How does FMM work?

It is a simple and demonstrable fact of human existence that all parts of the body were designed to move freely through a ”design range.” This design range is easy to ascertain when applied to joints but much more difficult for myofascial structures. It is easy to see that an elbow joint must be kept fully mobile, something that everyone does instinctively, but it is not so easy to discover what is the full and free range of, for example, the trapezius muscle. It is exactly this that has enabled the pioneers to establish what should be the correct range - this can be felt by the sensitive hand but cannot be deduced from observation which is a vastly important part of FMM Our endeavour is to teach you to feel what is not as it should be - and what is not a "healthy feel".

It is equally demonstrable that preventing a healthy and disease-free joint anywhere in the body from being able AT WILL to move through its design range , will produce what we term CONGESTION. All joints are flow systems--so blood and lymph and of course nerve signals must not be interefered with --if they are pain will result. It is generally either suppressed or at best completely misunderstood.

It is very common for humans from an early age to incur some loss of range in a joint or a group of muscles. Many times this is ignored, especially when this is in a child The parents are generally badly advised by those who say that such pains are simply “growing pains”. The problems begin early in life and unless resolved early - which they seldom are - grow into the gross contractures and stiff bodies that we have worked on for all these years. The origin of many problems is the numerous falls which children have --so few see this as a very significant origin because the minor damage to fascia repairs but gross distortions occur which are seldom recognised. Yoga highlights these during the diagnostic process.

A fundamental principle is that loss of range causes malfunction, disability and pain and all these can be removed by judicious application of mobilisation techniques almost regardless of the age of the person and the severity of the condition.. Those over 80 years of age respond just as well as those under 8--the problem for the older person is that they simply do not BELIEVE it is possible for anyone to fix them!! Some can be fixed easily .

The term mobilisation must not be confused with manipulation so beloved of chiropractors and osteopaths, much of which is a failure. Where muscle is badly contractured so there will be immobile joints attending this and the cycles will maintain each other for the life of the patient unless intelligent intervention occurs. Thus FMM is not a collection of techniques but a mind-set, a way of seeing bodies. When the correct tools are removed from the tool box and applied to the sufferer, success is almost guaranteed, as much because the patient is empowered to self-help. This has created another simple principle - that the practitioner of FMM applies from the OUTSIDE those modalities that are considered to be necessary from the results of the physical examination whilst the patient applies those ancient principles of yoga which work from the INSIDE. When both occur failure is so rare that it can almost safely be disregarded. This fact is hidden from patients often because of gross ignorance on the part of therapists who consider that they have all the faculties for cure--this is a serious error and explains the high failure rate. Indeed, if the average patient had the experiences he has from therapy applied to his car repair he would never bother visiting a garage again!

Even without the patient doing anything , the processes result in around 95% success rate just because the investigative processes are so thorough and the absence of smoke screens that the practioner can apply! By this is meant that much therapy has employed Latin words and complex definitions of what is wrong which easily convince the patient of her ignorance and discourage the process of questionning. Fmm has none of this--if it cannot be simply explained to the patient then the practitoner cannot persuade herself that she really understands what is going on SO---must divulge this lack of understanding and hence cannot produce a smoke screen to hide behind. We have lists of the so-called explanations offered by therapists--some of them are mind-blowing in their complexity. The complexity is proportional to their capacity to confuse! There is. thus, no hiding place --the practioner must be utterly honest and accept this as part of the process of discovery. Thus the patient and the practitioner engage fully in the business of TRUST.