Saturday, November 28, 2020. An early flight from Haneda to Itami, and on to Osaka.
To Kitahama in Osaka, where Hiroki Sato — everyone calls him Hiro — the Rolfer who runs TEN the space for your Life & Body, is based. Another short overnight trip, following November 7.
The seminar this time is IMAC (Integrative Movement Assessment & Conditioning).
IMAC is a method Hiro developed himself, and there is more about it on the IMAC site he recently opened.
With eight others: where last time we learned the relationship between the viscera and the spine (“IMAC (8) — The Spine and the Viscera: Learning to See Them Through Embryology“), this time it was the relationship between the head, the cervical spine, and the body as a whole.
What is remarkable about IMAC is that it makes clear which meridian is congested, from the movement of muscles and joints. That muscles form a network through fascial connection is what the Rolfer Tom Myers proposed in Anatomy Trains.
From his clinical experience, Hiro noticed that not everything fits the theory of Anatomy Trains, and through trial and error he arrived at the East Asian idea of the meridians.
When I studied IMAC five years ago, the thought of East Asia had not yet entered it. Gradually the idea of the connection between meridians and muscles came in.
What is interesting is the scale of it: thinking about muscles and the connections of the body from the meridians — the twelve primary meridians and the eight extraordinary vessels — an idea of ancient East Asian origin, and being able to see that through an objective Western index. The index here is range of motion in muscles and joints.
And taking the range of motion for each meridian, the less congestion there is, the closer to health one can consider the body to be. Beyond that, as an application: how do glasses, a mouthguard, a smart device affect which ranges of motion? These, too, can be seen objectively.
I looked into how the glasses made for me by Yasushi Nozawa, who heads the Institute of Visual Behavior, affect my own range of motion. They were affecting the Yin Motility Vessel and the Yang Motility Vessel among the eight extraordinary vessels, and the Liver meridian; adjusting the intraocular pressure was affecting the meridians. It gave me a hint about what to do as self-care.
This time, too, we worked carefully through which of the twelve primary meridians and the eight extraordinary vessels the muscles of the head and neck act on, drawing on Hiro’s clinical experience. Working in pairs and receiving it myself, I could feel, within the connection of the meridians, how the muscles of the neck and head affect the lower body.
What is interesting is that working only on the muscles involved in stiff shoulders and a stiff neck is not enough. What matters is the connection from the neck to the lower body. How is a muscle identified in the neck connected in meridian terms? Studying IMAC gives you that sense of relationship.
So what do you do when a meridian is congested?
With the twelve primary meridians, there is a strong likelihood of a problem in the corresponding organ. You can take an approach that works with the viscera, stimulate the points with magnets, or improve things through movement of the body — yoga postures, M3, and so on. IMAC teaches that perspective too.
It was a small group again this time, so there was plenty of room for questions.
The relationship between the eight extraordinary vessels and the twelve primary meridians, for instance.
Hiro introduced his own hypothesis about what role the eight extraordinary vessels and the twelve primary meridians play as a human being develops from fetus to adult.
The eight extraordinary vessels form the base on which the body is built; after that, the twelve primary meridians take on the important role of making the organs. He went on introducing one compelling account after another — how the meridians relate to the midline of the body, and more.
Come to think of it, last year, when I studied with Abe, the acupuncturist, in his course on East Asian Medicine, he said something similar about the eight extraordinary vessels — those special meridians.
Apparently the eight extraordinary vessels are largely passed over in the schools, but they play a large role in the body.
Take the Governing Vessel and the Conception Vessel, the main ones.
The Governing Vessel manages all the yang meridians of the body. It runs along the back of the body, along the spine.
The Conception Vessel manages all the yin meridians. It runs along the front of the body, up the center.
Both bring the whole of yin and yang into order.
So if you settle these first, the rest may take care of itself — and as Abe accumulated clinical experience along those lines, he found, remarkably, that he could narrow down where to work among the twelve primary meridians.
The Governing and Conception Vessels bring the body’s center line into order, it seems.
Studying Hiro’s IMAC widens that idea, and what is striking is being able to see the body from the perspective of what role the eight vessels play embryologically.
Acquiring IMAC asks for fine detail: where a muscle is, and how to take its range of motion. Five years since I began studying it. The reason it is taking time is that unless you actually touch bodies and accumulate sessions, the names of the muscles do not stay.
This seminar too spent a good deal of time on practicing range of motion. According to Hiro, with repeated practice anyone can acquire it. Those words are encouraging. I want to keep practicing and sharpening my own skill.
At present I give advice from the Western view of orthomolecular nutrition — originally my own field — and from the East Asian view of the body. While organizing the body as a container through IMAC and Rolfing, how do I deepen my understanding of what comes in through the mouth, using nutritional biochemistry and East Asian thought? As the strengths of each become clearer, I think they can work together. I am preparing a seminar on how to use East and West side by side, and hope to announce it at some point.
I am due in Osaka again in the third week of next month, which will round off this year’s learning. I am looking forward to studying again with people who know bodywork well.
Related Articles
- IMAC (1) — The Introductory Course: Assessing the Body Through Range of Motion and Anatomy
- IMAC (2) — The Upper Limb: In What Order Do You Take Range of Motion, Test, and Work with Fascia?
- IMAC (3) — The Lower Limb: Not Loosening What Is Tight, but Finding Where Information Is Not Reaching
- IMAC (4) — The Viscera and the Muscles: How Does Muscular Function Affect the Organs?
- IMAC (5) — EROM: Learning How to Assess Range of Motion from the Ground Up
- IMAC (6) — The Lower Limb: Where Anatomy Meets the Meridians, and What Range of Motion Reveals
- IMAC (7) — The Upper Limb: Range of Motion and the Meridians — Reading the Organs and the Autonomic Nervous System
- IMAC (8) — The Spine and the Viscera: Learning to See Them Through Embryology
Note, September 2026
There is one sentence in this article that none of the earlier ones has.
When I studied IMAC five years ago, it says, the thought of East Asia had not yet entered it.
And the reason it entered is written here too. From his clinical experience, Hiro noticed that not everything fits the theory of Anatomy Trains, and through trial and error he arrived at the East Asian idea of the meridians.
This is the only course where the reason the teaching changed is set down in the article.
In the introductory course of December 2015 there was not a single East Asian term. Embryology, the vocabulary of fascia, the Line and Tonic Function in Rolfing. Six meridians entered in the lower limb course of March 2019, twelve came together in the upper limb course the following month, and by this course we are at the relationship between the eight extraordinary vessels and the twelve primary meridians.
It was not that the teaching had been waiting for the receiving side to get ready. The side handing it over had been moving the whole time as well.
That movement continues. IMAC today has been reorganized into two streams of courses, assessment and manual approach, and muscle testing has become a class of its own. The spine and viscera course has been divided as well, into the assessment side and the manual side. It is again something other than the form I took in 2020.
There is one more thing, written briefly in this article. Among the responses to a congested meridian, stimulating the points with magnets is listed.
I had begun that in January of the same year. A magnet, or a finger, placed on the Confluent point and the Yuan-Source point corresponding to the congested meridian. What surprised me was that there were cases in which range of motion improved without any Rolfing work on the fascia at all.
The body was changing where my hands were not touching.
Around that time I began telling clients to place moxa on the Confluent and Yuan-Source points. What I had been giving them until then was the time to come and receive. This was the first time I handed over a way for the body to change away from my hands. I still pass it on in sessions when it seems called for.
And ten months later, in this course, something like the reasoning for it arrives.
Hiro introduces a hypothesis about the relationship between the eight extraordinary vessels and the twelve primary meridians. The eight vessels form the base on which the body is built; after that, the twelve primary meridians take on the role of making the organs. A way of seeing the meridians from the side of embryology.
The account of what had happened with the magnets the year before arrives here.
It happens first, and the explanation comes afterward. That order repeats through this period. It was the same in the upper limb course: I had been watching people make a decision after finishing ten sessions, and brought an explanation by way of the meridians to it later.
And there is one more thing written in this course. Hearing Hiro’s hypothesis, I remember that Abe had said something similar in his course the year before — that if you settle the Governing and Conception Vessels first, the rest can be narrowed down.
In the note on the previous course I wrote that two routes were moving side by side in the same direction. Here, the two are saying the same thing.