Tom Myers: The Century of the Body - Fascia, Yoga and the Medicine of the Future

The medicine of the future will have to focus on healing the epidemic of lifestyle-related diseases by changing behavior, says Tom Myers, author of Anatomy Trains in this interview. Yoga, bodywork and other therapies that tap into the transformative potential of the body’s fascial network have an important role to play in this process. In this interview with Yoga U Online, Tom explores the transformative potential of the body’s fascial network and its implications for the future of yoga and yoga therapy.

Yoga U Online: Tom, you trained with Ida Rolf, the founder of Structural Integration, before developing the notion of the anatomy of connections. How did you get interested in this area?



Tom Myers: Well, Ida Rolf was giving a demonstration in Santa Monica, close to where I lived. I went there with a friend of mine, and as it happened, Ida chose my friend as a model to work on. He was one of these people, who looks normal when you look at them from the front, but when you look at them from the side, you can hardly see him because his chest was collapsed so badly, his breast bone was nearly on his back.



In 45 minutes, Ida Rolf took a hold of his ribcage and changed its shape so that he was visibly deeper from front to back. His voice changed. Even his emotional affect changed. He became, if you will, a deeper person. I was so impressed at the level of change that this woman could generate in a short time that I thought, “Hmm, I really want to do this.”