Cross-Training Body Mind Emotions Spirit | Rachael R. Resch

Suppleness was the focus of class today.

“Supple” is from the Latin sub + plicare, meaning “to fold under.”  It’s related to “pliable,”  as in the ballet movement, plié, which in French literally  means “folded”or “bending” to describe how the knees bend.

The word “suppleness” even sounds supple.  The sound of lippy “p”s rolling into the tongue-y “l” and ending with a soft “ess.”

Suppleness is a desirable quality in the body.

The structure of the entire body, every cell, every organ, every muscle, every bone, is held together by a tough but elastic fiber called connective tissue — think gristle in a steak or strands of gluten in bread dough.  Connective tissue (also called fascia) is comprised mostly of water, which we call the fluid matrix.  It’s the same fluid as as our cerebrospinal fluid and as the interstitial fluid that bathes all our 75 trillion cells.

The fluid matrix gives connective tissue its fluidity, and collagen protein fibers give it its shape, allowing structures in the body to have form yet be free to move.  Everything in the body is moving,

Connective tissue gets stiff after an injury, or after surgery when the body makes scar tissue.  This is how the body protects itself.  The fluid matrix becomes viscous, like water becomes ice or like jello sets.  We get body work when we need help loosening up the tight places.

We want our connective tissue to be supple, with just the right balance of form and fluidity, with just the right balance of yang and yin, or, as we say in Nia, tight but loose.

Suppleness is a desirable quality in the mind.

A fluid mind helps me see things from different points of view, release attachments, ideas and stories that no longer serve and learn new things.  Flexibility of thought and intent help the brain and nervous system stay strong, smart and youthful.  As Nia co-founder Debbie Rosas says, “The nervous system loves variety.”

The more variety there is in the pathways the brain uses, the more adaptable and resilient the brain becomes.  We now know the brain is much more adaptable than previously thought.  Parts of the brain are able to take over function for other parts that are injured.  The brain can even grow new neurons.  This new understanding is called neuroplasticity.  “Plastic” comes form the Greek plassein, “to mold or to form.”

Suppleness is a desirable quality in the heart.

Just as the physical heart and the blood it pumps are in constant motion, so my emotional body benefits from suppleness, allowing emotions to move in freely and be experienced, and then to move out freely when the experience is complete.  When I resist an emotion or hang onto a feeling, I become rigid and have lost my heart’s suppleness.

Suppleness is a desirable quality in in the spirit.

Suppleness of spirit offers me a world to live in where my uniqueness can come through, whatever that might mean at any given moment.  Suppleness of spirit offers me a world to live in where my local self easily bathes in the waters of the greater Self, and the greater Self easily pours in to the form of my local self.  Local self inhales and exhales greater Self.  Greater Self inhales and exhales local self.

Suppleness is a kind of compassion.