Rehabilitation with Block Therapy
I certified as an Athletic Therapist in 1995. My focus has always been deep tissue work and I have logged over 50,000 working in people’s fascia, including my own. Through this journey, I have uncovered significant truths about the fascia that everyone needs to know.
I also spent 2 years almost completing the Iyengar Yoga Certification program. I decided not to continue as my journey of self-discovery had begun and my focus was on what I was revealing in my own body and my patients. It has been 18 years now and I am confident to call myself a Fascia Master.
Being an active youth, playing high-level volleyball and Highland Dancing, the toll it took on my body was significant. The “turn-out” in my hips from Highland dancing and the repetitive smashing of the volleyball – all with my right hand, left my body twisted, compressed, sluggish and full of pain. By the age of 25, I suffered with chronic pain that I masked with alcohol – like that helped!
Block Therapy was ultimately born from an anxiety attack – the worst one in memory. Trapped in fear and frozen in breath, I thought I would die. I dove my hand re-actively into my core – a moment that has changed my life forever. The area was full of pain.
I never touched my belly – I hated it. It was where I stored the 50 extra pounds I was carrying. I hated it so I avoided it. But now, diving in, I immediately sensed this was something to explore. The pain brought me back to my senses and I immediately felt a relief and feeling of peace that triggered hope.
Another note of interest was the tissue was full of scar tissue, even though I hadn’t had injury or surgery to the area. The best part of the exploration was that it felt like the quality of tissue was changing under my fingertips – like how when you start playing with silly putty and it’s a cold hard mass, but in time with manipulation it becomes more malleable – softer and more fluid. I was feeling that!
I knew I would be tender the next day because I dove quite deep, but as a therapist, I understood that pressure overrides pain. In a moment’s time, I would get past the discomfort to a place of calm and excitement about what I would uncover. And what I experienced in that moment was truly unbelievable. My belly was flatter than it had looked in years!!!
Years of working out excessively and almost starving myself at times, my body took me to a place of chronic pain, heaviness, tension and congestion; the obvious opposite of the goal. Everything was stuck. I was getting a sense right away that it was the tissue temperature that needed addressing in order to melt the cold hard mass and turn it into healthy, flowing tissue. I had found my new addiction.
I had a renewed energy, as I suddenly felt empowered and excited. I found something to create the change I had been wanting for so long. Something that was so simple and accessible: and it didn’t require anyone else and could be done in my free time.
Within 2 weeks my chronic back pain was under control and my anxiety/depression symptoms were lifting as the days went by. I started flipping my patients onto their back and proceeded with this new technique. That was 18 years ago.
A lot has changed. The work, understating and platform have evolved but the initial instincts about this practice have remained. From the perspective of tissue temperature – we need to melt.
The most notable piece when it comes to rehab and Block Therapy is understanding there are pain sites and cause sites. People instinctively want to address the area that hurts – I do too. But understanding the need to address the areas that are locked, holding the cells out of alignment, is the real beauty to this system. There are usually multiple cause sites to a pain site, but to learn to see and feel the triggers will give you the solution to your suffering, not only a temporary fix.
The Block Therapy system and it’s 3 components – Creating Space, Inflating Space and Maintaining Space, provides all that’s necessary to feed your fascia what it needs to encourage cellular alignment and bring health and vitality to you. Don’t wait any longer to listen to your cells – they tell you exactly what they need, you just have to listen!
Breathe & Believe
Deanna
