By Elena Cheung for Yoga Medicine.

Most yoga teacher training prepares us to think in terms of muscles and joints. 

Engage this. Release that. Stabilize here. And to be fair, while that is a strong framework to start from, the truth is: there’s an entire dimension of the body it leaves behind. It’s a layer that doesn’t just connect the body, but actually helps us experience it.

That layer is (drum roll please): fascia.

Let’s be clear: fascia is not just a trending buzzword or niche add-on. It’s the missing link between what we teach and how our students actually feel. 

You Can’t Cue What You’ve Never Been Taught to Feel

Most YTTs offer anatomy through the lens of muscles, bones, and maybe some biomechanics. What’s rarely included (or lightly mentioned)?

• Fascia
• Interoception
• The nervous system’s role in movement, tone and release 

So we graduate knowing how to cue shapes, transitions, and to guide students from the beginning of class to the end, but we’re often left without this important piece of the puzzle: the language (or confidence) to support our students when the shapes *don’t* land. How do we help people who can’t “feel their core”? Or when forward folds create anxiety? We are often left without the tools to assist the subtle aspects, like when a student says a certain pose just doesn’t feel right to them. Or it’s not the thing they need right now. 

And it’s okay. This is a systems-level blind spot, one that many of us are only just now beginning to name.

Fascia Isn’t Just Floppy Passive Tissue. It’s a Language System.

Here’s the quick-and-clear version: Fascia is a sensory, communicative, adaptive matrix. It wraps, weaves, ducks, dives and dodges, and interpenetrates every structure of the body. It simultaneously delineates the structures of our system, holds them together, and also creates an internal environment for sensation, coordination, and responsiveness.

Understanding fascia is a critical piece of the movement puzzle because it doesn’t respond to the stressors we place on it in the exact same way muscle does. Although there’s a deeply intertwined connection and both respond to movement tension, fascia also responds to things like: injury, stress, and pressure changes.

• The ability for students to sense not just where they are in space, but what’s going on internally lives in the fascia.
• Their sense of “tightness” vs. “freedom” also lives here.
• Their subconscious body memories, holding patterns, and trauma responses? Also… yes. Here.

Fascia isn’t passive scaffolding. It’s a feedback system, and the more we understand how to work with it, speak its language, and most importantly: listen, the better equipped we are to teach with finesse, skill, and empathy.

If Fascia Holds the Memory, the Nervous System Decides What Gets Released

Here’s where a lot of self-myofascial release (MFR) falls short: It often focuses on technique without understand the full context of the body, or addresses release from a purely physical, mechanical perspective (aka: foam roll as hard and fast as possible).

But without nervous system literacy, fascia work can quickly become overstimulating or ineffective because surprise! Fascia doesn’t operate in a vacuum (and neither does anything else in our body, or mind, or spirit… but I digress). Mainly, we can think of it as being in constant conversation with your nervous system’s perception of safety.

Touch, pressure, and pacing? Those aren’t just techniques. It’s all about communication, baby!

Most “release” isn’t about smashing tissue into oblivion, it’s about helping our nervous system repattern its relationship with sensation and stimulus. In turn, we change our relationship with our bodies as a whole, offering an avenue into agency and trust. 

I’ve had moments where lying down with therapy balls under my hips did absolutely nothing… until I shifted the pressure, slowed my breath, actually relaxed, and let my body soften. The best part is: it’s not just a fancy trick, it’s the practice observation and paying attention. 

It’s Not About Fixing — It’s About Facilitating

When you start to teach with fascia in your awareness, it changes the game.

You move from being an instructor to a facilitator.
From throwing out alignment cues to cultivating embodiment and agency.
From aesthetic-based teaching to responsive presence based on the bodies in front of you. 

Good news, though: adding this to your repertoire isn’t about reinventing the wheel or changing *everything* about how you teach. It’s not even necessarily about rolling every class or shifting your sequencing! It does give you the opportunity to change how you teach all the things- from restorative to hot power, from your peak poses to the minutes before savasana.

You start to ask different questions in your teaching:

• How does my approach change how this tissue may respond?
• How can I invite presence and choice into my classes?
• How can I help my students feel this from the inside out, not just approximate the shape?

You Don’t Need to Know Everything. You Just Need to Know There’s More.

If you’re a teacher who feels like something’s been missing… like there’s a layer beneath what you were taught, or like you’re trying to explain things your training never gave you language for, you’re not alone. You’re not behind. But here’s an opportunity to raise the bar. 

Fascia isn’t a trend. It’s the connective tissue of both structure and sensation. Bringing that into your teaching doesn’t require perfection, just curiosity, presence, and a willingness to listen more deeply.

This is the work we’re diving into together — not just technique, but attention and attunement. If you’re ready to expand how you teach and hold space, we’d love to have you.

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JOIN US FOR OUR NEXT IN-PERSON MFR TRAINING!

Myofascial Release Training
Boston, MA | August 24-29, 2025

Learn More & Register Here