three primary reasons I want you to work around the we'll go over and break them down in the detail but let's list them out number one big fasal connection of connective tissue in the body number two huge Gathering point for inflammation because there's stagnation in the blood flow arteries veins and lymphatics and the end points of nerves there get inflammation and you feel pain number three emotional tightness and tension in there because of closing down pulling away from the world causing emotional withdrawal this is a front view of the body you're G to have the sternum your chest bone SL breast bone and then your rib articulations what I want you to see is how the ribs wrap around here from the spine and when they attach in towards that sternum you can see the tissue changes okay but look at the spaces in between those are called intercostal spaces and you have muscles that sit in between there they can get tight and restricted tense and tight from any number of reasons I mean poor breathing patterns is a big one poor posture is another one and you'll see where I'm going to demonstrate that in a moment but I want you to notice how the rib spaces actually change angles a little a little bit as you go down and the spaces get smaller you're going to have to change your finger placement when you go along with the demonstration I'm going to show you in a moment when you begin to work on yourself the first place you're going to need to find is the space that sits underneath this area here which is that first rib that you see here and then you're going to have the second rib coming down below you can see that they're numbered right here one through 12 all right that first space the first three are really really tight on a lot of people especially if they have issues in the head neck and face uh but I want you to watch the center here when you work not only the spaces in between the ribs you make sure you do both sides if you find a lot of puffiness tenderness and swelling in the center here that means a longstanding deep circulation lymphatic node lymph node waist m man agement problem that you've likely had for decades so you want to clear this area out quick fast and in a hurry all right and it's going to take you quite a while to work on this and I will tell you the following day after you work on this region it's probably going to be pretty sore all right but but that's normal now let's take a look at the little bit of the muscular sections in between so here's a different view that's the sternum this is a breakout picture here of between the ribs here okay you're going to have that intercostal muscles now running in between here you're going to have nerves arteries vein and lymphatic fluid okay and this is right where we're going to be rubbing is up against the sternum itself in between the rib spaces you can work your way out a little bit too if you like that's fine but definitely go right up against that region all the way down okay and now if I look look at this next picture this is a really really zoomed up version of your sternum this is the top of the sternum and this is the the regular bottom of the here and look at the intercostal spaces so you see here the ribs right here in blue that I'm coming around and remember the bone doesn't go all the way and attached to the serum that's a different type of tissue here but look at this it's represented in colors here you see the green those are lymphatic and when this area getss really tense and tight the lymph gets congested here and that's where some of the puffiness and the swelling and the inflammation come from and it back flows in towards the sternum then you see these intercostal nerves wrapping around here as well and where do those nerves start they start in the back they go along your spine so one thing that you may notice is when this area is puppy tender swollen or inflamed you may get pain in the the middle of the back because that's where the nerves start look at the blue the blue represents veins they take the blood flow back towards the lungs and heart so it can circulate out again and towards what the red which you see here and that's your end points of the blood flow you have your arteries and you have arterials and then you have some capillaries as these big pipes just change sizes and they change names as they go along but it's still the same pipe and if you put your finger in here and it's really painful and you feel like you want to punch somebody in the face when you rub here because it hurts that's not normal it's not supposed to be painful in here and it's going to surprise many of you how this can be just awful but that's a sign that you need to be working this area and work both sides all the way down and then do the other side I don't care which side you start with first as long as you do both and work them every single day until they're no longer tender which can take you weeks or months to get there okay everybody I'm here with Fred My Demo skeleton is going to help us out a little bit to orient what you're looking at here as opposed to just seeing the graphic pictures that we showed you before this is your sternum in the center your right CLE bone your left left collar bone your ribs wrapping around here to attach to the spine and the back right here and you have your intercostal spaces this is where I want you to be rubbing in between where the ribs attach at the sternum so I want where all three come together finding that SP first space pretty simple to do find these two big bones right here called your Sterno clavicut joint this what's called proximal portion of your colum on your clavicle then come down till you fill that big ho space and rub right there then work your way down each space all the way towards bottom until it ends what I want you to notice here is how big the spaces are up top how small they are underneath you're going to have to change the angle of your finger and the size of the spacing in there to reach them but don't let the size fool you these lower ones can be some of the more uncomfortable ones because nobody ever really pays attention down here and you should then do the same thing on the other side working all the way down noting what how one side feels compared to the other side you always want to work both sides but this is going to free up the nerve artery vein lymphatics and tight tissue and inflammation here and also help the fascia that bridges that connective tissue that Bridges from your left PEC to your right Peck across as well as the fascia that goes all the way down honestly toward your feet from your neck so you'll free this area up then if you want to add going straight in the middle of the sternum like this right in the middle of it and free up any puffiness and tenderness and any swelling in here because it should not be painful on the sternum if you have puffiness tenderness swelling or inflammation here that means you've got some deep lymphatics and deep blood flow boxs that have been behind the rib cage here for a long period of time so you definitely want to be working those out give them a go that's not how it works here's another perspective of working on the sternum what I like to do is take my two hands put the fingernails back to back and place them right here at the top of the sternum go up and down and side to side working your way all the way towards the bottom until it ends right at the beginning of the top of the abdominal muscles called Ure rectus abdominis do that a couple of times then if you you look here you've got the collar bone the clavicle if I slide up underneath there I'm going to find that first spot right there and I put my fingers in the space between the two ribs and right next to the sternum then slide down to the next space and rub there slide down to the next one and rub there all the way underneath to where the rib cage angle changes by the pectoral and the breast tissue that you'll have to move out of the way then do the same thing on the other side switching fingers you'll find which one works well for you and go all the way down and underneath all right let's take a closer look at the fastro connection you have right shoulder you have left shoulder right pectoral left pectoral they have to cross Bridge with each other all along the sternum you also have fascia that connects one shoulder across to the opposite side hip in this X Type pattern that's because you can do this thing called Walking whenever you move one arm another leg goes with it okay you also have connection of fas along the front part of the body from the chin and the neck going all the way down the front to the pubic bone even in at your feet that's called your superficial front fasal line from Thomas Meers and Anatomy trains now let's talk about the fluid flow the systems there along the sternum here you've got a gathering of end points of arteries veins lymphatics and nerves when the fascia gets really really tense in there that clamps down on that blood flow when you get stagnation in those regions causing inflammation many people don't even know they have inflammation in that region until they put their fingers in there like you're going to see in a moment and it hurts that's a universal sign of inflammation pain they need to go in there and start working that region so freeing up this fluid flow in here makes a huge difference everywhere in the body number three emotional so this area is of course where your heart sits and some people may call it your heart chakra or your energy Channel but this area gets tight when you withdraw from the world when you're trying to curl away into they call a fetal position like this notice what happens if you curl inwards moving away from the world everything in the front tightens up so your pecs get tight your shoulders get closer together your shoulders get closer with your hips and your neck comes closer to your chest so all of that stuff that we mentioned in the beginning of the fascia becomes compressed and when that becomes compressed that chokes off the fluid flow in that region and you can get inflammation there but you also are trying to curl away from the world and this is the energy channel of the body so if you look up on the internet you talk about heart energy you'll be able to see that there's a radius that is around you of your heart energy going outwards it's quite far and you can pick that up on another human being when you come into their radius especially when you get good at your own self-awareness of paying close attention to the world around you and a few things are going to happen to you when you work this area of the sternum one you're going to free up the motion in that blood flow limp flow and the arteries there a few things going to happen to you when you release this area of the serum like we're going to show you well one you're going to decrease tension in here you're going to improve blood flow in blood flow out and lymphatic flow so the nerves are actually going to function better you'll feel like you're standing tall lean mean and confident so you open yourself up to the world so maybe you feel a little bit better emotionally because when you change your posture you change how you feel when you change how you feel you change your posture it goes both ways so now you be standing up maybe a little tall lean mean and confident I feel it opening up into what they call extension expressing yourself out into the world because you weren to in this particular region all good stuff