Muscles and Meridians: The Manipulation of Shape

Muscles and Meridians: The manipulation of shape (2010)

‘The biomechanical and postural concepts emerging from Phillip Beach’s study of contractility and vertebrate movement patterns are revolutionary and clinically relevant to all manual therapists and acupuncturists. They change the way we need to view the body and its behaviour’

Leon Chaitow

Reflecting his extensive education, profound explorations, and years of practical experience, Phillip Beach’s ideas braid movement, embryology, and acupuncture into a unique and useful systemic perspective’.

Thomas W. Myers

This book packs a punch!

Phillip Beach:

• Describes a new model of human movement - the Contractile Field model
• Offers a rare and serious attempt to look at whole person movement patterns - akin to 'Anatomy Trains' but with a stronger link to vertebrate evolution and development
• Suggests that much of our endemic back and leg pain is due to a loss of ease in postures that are 'archetypal' to mankind
• Offers a profound new understanding of the world's oldest medical map, the Chinese meridian map

Phillip Beach succinctly summarises vast amounts of evolution, embryology and human development to create a robust theoretical model of human movement - the contractile field model

He also offers some very practical advice:

• To spend more time on the floor in ‘archetypal postures of repose’ such as squatting, kneeling, cross-legged, tailor’s position and long-sitting
• To revisit the processes involved in rising from the floor to upright
• To pay attention to the state of our feet