Can tension be good?!
Tension is a reality in the body. It can’t be avoided.
Think about this: you don’t get up in the morning and put your muscles back on your bones, nor do you put your organs back in place, nor make sure your skeleton is organized the right way - fascia tensions everything to stay in place, though everything can still can move within their tensioned pockets.
We are actually born with our fascia pre-tensioned and it remains under tension through our lives (though things eventually sag as we lose elasticity). If you have certain connective tissue disorders, you are already well aware of how much better things would be if you had more tension to work with!
Tension gives us our physical integrity. Fascia is our sentient architecture.
So maybe tension isn’t actually the problem. The ‘tension-related’ issues and outcomes are still real, but maybe they’re better reframed or defined through their symptoms: inhibited movements from blocked energy flow.
If you caught my writings about ‘oobleck,’ you might recall that our fascia stiffens when force is applied. I used an image of walking into a light breeze that becomes a gust of wind - the body’s tensioning changes spontaneously (and without thought) to combat that force. A force might be a step when you’re walking, clapping your hands, pushing a button, hearing music…
Push down on your table or desk like you’re trying to break it and follow the thickening of your muscles and stiffening of the fascia from your hand through your arm and beyond.
Instead of the desk, imagine pushing through water, as if you’re doing laundry by hand and feel how the pre-tensioned fascia will stiffen to a different degree.
Fascia changes its state on a continuum from compliant like flowing honey with low stress, to a stiffness that is as strong as stainless steel when a strong force is applied!
What I’m describing is one of fascia’s many functions: force transmission, or energy flow. When energy doesn’t flow fully, our fascia gets dehydrated and sticky and eventually stuck.
You aren’t going to unstick anything through a hard force - that’s just going to jam things up more!
The buzz word for healthy movement is ‘glide.’ Use this as an intention for movement where you’ve felt stickiness.
Look for this quality before you bother with quantity.
Tension is real, but it’s not our enemy. Our body is held together through the tension in the fascia (not exclusively), which can be stiff to resist force, or compliant when no force is applied. Work with your tension for its stabilizing and strengthening properties. Explore different qualities of tension for different physical expressions - after all, performing rarely looks relaxed!