Essentrics With Cecily

05/06/2026

Fasinating FASCIA is also innervated! Do you have pain? Feel stiff? Relieve it with Essentrics with Cecily Gentle or Intermediate on Tuesdays and Fridays 10 am at River Valley Senior Center, Harbert,MI, and 10 or 11 (Intermediate) at New Buffalo Library.

You can talk about your trauma for years…
and your body can still hold it.

Because your body doesn’t release stress through words. It releases it through experience.

There’s a tissue in your body called fascia.
It wraps around everything,
your muscles, your organs, your entire structure.
And it adapts to what you live through.

Stress.
Posture.
Repetition.
Emotion.

Over time…
your body doesn’t just remember what happened.
It learns how to hold it.

That’s why you can feel:
• tight hips for no clear reason
• a heavy chest when nothing’s “wrong”
• shoulders that never fully relax
• a body that always feels slightly on edge

It’s pattern.

And here’s the shift most people miss:

Your body won’t release something it hasn’t experienced differently yet.

That’s where somatic movement comes in.

Not as exercise…
but as reprogramming through sensation.

Instead of forcing your body…
you start introducing new signals.

Long, slow stretches (Yin Yoga) -
Time + stillness = fascia begins to soften

Unstructured movement / dancing -
Breaks rigid patterns your body is stuck in

Slow, intuitive stretching -
Lets your body move the way it actually needs to

Breath with movement -
Tells your nervous system: you’re safe now

Sound (humming, music) -
Vibration travels through tissue and helps release tension

It’s about showing your body something new…
often enough…
And helps it stop holding onto the old.

Because your body isn’t stuck.
It’s just been very well trained.

Where do you hold the most tension in your body right now?

04/30/2026

See you at Essentrics with Cecily Gentle 45 minute class on Tuesday River Valley Senior Center and Friday New Buffalo Library at 10 am or 11 am Intermediate to experience how Essentrics fitness sequences can help you feel better.

04/06/2026

Transform your week with our refreshing or empowering workout! You choose! Tuesdays or Fridays, Gentle or Intermediate!
TUESDAYS River Valley Sr Center, Harbert MI 10-10:45 Essentrics Gentle Fascia First
11-11:30 Essentrics Int’d Floor X Strength

FRIDAYS New Buffalo Township Library
10-10:45 Essentrics Fascia First Gentle
11-11:55 Essentrics Int'd Toning, Stretch & Strengthen

12/06/2025

About Fascia and all connective tissue, Miranda and company at Essentrics say it here.

12/06/2025

When you want to go out in the cold -

Essentrics with Cecily 10/12/25
Focus of Fascia

Are you “Aging Backwards? Or just plain “Getting old?” Do you feel stiff and like you can hardly move some days? Has someone said to you lately, “Well, all those aches and pains are just cuz you’re getting old!!!!

It truly may be all about your FASCIA! Yes, lately scientists say fascia strongly influences your health and wellness.

What does Essentrics have to do with your FASCIA?

Those of you who have done Essentrics have often asked me why you feel so good afterwards, and why you have more energy for the rest of your daily activities. Your FASCIA literally wraps around every cell of our body, your muscles, organs, tendons and ligaments.
When you feel so good, that’s your FASCIA saying “Thank you!”

In Essentrics you do slow movements and continuously move through your stretches. Moving slowly pushes fluids into your fascia, Its like putting water into your tomato paste to make your sauce. Its like putting olive oil in your pan before frying or regularly changing the oil in your car. Your lubricated FASCIA then lubricates your joints, muscles, and even your organs. It reduces or eliminates stiffness. It makes sense then that you can move more easily, you can hold yourselves up more straight, creating better posture, increased range of motion, and greater agility. With all that you can also avoid falling! If you stumble you can catch yourself, and literally catch your balance. Voila! It feels good!

Our FASCIA is a very sensitive organ. Scientists are calling naming it the interstitium. It has 10 times more sensory nerve endings than muscles. Those FASCIA nerve receptors communicate throughout your body. When you overdo your gardening, pickleball, running, walking, dancing, basically overdo whatever you love to do, or… the opposite, if you are sedentary, the FASCIA nerve endings turn bright red with pain. The FASCIA nerve endings scream STOP, or get up and move! Pain and stiffness can be caused by tight, dried up FASCIA around the muscles.

So, when you feel stiff and can hardly move, maybe it’s your aging sticky FASCIA that’s turned like tomato paste, instead of like olive oil.
Your whole body, not only your muscles, need fluid FASCIA in order to move, to be more flexible, and to be stronger.

Truly All we have to do is KEEP MOVING!
Let’s focus on FASCIA and feel better faster!

Cheers to your health and fitness!
Cecily

Cecily Crowther
Fully Certified L4 Essentrics Instructor

Reference: Barty, Gunther, Schlep: Werner 2012:"Fascia As A Sensory Organ: A Literature Review Sensory Innervation of Muscular Fascia"

11/04/2025

No matter our age, we need an exercise program where “No pain IS the Gain! Work at your own pace! Work every muscle, ligament and tendon; put fluid back into your fascia for greater range of motion and healing. See here a little more about it.

10/30/2025

Essentrics sharpens the mind as we do complex moves requiring our brain to tell our body what to do. Its not routine as walking is. Learning another language challenges our brain too. Duolingo is exercise for the brain.

10/09/2025

A night of dancing with friends at Mayihavethisdance.

09/28/2025

Attached below is an email for those of you who have not seen it today from Sahra Esmonde White , Co-Founder of Essentrics I’m sharing it because so much of it is exactly how I feel.
Sometimes the hardest thing to is just to keep it simple.

“A note from Sahra Esmonde-White:
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been an early adopter of healthy living before it turns into a trend. I’ve spent my life immersed in it: learning, teaching, and staying ahead of the curve. It’s what I love, and it's why I love my job and Essentrics.

But lately, I’ve noticed that wellness trends are moving at lightning speed. There’s a pressure to keep up - to optimize everything, try every new gadget or self-care ritual that makes promises to keep us young and vibrant. And frankly, I think it’s making us more anxious than healthy.

When things start to feel overwhelming, I always come back to this question: What do we actually need to feel well? My grandmother used to insist that all we needed was a plate of rainbow-colored foods. In my view, the answer is beautifully simple. The Beatles almost had it right when they said All You Need is Love, but I have a few additions:
Full-body movement
Proper sleep
Hydration
And as much real, whole food as possible.
Whenever I move my body through its full range of motion with Essentrics and stick to this list, I’m reminded that wellness doesn’t have to be complicated nor expensive.

In a time of wellness overload, what do you truly need to feel your best? “

09/11/2025

You might know Jack and MayAnn from SOS and TGIF at May I Have This Dance. Lets save the date!

09/10/2025

Schedule Essentrics w Cecily
No class 10/3
River Valley Senior Center 10 am Tuesdays
New Buffalo Library 10 am Fridays,
Now through December
not 10/3/25 travel
not 11/27/25 Thanksgiving Friday
not 12/26/25
50 minute Gentle Focus Fascia Mobility Energy
Plus optional 30 minute floor
Strengthen Release Abs Quads Glutes
Re-create your energy!
Looking forward to seeing you!