What Is Structural Balancing?

Structural Balancing is a series of eleven ninety – minute sessions of deep tissue bodywork and movement education designed to realign the body and release chronic tension and stress.  Verbal dialogue is used to assist the client in becoming aware of emotional stress that may be related to physical tension.
Structural Balancing is an integrated system designed to recondition the whole body.  It is not a remedy for illness; rather, it is a process in which people are moved from their current “average” state to an optimal state of health and well-being.  This optimal state of health is the body’s “normal” and natural condition.
Although Structural Balancing may be effective for temporary pain or tension relief, we recognize that pain and tension are usually the result of an overall pattern of imbalance occurring in the body.  Rather than treating the pain or tension “symptom: of this imbalance, Structural Balancing focuses on rebalancing the entire body, returning it to a move aligned, relaxed and youthful state.
To fully understand how Structural Balancing works, you must learn about connective tissue, and how the force of gravity impacts the connective tissue system of the body in such a way that it moves from a “normal” into an “average” condition.

 What Are Connective Tissue and Fascia?

Any tissue in the body that has a connecting function is considered to be connective tissue.  Tendons, ligaments, and even blood are connective tissue.  The form of connective tissue that Structural Balancing primarily affects is called fascia.  Fascia is a plastic-like tissue that wraps all of the muscles, and all of the individual fibers and bundles of individual fibers that become muscle.  Fascia comes together at the end of the muscle and becomes the tendon, which attaches the muscle to the bone.
The fascia system of our body can be seen as a multilayer body stocking, with fascia sheaths wrapping the muscles and weaving in layers throughout the body.  Because of this, stress in any area of the body has an effect on every other part of the body.  For instance, tension in the connective tissue of the leg pulls the tissue throughout the torso.
In its optimal condition, fascia is a loose, moist tissue.  When there is continual loose movement and balance in the body, the fascial body stocking stays loose and mobile, facilitating the movement between different parts of the body.  However, under continual stress and lack of movement, fascia becomes rigid and loses its fluidity.  Layers of fascia begin to glue to one another, causing the “knots” you may have experienced in your back or neck.  The sheaths of fascia stick in a systematic way, based on our habitual patterns of movement, or more correctly, lack of movement.  Although people most often associate tension and stiffness with their muscles, it is actually the connective tissue that accumulates much of this stress.