are creating pressure in the skeletal muscles nearest to the surface of the body, and indirectly to the visceral muscles when we work on the abdomen. This pressure can result in a softening of contractions held in the muscle, and an increase in circulation of blood and interstitial fluids.
Nerve tissue carries electrochemical messages between the brain and every part of the body at a miraculous speed (see chart in chapter 2). The motor and sensory nerves of the peripheral nervous system are located throughout the body, some closer to the surface and others deeper, from head to toes and fingers. Each nerve has a protective coating of three layers of connective tissue. As we each can attest, some parts of the body are more richly supplied with nerves than others; we feel with much more detail and can do more detailed movements with our fingers as compared with our elbows or knees. It’s not harmful to create pressure on the nerves with the balls, but of course it’s best to use common sense and avoid pressure where there is extreme sensitivity.
Connective tissue is the most abundant type of tissue in the body, and the most varied in its texture, shape, and function. Some types of connective tissue are liquid, such as blood and lymph. Others are soft padding materials such as areolar tissue and adipose tissue (also known as fat), and harder padding tissues like cartilage. Bones are classified as connective tissue, and due to their high mineral content, bones are solid enough to provide support (in our spine, arms, and legs) and protection (in our skull). There are also many types of semi-pliable connective tissues such as ligaments (bone to bone), tendons (muscle to bone), and fascia, the all-pervasive connector whose functions are essential for coordinating our movements.1
Fascia is our organizing matrix, the biological web that serves to both connect and separate virtually every structure in the body. It provides cushioning just under the skin; it wraps around and through every muscle (here called myofascia); it supports the bones, the organs, and even the blood vessels and nerves. The texture of fascia can be thin or thick, gel-like or more solid, depending on its local function. It provides our internal structure to a large extent, and it is richly supplied with sensory nerves. Research into the characteristics and functions of fascia has gathered momentum over recent years, with insights that relate to all forms of movement education and healing.2
Once we recognize the pervasiveness and continuity of the fascial web, we see that our body structure is not just dependent on the bones, the joints, and the muscles that move them. It is a dynamic structure in which the bones float in a continuous, supportive, and mobile web of soft tissue. Because that web provides both stretchability (meaning it is tensile) and integrity (it gives support), Buckminster Fuller coined a term for this: tensegrity. In a tensegrity structure, none of the solid elements actually touch each other, but they are separated and supported by the softer tensile elements. The term “biotensegrity” is used to specify the tensegrity structure of the human body.
We often attribute aches and pains to muscles, but with knowledge of the fascial web, we see that body problems are rarely caused by a single muscle’s dysfunction. Every movement pulls on the fascial web that spans the body in different patterns of connectivity. This is force transmission, happening 24/7. Without force transmission, we wouldn’t be able to push off for a jump or skillfully swing a tennis racket while on the run. The fascia is constantly participating in and responding to whatever movements we do. Because fascia constitutes 30 percent of a muscle’s bulk and it creates the interface with neighboring structures, the consistency of our fascia can be a significant factor in our overall flexibility and our susceptibility to injury.
Even though it may appear to be quite thick and tough, fascia is largely composed of water. It is made of an extracellular matrix, plus various types of cells. The extracellular matrix is made of 90 percent water, plus fibers such as collagen, elastin, and reticulin. Collagen provides structural support and tensile strength, and elastin provides (not surprisingly) elasticity. The fluid part, also known as ground substance, is where all chemical exchanges take place; nutrients are being absorbed and waste products are being removed. This fluid can be watery, allowing easier movement, or more viscous (like syrup), with more resistance to movement. Good hydration makes the fascia spongier and more resilient, but drinking lots of water while staying on the couch doesn’t do the trick! We hydrate the tissues only when we move the body enough to circulate the fluids. Also, when the fascia is warmed internally by movement or externally by heat, its viscosity is lowered, making movement easier. We postulate that manual therapies, exercise, and ballwork can lower the viscosity of the ground substance (i.e., “melt” it) and facilitate movement of fluids through the fascia. With good hydration and nutrition, the tissues can remain flexible and repair themselves as needed. Practitioners of ballwork often use words like “liquid” or “fluid” when describing the feeling inside their body after using the balls.
Fascia contains many different types of collagen, which vary in their flexibility and other properties. We are each born with a certain blend of these types of collagen. Even though our alignment and movements do make a huge difference in our flexibility, our heredity (and probably nutrition as well) will affect how easily we can bend, move, and stretch. Besides heredity and activity level, age is also a factor; our collagen degrades as we age.
Although we cannot contract our fascia consciously, as we can contract muscles, recent research has found that smooth muscle cells within the myofascia respond to stress by contracting.3 It doesn’t matter whether the stress is psychological, chemical, or structural. The body automatically braces to try to support itself, and the fascial tissue tightens in response.
Let’s take an example of structural stress that is very common. Perhaps you hold your hips to the right side for a prolonged period of time, due to your daily habits or some other cause, like scoliosis in your spine. The fascia and muscles on the sides of your hips and lower back will become thicker and tighter on the left, attempting to support the weight of your upper body without the help of the pelvis being centered under them. Even though the muscles are in a stretched position, they remain in a state of chronic contraction that anatomist Thomas Myers calls “locked long” (known in physiotherapy as eccentrically loaded). Conversely, the fascia and muscles on the other side will be “locked short” (or concentrically loaded).4 Both sides are essentially weak—one because it’s too busy holding things together, and the other side because it’s inactive. The discomfort will probably be felt in the long side, but without opening the short side, we won’t find balance. Stretching the achy long side will only worsen the problem.
What if your daily life involves very little movement, or movement in only a few directions or in only a small range, even if that movement is vigorous? In my parents’ generation, many people assumed that just going through your day (with an occasional sports activity) was enough exercise to stay healthy, and until fairly recently the characteristics of fascia were not well known. We now know that when fascia is not regularly stimulated by varied and full-range movements, its layers can get stuck together, creating adhesions almost like random packing tape inside the body. When the various layers of fascia don’t glide over each other smoothly, the result can be areas of thickened tissue, movement restriction, inflammation, and eventually pain.5 You might say, “As I get older, I’m getting stiffer, less coordinated, more stooped in my posture, and I have chronic back pain, and it’s all part of normal aging.” That may be true, but now we know that intelligent, varied movement and specific therapeutic interventions can lessen these seemingly inevitable changes. And much of it happens in the fascia.
What does all this mean for the practice of Bodymind Ballwork? The balls give an entry point to change the patterns of tension in the fascial web. They give pressure at various angles to both muscle tissue and fascia, bringing greater fluid circulation and gradually breaking up adhesions (layers of tissues glued together) and easing muscle contractions. Receptors within our soft tissues signal a change toward relaxation, reflexes causing contraction are interrupted, and the tissue gradually opens up and releases. Once the fascia is more resilient and movable, our movements become more easeful and we have more choice about how to align ourselves.
Joyce, an actress, says, “I wake up almost every morning with back pain, probably due to the asymmetries on my spine. When I use the balls, it relieves tension and pressure in the painful spots. I’m getting more and more skilled at choosing what balls to use, where to place them, and how long to remain on them. It has really helped me.”
New students often ask me this question when they first feel the ball’s pressure: “Is this ballwork supposed to hurt?” The answer is no; causing pain is certainly not the purpose of the work. But there is often discomfort when we begin to practice if we have carried chronic tension for a long time. Healthy skeletal muscles are designed to contract and release as needed to move our bones, but often they “forget” how to release. When the muscles are contracted over long periods of time, metabolic waste products build up, activating sensory nerve receptors. There are chemoreceptors (detecting chemical changes), mechanoreceptors (detecting mechanical pressure), and nociceptors (detecting pain). Each kind of receptor elicits a slightly different kind of pain: chemoreceptors cause burning, aching, or fatigue; mechanoreceptors can cause cramping; and nociceptors cause feelings of pinching, stabbing, or tearing.6 These sensations can originate in muscle tissue, but perhaps even more so in the fascia surrounding the muscles.
Pressure against the soft tissue, with a massage therapist’s hand or a tool such as a ball, will evoke a response from the mechanoreceptors. There are several kinds of mechanoreceptors, each with its own specialties. Golgi tendon organs register the degree of tension in a muscle/tendon structure, and if there is a danger of tearing, these mechanoreceptors signal the muscle to release. Pacinian corpuscles respond to rapidly changing stimuli, and help the tissue prepare for activity. Interstitial receptors, also known as free nerve endings, are the most abundant type, found everywhere from skin to bone. They supply the feedback we need for proprioception, knowing where our body parts are and how we are moving. They respond to light touch, but also to the kind of shearing deeper pressure that comes from massage and ballwork.
The mechanoreceptor that is responsive to slow pressure is the Ruffini corpuscle (also known as the Ruffini ending). It is found on the ends of certain sensory nerves near the skin, and in deeper soft tissues of the body such as fascia, ligaments, and joint capsules. Angelo Ruffini was an Italian anatomist who named and described these structures in 1898. When Ruffini corpuscles are stimulated by sustained pressure against the skin, and into the underlying fascia, they signal the autonomic nervous system to switch from sympathetic to parasympathetic dominance—in other words, relaxation.7 This explains the effect of general relaxation that occurs while practicing Bodymind Ballwork, regardless of which part of the body you are working with. For example, people often describe a sense of overall calm when they have worked on just one body part. Carol, a mother of three, says that she can switch gears after a hectic day with just a few minutes of ballwork on her shoulders and neck.
Sometimes the ballwork brings chronic pain to the surface; it was there all along, but we have become numb to it over time. Physical pain is subjective; we each have our own tolerance level and ways of dealing with it. Acute pain from a traumatic injury or surgery makes itself known without subtlety and can be unrelenting. But often we carry chronic pain in the body that’s just under the surface, perhaps not consciously acknowledged. We become so accustomed to it that we no longer feel it, but it affects our behavior. Have you noticed that chronic pain can make you less patient or less able to concentrate? When we have chronic pain, we also might choose to avoid moving that part of the body, for fear that the pain will increase. This numbing effect further reduces our movement range and our freedom of expression.
When we are under stress, our nervous system activates into a state of vigilance, ready to act. Muscles are on alert, in partial and constant contraction. Cells called myofibroblasts within the fascia have the capacity to contract when stimulated by the chemicals of stress or the need for repair, as in closing a wound. Some scenarios that might apply here are: You are at your computer, working toward a deadline, not able to take time to stretch, and your shoulders, arms, and neck muscles stay in a permanent state of contraction. Or you are in a family or social situation that poses danger to you—embarrassment, injury, abuse, or rejection—and your body cringes into a protective stance that becomes a habit. The fascia becomes tight and restricts your freedom of movement and your proprioception. An extreme example of this is post-traumatic stress disorder, discussed in chapter 5, when the bodymind internalizes psychological trauma, which then becomes locked in the tissues. We may need some intervention to interrupt the myofascial tension and gradually help it to return to a healthier state. And that intervention might not be comfortable at first.
While working with the balls, it’s useful to distinguish between what I call “outgoing” and “incoming” pain. We feel “outgoing” pain when the balls contact a part of the body that is chronically contracted from overwork or protection, but that is hopefully ready to release. The pressure does not cause the pain, but reveals it. A common example of this is pain in the shoulder muscles as the ball starts to dig into a tight trapezius muscle after too much time at the computer. Outgoing pain hurts, but we have the instinctual feeling that it’s a “good” pain and ready to shift.
“Incoming” pain is pain that is caused by an external stimulus, such as the pain of disturbing a wound that is healing. If you have a recent injury, your tissues might still be inflamed, and the ball can cause incoming pain. In this case it’s best to change to a softer ball or avoid the most intense places until some improvement has occurred by other means.
As you practice the ballwork over long periods of time, you can monitor your levels of discomfort or pain in different parts of your body and watch for changes. You can use the pain scale of 1–10: 1 is slight discomfort, 10 is extreme pain. For instance, you might work on your trapezius for the first time and rate the pain level at 7 or 8, but after a few sessions, it might be down to a 4 or 5. It’s a useful way to track your progress.
Once we come to be aware of pain and tension, we can ask ourselves: Why is this tension there? What function does it have for me? Is it compensating for poor alignment? Is it a movement pattern that is stuck in the “on” position and can’t let go because of overwork? Is it connected to fear or some other emotional state? Do I want to know more about it?
This kind of self-reflection is an essential part of a bodymind practice. In the next chapter, we’ll look at how we create an internalized picture of our body and our self as a whole. That picture is called the body schema.