Back to the Fascias I, New but Old

然而練筋易而練膜难*

However, it is easy to train the tendons but harder to train the membranes

筋有十二經絡**

The fascias are twelve net channels

足太陽之筋***

Fascias of the Foot Great Masculine

Internal practices centre themselves around three notions: fascias, vitality and breathing. If fascias seem to deal with the body power, the external force, vitality with its internal aspect and breathing with rhythm, they are actually intertwined. Indeed, the work on fascias improves one's organs, hence one's vitality, and regulates one's breathing. Vitality, through swifter moves, improves fascias resistance and stronger organs allow a deeper and uninterrupted breathing. Breathing, through relaxation, improves fascias stretching and saves vitality by keeping the emotions under check. One could say the bones, our frame, should be also mentioned as a very important issue. Still, they are a byproduct of vitality through the kidneys and thus included in this one. Since training is often about repetition, it seems opportune to revisit those three concepts from time to time.

The concept of fascias, or connective tissues, which seems to have appeared around the 19th century in modern medicine and became more and more known recently**** is a notion very close, if not alike, to what one of the best known book of Traditional Chinese Medicine, the Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic, describes as 經筋, the fascia channels (a modern fascia line compared to an old Chinese fascia channel). Still, 筋, which is often taken in its meaning "tendons" for a lot of martists, is and has not been the only term used to describe connective tissues. Therefore, it seems necessary to first deal with the terms covering the concept of fascias in Chinese.

筋, 膜, 絡 and All That Jazz

Nowadays fascia is translated 筋膜 in Chinese, 筋 and 膜 in their way expressing different properties attached to fascias (which originally meant "band" in Latin). The term 絡 is also sometimes employed by authors wanting to stress the fascias network nature though 經絡, the channel nets mentioned in the Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic refers to 氣, vapours, while term 筋 is used to describe fascia lines.

筋 

This term is nowadays more often used in the sense of tendons, veins, force... From tendons to fascias the link can be of course made, but it is even more relevant to go back to the original meaning of the character. 筋 Is pronounced jìn in Mandarin and will therefore appear as Jìn in the following translations.

"(筋)肉之力也。" (Jìn) The force from the flesh

"筋力同物。"Jìn and force are the same thing. 

"竹，物之多筋者" Bamboo, a thing made of numerous Jìn.

Jìn is made of three characters, 竹 the upper part in its radical form, meaning bamboo, 肉 the down left part also in its radical form, meaning flesh, and 力 meaning force.

Since in Classical Chinese a character is most of the times a word in itself, including often a vast array of meanings, one could be totally justified to conclude that 肉, meaning flesh, refers to muscles and that force comes from muscles, which is pure logic. But this would leave out two things, the link with the notion of bamboo and that the technical term muscle, nowadays translated as 肌肉, does not seem to be really present in Classical Chinese, even less the term muscular, force often being associated with tendons, like in expressions "手瓜起腱", strong and muscular arms, "筋疲力竭" exhausted.

力 meaning force from the flesh, "肉之力", is interesting because it originally meant also tendons (or fascias) "筋也。" , the definition pointing also that 筋 is tendons and 力 their use "筋者其體。力者其用也". Furthermore, 力 is originally a pictogram representing human tendons "象人筋之形".

竹, bamboo, also takes a part in the understanding of because its fibres are connected and firm but supple.

Finally, the Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic describes in its chapter 經筋 twelve channels starting from either the feet or the hands, up or down to the stomach or the head, an equivalent to what is described as fascia lines nowadays. Therefore, one cannot leave out an early meaning equivalent of the one of fascias for 筋.

膜

Mó, Meaning membranes, which amongst other things do line organs, is a term that can also used to describe fascias, as the first quote illustrates.

筋膜

The use of the two previous characters to make a word is the modern translation of fascias, Classical Chinese having evolved from the one character/one word to the two characters/one word in Modern Chinese. Still 筋膜 can actually be already found used in the Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic.

絡

Luò means net. It is often used in the Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic. It stresses the network nature of what is being described, not just separate channels. Hence the expression 經絡 is usually considered to be "main and collateral channels, regarded as a network of passages, through which vital energy circulates and along which the acupuncture points are distributed". Still, one may find some writings, but it is not the case in the Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic, where 經絡 can also be a reference to fascias. Hence the second quote.

Knowledge is a living thing, it improves, declines, takes different paths, the old concepts of sinews used to express force to the relatively new one of 肌肉 referring directly to muscles being an example. Hence, the notion of connective tissues, though described very early in the Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic, never really became a standard, especially in martial arts where the transmission was mainly oral. Therefore, the term 筋 in itself has often been taken in its most common meaning of tendons and a lot of practices rightly consider 筋勁, The power coming from the Jìn, as mainly sinews related, their training often focusing then on the joints. To understand that Jìn refers not only to tendons but also to connective tissues, one has to add another training principle, 寸勁, not taken in its usual meaning of appropriate strength but its literally one of a very small strength. Indeed, internal practices consider that in the whole body power, one's total strength should be the sum of very little strengths coming from each and every part of one's body. Only connective tissues, or fascias, can provide with such type of strength.

In our present times, the use of muscle contraction to create force is the norm, even aesthetically. Furthermore, most of the old practices have mainly become a leisure for adults already making It hard to change the motion from muscle contraction to fascia elasticity. Still, this is not impossible, it just takes time, method and determination to reprogram one's reflexes.

*Fascias Change Canons, 易筋經.

**Fascias Change Canons, Stringed Together Vapours Secret, Training the Shape Discourse, 易筋經，貫氣訣，練形論

***Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic, fascia channels 黃帝內經，經筋. Here is how the Foot Great Masculine is described: "The Foot Great Masculine starts from the little toe and connects up to the outside of the ankle. It then rises obliquely to the knee joint. Another lower bundle follows the outside of the ankle to connect to the heel and then back to its tendon to connect to the popliteal fossa. The first bundle connects to the outside of the calf, passes through the inner side of the popliteal fossa to join the second bundle and unite to go the buttocks then back then along the spine to reach the neck. Then a bundle penetrates the root of the tongue while another goes to the top of the head through the occiput and connects to the nose through the front. It forms what is called the eyes net (above them) joining the sides of the nose. There are also bundles in the back, one out of the armpit reaching the clavicle, the other entering below the armpit to reach the supraclavicular fossa and then joining the mastoid at the back of the ear. A last bundle starts at the supraclavicular fossa ascending obliquely to the zygomatic bone and joining the side of the nose.

(Original text: 足太陽之筋，起於足小趾，上結于踝，邪上結于膝，其下循足外側，結于踵，上循跟，結於膕；其別者，結于腨外，上膕中內廉，與膕中并上結于臀，上挾脊上項；其支者，別入結于舌本；其直者，結于枕骨，上頭，下顏，結于鼻；其支者，為目上網，下結于頄；其支者，從腋后外廉結于肩髃；其支者，入腋下，上出缺盆，上結於完骨；其支者，出缺盆，邪上出于頄。)

****See, amongst others, the works of Tom Myers.