What to Expect from a Session.

These sessions are like others using myofascial release techniques, but use lotion not oil. There is visual assessment during each session to ensure that treatment is tailored to the individual’s needs.

KMI sessions can be used to resolve particular problems, or as a 'tonic' for your posture and movement. KMI can be seen as an extended course in re-acquainting yourself with your body’s function, regardless of your activity level.

Through the course of our lives, most of us have collected extra tension – either from injury or surgery, imitation of our parents or heroes, from our repetitive activities, or from attitudes we've acquired along the way. These patterns become written into our muscular tensions, or skeletal form, and into the tissues that go between – the connective tissues.

The KMI approach aims to free the binding and shortening in these connective tissues – what we refer to as the ‘fascial network’ – and to re-educate the body in efficient and energy-sustaining (as opposed to energy-robbing) patterns.

This process happens over a series of sessions – the KMI process has 12 separate and progressive sessions, although the actual number you will need may vary. To begin these sessions, your KMI practitioner will talk over your physical history with you, and will help you set realistic goals for the process. Most KMI sessions are undertaken in underwear or a bathing suit – your comfort is paramount, but we do need to get directly to the tissues that are restricting the free flow of movement. Much of the session work is done on a treatment table, though some moves are done on a stool or even standing.

The sessions progress through the body: the first four sessions are generally more superficial, freeing the tissues on the front, back, and sides of the body, and free the shoulders and arms from any binding to the trunk. The middle four sessions address the 'core' of you body, working into the central stabilization muscles closer to the spine. The last four sessions integrate 'core' and 'sleeve' into your habitual movement (and address specific problems you bring to the table), leaving you with a lasting and progressive change that will echo throughout your body.

To free old restrictions and encourage the tissues back to the freer places called for by your body's inherent design, the practitioner will contact tissues and ask you to move. You and your practitioner together can work out how deeply or how gently you want the progression to be.

To read a first hand account of what to expect in my sessions, written by Kirk LaPointe of the Vancouver Sun, click here.