05/04/2026
John Sharkey
I am so delighted to witness the profound, growing interest in my 'anatomy for the 21st century' model creating a shift in how we understand the human body. More and more therapists of every stripe are seeking to better understand the human form as a living, continuous event. When we speak of fascia, we must move beyond the temptation to see it as a thing, a structure to be located, named and treated in isolation of its reality as a speciality of connective tissue along a spectrum, the tissue that gives consciousness its local voice. Fascia is not an object. Fascia is a process. My work with patients of wide awake surgery has provided me with a unique insight to the utilities, facilities and process of a tissue that defies reduction.
Fascia is the ongoing expression of life itself, our dynamic, adaptive, responsive matrix through which energy, information, and experience are continuously negotiated. This was the essence of what Ida Rolf understood so deeply. Ida Rolf worked with a living architecture, one that is constantly reorganising itself in relation to gravity, environment, emotion and intention.
To engage with fascia as process is to move closer to truth.
To soften and listen with your hands allows you to avoid imposing an agenda that is not specific to "This" person, for "This" moment.
At the upcoming European Guild of Structural Integration gathering, you and I will step into this deeper understanding, together, as a deeper meaningful way of seeing, of thinking, of being with the human form.
If you are willing to let go of old mechanical metaphors and enter into the richness of living tensegrity informed architecture (i.e., Fasciategrity), you will not only elevate your skills, together we will transform the nature of your clinical practice.
And perhaps, in doing so, come a little closer to the original ethos that inspired this work in the first place. Book your place now and I look forward to sharing with you in June in the beautiful historical city of Prague.
https://idarolf2026.com/
