The Joanne Avison Podcast

What can 12 minutes of gentle movement really change?
For this final chapter of Sacred Geometry Series 2, Joanne does something a little different. After exploring the remarkable people and ideas that have shaped our understanding of living architecture, she shares a much more personal story.
Following surgery after a diagnosis of breast cancer, Joanne came home unable to move her right arm and shoulder. Drawing on decades of work with fascia, anatomy and movement, she became her own case study, committing to just 12 minutes of micromovement a day. She expected that to fully restore her movement it would take at least 12 months. It took 12 weeks.
This episode follows that experience through recovery, the support and grace that surrounded her, and the unexpected visit from Paul Thornley that led to the creation of Myofascial Magic in Action. It felt essential to them both to share the benefits of this work.
It’s a story about subtle movement, fascia, recovery and restoring the natural spring we’re all designed to have… and what that can mean for you.

🎁 A SPECIAL GIFT FOR YOU
Inspired by everything we’ve explored across these two Sacred Geometry series, Joanne has created a free guide for you, connecting the keys of all the Platonic solids explored in Series 1, a summary of the key protagonists in Series 2 and how all that geometry actually works in the living body, through five subtle practices you can explore for yourself. 
👉 Get your free Sacred Geometry gift here! https://www.joanneavison.com/sacred-geometry-gift

✨ EXPLORE THE 5 R’s
Explore the 5 R’s of micromovement sequencing Joanne mentions in this episode, by watching our special YouTube mini-series - complete with practical demonstrations - starting here: Rebound In Action: The Key to Moving Without Strain

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Podcast produced and edited by Megan Bay Dorman

What if continuity is even more fundamental than tensegrity?
In this special episode of Sacred Geometry, Joanne is joined in person by clinical anatomist and exercise physiologist John Sharkey for a wide-ranging conversation about fascia, tensegrity and the living architecture of the human body.

You might prefer to watch this episode on YouTube as there are a couple of brief references to a visual model (the 'Skwish') held up by Joanne and John.
Together, they revisit the ideas explored throughout Series 2 - from Leonardo da Vinci and Kenneth Snelson to Buckminster Fuller, Tom Flemons and Donald Ingber - and ask where those discoveries take us now…
John explores why fascia may be better understood as something that transcends the body's individual systems, how living geometry continually adapts through movement and time, and how no two bodies ever express that architecture in quite the same way. This fascinating conversation also covers fasciategrity, stochasticity, force transmission, the spiral architecture of the heart (!) and what decades of anatomical dissection continue to reveal about human form.
It’s a conversation about continuity, curiosity and the questions still waiting to be asked, with plenty of stories from Joanne and John's years of working and teaching together.

Subscribe to continue the journey. There’s one final episode of Series 2 still to come, and Joanne has something special waiting for you there.

Links to some of John Sharkey's most recent papers:
https://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/15/12/1924
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42458875/ 
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Podcast produced and edited by Megan Bay Dorman

What if tensegrity isn't simply a theory, but something already at work inside every living cell?
In this episode of Sacred Geometry, Joanne Avison explores the groundbreaking work of Donald Ingber, the Harvard scientist whose research brought tensegrity into the laboratory and helped establish the field of mechanobiology.
Following the thread from Leonardo da Vinci, Kenneth Snelson, Buckminster Fuller and Tom Flemons, we arrive at the living cell itself, where Ingber demonstrates how tension, structure and force are communicated throughout the whole.
You'll discover:
How sculpture inspired Ingber's scientific curiosity
The experiment that demonstrated tensegrity in living cells
Why cells respond to force as whole structures
What mechanobiology reveals about movement, fascia and healing
How geometry connects architecture, biology and the living human body
From geodesic domes to a single cell under a microscope, this episode takes us deeper into the science of tensegrity and the extraordinary living architecture already at work within you…

👉 Read Donald Ingber's paper:
Joanne mentions Donald Ingber's landmark 1998 Scientific American article, “The Architecture of Life,” in this episode. 
If you'd like to explore the research and ideas behind the conversation for yourself, you can find it here: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-architecture-of-life/
(Vol. 278, Jan 1998, pp. 48–57).
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My website - https://www.joanneavison.com/
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Podcast produced and edited by Megan Bay Dorman

What if the model we've used to explain the human body could never stand up on its own?
In this episode of Sacred Geometry, Joanne explores the remarkable work of Tom Flemons, whose human tensegrity models challenged centuries of conventional biomechanics. Inspired by Kenneth Snelson and Buckminster Fuller, Flemons spent decades building physical demonstrations of the body's living architecture, revealing a model based on continuity rather than isolated parts.
You'll discover:
Why a classroom skeleton cannot stand on its own
How Tom Flemons built the first human tensegrity models
Why the body is not simply a system of levers and joints
What embryology reveals about living architecture
How fascia creates continuity throughout the body
This episode brings Sacred Geometry directly into the human body and lays the foundation for the next chapter of the series, where Joanne explores Donald Ingber's groundbreaking research into tensegrity at the level of the living cell.

If these ideas resonate with you, Joanne Avison and Paul Thornley teach you about fascia, movement, anatomy and Sacred Geometry in depth through the Myofascial Magic in Action programme. Find out more here.

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My website - https://www.joanneavison.com/
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Instagram -  joanneavison

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Podcast produced and edited by Megan Bay Dorman

What happens when someone gives a name to something that has always existed?
Buckminster Fuller didn't invent tensegrity, but by naming it, he gave the world a new way of seeing. In this episode of the Sacred Geometry series, Joanne explores how Fuller's remarkable work connected architecture, engineering, biology and the living human body through one universal principle…
From geodesic domes and “Spaceship Earth” to carbon molecules, fascia and human movement, this episode reveals why Fuller's ideas continue to reshape our understanding of living architecture today.
You'll discover:
Why Buckminster Fuller coined the term tensegrity
How geodesic domes reveal nature's principles of force distribution
Why the same geometric patterns appear from carbon molecules to the cosmos
What synergetics and whole-system thinking can teach us about the human body
How these ideas are transforming our understanding of fascia, movement and anatomy
This episode continues the journey from Leonardo da Vinci and Kenneth Snelson, exploring how a single word - tensegrity - helped reveal one of nature's most profound organising principles. It also lays the foundation for the next episode, where Joanne introduces Tom Flemons and his groundbreaking work applying these ideas directly to the human body.

If this way of understanding the body resonates with you, Joanne Avison and Paul Thornley teach these principles through their online programme, Myofascial Magic in Action. This in-depth course brings together fascia, movement, anatomy, and Sacred Geometry to help practitioners, movers, and curious learners experience the living body in an entirely new way.
FIND OUT MORE HERE:
🌟 https://www.myofascialmagic.com/mmia-programme-info

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My website - https://www.joanneavison.com/
My course - https://myofascialmagic.com/
My book:  - https://amzn.to/3zF3SAS
Instagram -  joanneavison

FREE ONLINE WEBINAR:
Free Webinar - https://myofascialmagic.com/webinar-registration

Podcast produced and edited by Megan Bay Dorman