Muscles and Meridians: The Manipulation of Shape

LOVE THIS BOOK. It feels pricey but the info is totally worth it. Some parts are great for the laymen. Other parts take a little more time to digest. Overall stoked on this book

This book could last forever, a life reference book. Information galore. Secret to a lot of pain relief without medications.

This is a great book for combining traditional chinese medicine and movement/modern developmental medicine.

A simple explanation for an age old and mysteriously effective system. Philip provides a guide through which we can truly make a difference to our clients and their pain. A return to the simplicity of your childhood and our ancestral roots of development in relating with the ground creates a basis for us to heal ourselves and the embryological explanation of our development explains the turns and twists that must be applied in order to effectively treat anyone suffering.After being both treated and applying these techniques the results, for myself - permanent removal of lower back pain - and for clients including everything from back pain to the removal of long suffered dizzy spells and headaches and the lift of a foot arch that never existed, I can only rave about it's simple genius!!!

as a yoga, pilates, somatic movement teacher, and structural integration practitioner, I am deeply appreciative of books that invite us to explore embodiment and our bodies as a process rather than as machines to be fixed and trained.Phillip Beach has written a very important book that invites us, through his novel contractile fields theory, archetypal postures anf meridian map de-coding, to experience the wisdom of our own biological process - beginning with the embryonic field as the lprimordial state of potential growth.He broadens our concept of movement as what we are - not something we do - which opens our field of potential and invites us to deepen our ecperience of our human journey.Buy this book now..you won"t want to put it down!

Phillip Beach has synthesized experience he has gained as a DO and acupuncturist into a coherent new model of the human body. This is an important contribution to the field of medicine and movement, and should be read by anyone with a physical body. I can't recommend this book highly enough. If you're interested in the theories and want to know more before purchasing the book, the author has written several papers outlining various pieces of the model that can be accessed through journal databases.

Osteopath and Acupuncturist Phillip Beach has written a paradigm changing book because he skilfully challenges many of the assumptions we have about the living body, the organisation of movement, and what is important to function at our biomechanical potential as we age, move and live.Beach looks at modelling theory, embryology and the vertebrate body plan to outline a model of the underlying patterns of contractility on a whole living system scale. The Contractile Field model he proposes is novel in many ways. Each field of contractility has a sense organ embedded in it. This is an attempt to place in the model the primacy of our nose/eyes, ears, mouth, tongue, hands feet, genitals, and anus to how and why we employ contractile elements to move ourselves. The sub-occipital region is given great importance. The model creates conceptual space for the visceral musculature, the kidneys and blood which are all mesodermal structures. If we develop this way in-utero, why wouldn't this view guide us as we continue to develop in the world? Beach outlines each of the fields and explains how they interact and interdepend. I particularly enjoyed his introduction of the term `biomechanical tune' as a metaphor for a living harmonious body.Beach discusses how we can maintain our biomechanical tune by embracing the floor as a place to live from. He introduces archetypal postures of repose from different cultural contexts as essential self tuning mechanisms that our modern lifestyle neglects. It makes sense when you consider that when we live from chair height, that we would slowly but surely erode approximately one third of our dynamic and functional basis for movement through loss of length-tension relationships and the full opening and closing of joint articulations.Another important practical aspect of this book is the role and importance of the feet. Beach explains that feet are as biologically important as the eyes, ears, nose and hands from a sensory perspective, and he points out important links between the feet and low back through feedback/feedforward neural loops."Shoes... are sensory deprivation chambers that cut down the raw information we need to stand and walk in our precarious upright manner." Beach recommends walking on pebbles and other tactile surfaces to retain good balance and reduce musculoskeletal pains.I highly recommend this book if you are interested in manual therapy, developmental movement, physical preparation, exercise and ways of restoring the body for full function through a lifespan.

A bit too detailed for me for me, id prefer a more concise bio explanation and more on instructional teaching others and body mechanics to be able to teach a feasable concept.

The book is not really an “easy” read but is very well laid out and informative. It’s very lightweight and I was able to take it on holidays with me.

Destaco su alto nivel académico en una cuestión esencial a tener en cuenta en la prevención y tratamiento del cuerpo humano

Incredibly book, thought provoking, informative

Não existe um ser humano moderno, nos inventamos isso! Só entendendo a evolução dos seres vivos , nós entenderemos. Aprendi com Phillp. Livro fundamental!

Dallo studio embriologico della formazione del sistema muscolare, l'autore deriva la descrizione di meridiani muscolari che incrociano le funzioni di flessione ed estensione del tronco.