Video: http://ignitephoenix.blip.tv/file/1839187/ Event: Ignite Phoenix 3 @ TCA Event Date: February 25th, 2009 The things we build and use are tightly-coupled and compression-based: toys, furniture, vehicles, buildings, etc. We presume this is the only way to create structure, but nature has a different idea. Kenneth Snelson invented floating compression models in the late 1940s; Buckminster Fuller called the principle tensegrity. Fuller noted, “All [natural] structures, properly understood, from the solar system to the atom, are tensegrity structures.” Today, researchers are modeling our musculoskeletal system as a tensegrity—a radical departure from the traditional “levers and hinges” anatomical model. What can this shift of perspective mean for us today? What are the Big Rules for effectively and efficiently controlling loosely-coupled structures? What would be possible if we allowed our bones to float in our bodies … right now?

1. Everything we know
Phoenix
about our bodies
is wrong.

2. Manmade Structure

3. No hinges

4. No levers

5. Floating Compression
Models

7. Tensional Integrity

8. Resiliency

11. Long Lines of Tension

12. Superficial + Deep Layers

13. Imagery

14. Pervasive
Compression-Based

15. Floating

16. Body/Mind

17. Vocabulary

18. The world’s simplest
body/mind discipline:
“In Spatial Medicine, nothing is
added but information; nothing is
taken away but strain.”
Thomas W. Myers
“Spatial Medicine”
AnatomyTrains.com

19. [Group Exercise]

20. Homework:
Keep finding the float. Share
and discuss your results.
FloatingBones.com
phil@FloatingBones.com
Twitter: @floatingbones
Twitter: #floatdujour