Skin serves as our boundary between self and other.

Our skin is our armour and shield against the world.

As it is porous to what can infiltrate and absorb.

Movement and touch are like the Yin & Yang of our skin.

Movement touches the skin from the inside out.

Touch moves the skin from the outside in.

From the universe within, to the macrocosm without.

Beneath and beyond.

Skin is both the Unifier and the Segregator.

Who do we welcome, and who do we reject?

The skin does not lie.

Are we braced tightly upright bound by its borders?

Frozen ropes wrapped around our organs.

Or loosely in a puddle, a sludgy strife against our pain.

Can our skin yield without hesitation?

To the support of gravity.

To be held in the spaciousness of life.

To be welcome in the container in which no one comes before you.

To belong in … our skin.

• • • • • • • •

DO YOU KNOW?

Our skin and our brain arises from the same germ layer in embryology.

Skin is our brain turned inside out.

Skin is the conduit between our nervous system and the outside world.

Skin is the barometer that reflects our relationship with our self, and the environment we are in.

Our lymphatic system also follows the veins along the skin of our periphery, and culminates in the mid section of the body – forming an integral part of our immune system.

Most rashes, hives, eczema, and skin conditions follow these lymph / nerve tracks.

Taking care of our skin, and paying attention to the different qualities of our skin in different areas of the body can help to improve our immune function, regulate our nervous system, and retain suppleness of our skin.

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This fascia workshop starts off with a short introduction about fascia, and on embryological development – particularly on the endoderm (front body), ectoderm (back body) and mesoderm (inside body). We then engage in an embodied meditation followed by a series of movement practices – both active and restorative, with greater emphasis on internal sensing and awareness in relation to the theme. The workshop also offers us the embodied sense into the different layers of our body – skin, adipose tissues, muscles and bones.

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In our quest to move up the evolutionary ladder, we expose our vulnerability to the world through the front body, which contains our soft and vital organs. The front body also forms a big part of our #selfimage (refer to our previous post on this topic) of how we see ourselves and how we want others to see us. Therefore, our nervous system is wired to “think” and “predict” danger to preserve our survival. This sense of vigilance can literally move us away from our anchor and grounding.

When the world we live becomes too much for our nervous system to handle – too much stress, too much uncertainty, too much stimulus, too much grief, can we take this as a signal to retreat, to withdraw, to exhale?

The flexion state takes us back into our embryological being – a time in which we are nestled and suspended in the warm fluids of our mother’s womb, a state where cells divides and organise, a state of balance and homeostasis, in which the order of nature grants us nourishment and protection.
If you’re experiencing physical symptoms like migraine, neck and shoulder tension, back ache, shortness of breath, excessive gas, acid reflux, or even sleep disorder, your body is sending an invitation to marinate yourself in this restorative state.

Check out this video as Lucie explains her experience and a little demo to retract the front line and open up the back line of the body.

Allow your organs to soften and drape over the support of your cushions, bringing breath into the back body and releasing the adrenals from its state of vigilance to one of yielding. 

​Welcome home.

This post was previously posted on Yogawithdaphne.com on June 7th 2020

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The relative distance of our feet from our brain often causes us to disregard the health and care of our feet. We tend to ignore the messages coming from this very distal part of the body. We wear shoes that are too tight, too loose, too flat, too high… For some culture, there’s even a certain element of shame attached to the feet. Some people might go through years of suffering from sore feet before paying any attention to this part of the body.

The health of our feet is instrumental in our overall health.

Our two feet are made up of 52 bones, accounting for about a quarter of all the bones in our body. They contain 60 joints and 200 muscles, tendons and ligaments that hold them together for mobility and stability. Most of the myofascial matrix crosses through the feet as they are fundamental to our evolution into bipeds. Our feet establish the foundation of our vertical relationship to navigate through gravity and 3 dimensional space and create movement continuity through all our body’s systems.
Embryologically, our feet and toes grow out of the limb buds before the legs are fully formed, essentially making our feet an extension of the pelvis, and hence its close association to our pelvic health.

Keeping our feet strong and nimble means stronger grounding and stability, more movement choices and increased neural pathways and plasticity! Training our feet to be able to articulate through different loads and tracking its relationship to different parts of the body will not only alleviate conditions like plantar fasciitis, heel pain, achilles tendinitis, it can also prevent knee injury, relieves lower back pain, soothe neck and shoulder tension and even migraine. Its close relationship with our pelvic diaphragm also means that strong and flexible feet will bring awareness to our core being as we find support through gravity and levity. When we establish better proprioception and interoception we can also help to regulate our nervous system so we are less anxious and stressed!

This post was originally posted on Yogawithdaphne.com on May 28th 2020

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Yesterday I had the opportunity to talk Psoas with an orthopedic surgeon in Europe who reached out to me about this mysterious tissue. When I told him I thought psoas was a messenger he said “of course psoas is a messenger from guts… ovaries.. kidney… brain circulation.. because of connections with the parasympathetic.. it also receives messages..when its degenerative or atrophied it consequently distends nerves that pass through the psoas… n. iliohipogastricus.. ilioinguinalis… genitofemoralic.. cutaneus fem lat.. n.femoralis..n.obduratorius
.. it has an influence on the circulation of gut and enlargement of its wall – what directly involves neuroendocrine cells for the production serotonin in the gut…”
This surgeon confirms what I have spoken about for 43 years…that psoas can become “dry” (exhausted) and shrink (atrophy) when it has substituted or been used to over-stabilize the core. Stretching does not create healthy psoas whereas hydrating through micro-movements and increasing the bio-intelligence of the proprioceptive system, especially found within the bones…does allow psoas to flourish. He sent me…a little gift in appreciation…not what I find exciting but thought you might…

Some of my additional notes for anatomy nerds on hydrating the psoas
Gentle rocking and rolling through spiralling movements across the 3 planes of the body embodying the psoas as a core initiator, organised around the midline or notochord from an embryological perspective, in which the psoas is a bio-morphical development from the midline, out of the mesochyme material from the mesodermal (middle) layer of the embryonic tri-laminar disc.
Movements include those that involve –

• the saggital plane integrating the axial to appendicular, i.e L & R sides of body in which each psoas is an extension out of the midline rather than just attachments to the spine and femur;
• the coronal plane integrating the front and back (spine on the back body to front of groin – lesser trochanter); and 
• the transverse plane – trunk and lower limbs) in which full body locomotion is driven through the spinal engine

This post was previously posted on Yogawithdaphne.com on July 1st 2019

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In the Chinese tradition, we are 1 when we’re born. The Chinese take into account that life begins in the womb – the moment of conception, when our journey in this realm begins. 

When we study embryology, we go back in time to explore and inquire into this imprint, this period of time when chance and change reign supreme, wherein a higher order dictate the choices and decision in renewal, change and growth. In this time before there is conscious intervention driven by our nervous system, we completely rest in the womb of “being”. 

When we study how our form morphs from one into two, two into four, four into eight and into the 70,000,000 cells that we are now, we tap into an intelligence that is unchanging, an order that nature calls forth in order to survive and thrive. This is what embodiment is about. It is the becoming of this magnificent journeying, a recognition in the miracle of our cellular imprint, a knowing of which is unique and yet abide in the selfsame laws of the cosmos, an allowing of this divine template to support us in our expression and homeostasis.

Join me in this exploration ~ Embodiment & Bodywork Immersion this July.

This post was previously posted on Yogawithdaphne.com on March 2nd 2019

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