CPD Course – Jon Parsons 

Tensegrity and its application and manual therapy

            – 3rd to 5th February 2023 in Yerevan Armenia

            – Course in English with Russian and Armenian translation

            – Open to all graduate osteopaths

            – Price: £500

To sign up to this course, please visit the Still Point Website here. 

Biography

“I am a practising osteopath and freelance lecturer. I’ve been fortunate enough to work in all aspects of osteopathic education in the UK and across Europe for the last 30 years. As a lecturer, I am particularly interested in the conceptual/ philosophical underpinnings of the practise of osteopathy. I began exploring the concepts of tensegrity some 25 years ago and I have found that it has revolutionised the way I view the human body, particularly its self-healing nature; and in fact, the way I view the entire world. I would be very happy to share my thoughts and ideas about this revolutionary topic.” – Jon Parsons

Course Content
Tensegrity and its application and manual therapy

Tensegrity as a scientific study has its roots and architecture in the late 1940s, but its principles have been progressively incorporated in numerous fields of research and practise. With the advent of the ground-breaking, evidence-based work of Donal Ingber over the last three decades on cellular tensegrity, it has entered the field of Biological Sciences and medicine revolutionising the way of perceiving the structure and functioning of the body at every hierarchical level from nano level to the whole-body level and beyond.

From a therapist’s perspective, it offers explanations for numerous beneficial changes that occur both locally and distally resulting from a wide-ranging and diverse array of treatment approaches, from myofascial work to energetic and vitalistic models of practice. Certainly, if you have any interest in fascia or fascial approaches, tensegrity is an essential concept to embrace to enhance your understanding and their practical application.

In this three-day seminar, you will explore the fundamental principles of tensegrity and its relevance in manual therapeutic approaches that you may currently utilise. You will also be given the opportunity to explore, both conceptually and practically, approaches that may be new to you, that are widely applied in osteopathic practice.

Indicative Content

Theory

• The architectural roots of tensegrity (Buckminster Fuller and Snelson)
• Changing perspective from a Newtonian compressional model to a non-Newtonian tensional field model.
• Benefits of tensegrity structures; why they can be light, cheap and strong, and perhaps most importantly self-stabilising.
• Self-assembly, fractal reiteration and continuum.
• Tensegrity on a cellular level and mechanotransduction (evidenced based / Ingber)
• Fascia and the collagenous, all-embracing inner network (Guimberteau)
• Bio tensegrity and its possibility to aid the understanding of the interplay of the body at a systems level.
• Communication within a collagenous network.
• Tensegrity within osteopathic approaches.

Practical

This section will explore a range of techniques that would be part of the cranial osteopathic approaches. Though the name implies that they are applied on the cranium, this is a misnomer, and they can be applied anywhere within the body. Though their names may be unknown to you they are all based on the fractal/ hierarchical self-assembly concepts discussed.