Spirals within Spirals

Anatomists have traditionally dissected the heart, but they did not understand the problem of where the heart started and where the heart stopped until Dr. Torrent-Guasp solved the mystery of the myocardial fiber band. And it turns out the heart is a spiral.

The vertebrate heart has evolved from a single simple tube into the complex structure we know as our heart. The adult human heart in its evolved form is a flattened tube, and behaves like a rope as the muscles wrap and squeeze blood. But it is a very complex knot, where muscle fibers go from outside in, in a clockwise way, and from inside out, in a counterclockwise direction. This creates a helical pattern, a spiral within a spiral, which is nature's way of supporting one structure within itself.

"When I looked at the heart for the first time I saw a circumferential basal loop. And then I saw a descending limb and an ascending limb. And they curl around each other at a helix and a vortex, except for the ventricle. [...] I realized this is really a spiral. And I began to think about spirals. And I began to understand that spirals are almost the master plan of nature in terms of structure and in terms of rhythm.… if you pick the middle of the spiral up you form a helix. And of course the heart is a helix.” -Dr. Gerald Buckberg, M.D.

So we have the “helical heart” at the centre of our being. This huge muscle pumping constantly throughout every minute of every day of our entire lives, turns out to be arranged in a complex, and beautiful, spiral or helix. The major blood vessels emerging from it have themselves a helical structure, and the blood itself moves through the vessels in what is called “spiral laminar flow” with a spiral/helical and rotational property.

This would be enough to get anyone dizzy. But spirals are embedded in every level of our being, from our DNA to the structure of our bones, ligaments and muscles.

A movement rarely happens on a single plan, and often involves all three planes of action. This is due to the anatomy of the spine and torso, where muscles are arranged in continuous spirals which cross the centerline on the front and back, thick sheets and ropes of muscle and connective tissue weaving a beautiful crossed double helix all the way from the pelvis to the head.

This structure is the source of our power and agility, giving us the freedom to bend, twist, turn and rotate around our central axis or around any point in space. It is what powers all of our locomotor patterns, everything from crawling to swimming, walking, running and climbing. It is also what gives us stability, the ability to maintain an upright central axis, or to resist any forces which might bend or twist or turn us in some way that we don’t want.

Learning to feel these spirals and take advantage of them is a major theme in the Feldenkrais®work.

As it turns out, pretty much any asymmetrical pressing or reaching movement of any part of the body produces rotation, andany rotation of any body part produces spiral or helical movement. We can only move like this because most of the muscles in our body are organised to have fibres aligned in diagonals, which spiral around the joints to wrap the torso and the limbs from top to bottom.

With all that in mind, if you wish to get into a practical exploration, please follow the short ATM lesson bellow called "Refining the spiral"

By exploring rotation with many variations in the movement, we put unusual constraints that force us to discover new connections inside ourselves and help clarify the initial action. You might be amazed to discover that the range of your turning doubles, triples or quadruples!

https://soundcloud.com/user-370588135/refining-the-spiral