On Saturday, August 6, 2016, we hosted Atsushi Tsuji, director of the Total Treatment Center Tsuji Acupuncture Clinic in Kyoto, at Session Room ZERO for a workshop titled “Beyond Himotore — Reaching What Himotore Shows You, Without the Cord.” (Himotore is short for himo training, himo meaning cord or string.)
The workshop came about through Katsuhiro Ichihara, a certified athletic trainer from the United States, with whom I had recently become friendly. It was originally going to be held in Saitama. But Ichihara told me it was very close to Rolfing, and that
“it will do a lot for your sessions”
so I asked whether it could be held at ZERO, and we were fortunate enough to make it happen. I am grateful to him.
Unfortunately I could only attend the applied session from one in the afternoon, but there was a great deal to learn.
Tsuji began by saying that the body has its own capacity to heal, but that because we keep doing unnecessary things, it does not easily return to the movement that belongs to it.
What happens to the range of motion when you use a single cord? We tried it in various places — the feet, around the belly, around the chest, around the head — and I was struck by how much the range opened up from one cord alone.
More striking still: wrapping the cord loosely around the belly opens the range further than wrapping it tightly. It is only a return to the balance that was there to begin with, but it was a remarkable thing to feel.
What interested me was seeing, through the cord, that releasing the lower body releases the upper body. There is something here close to Rolfing, and it can be brought into a session.
I came away with a sense of what one cord can do. It was devised by Isao Koseki, a balance trainer; according to Ichihara’s article, it came about by accident.
Tsuji demonstrated it several times, and I watched, again and again, a body letting go as a cord was tied around it. It gave me a sense of how much there is in the human body.
Koseki’s book Himo-tsuki: Shimeru to Karada wa Ugokidasu! Himotore (no English edition; roughly, “Attach a Cord: Tie It and the Body Starts Moving — Himotore”) sets out how to tie them. I bought the book and the cords, and I want to find occasions to use Himotore in Rolfing sessions.
I also learned how to lengthen the latissimus dorsi from a prone position, and a simple way to release the iliotibial band, so my repertoire grew.
Acupuncture was something I had rarely seen before, and the demonstration showed me how much there is in that treatment as well. It was good to see a world different from Rolfing.
My thanks to Atsushi Tsuji, who came from far away, and to everyone who took part.
Note, September 2026
At the end of this piece I wrote that I wanted to find occasions to use Himotore in Rolfing sessions.
Nine years on, I use it now and then. It never became one of my main techniques.
I have not let go of it either. And in March 2025, after the general meeting of the Japan Rolfing Association, a workshop was held with Isao Koseki himself — the man who devised it — and I was there.
The same cord came to me in 2016 as an introduction from another discipline, and nine years later it was sitting in a continuing-education session for Rolfers. The person in between changed, the place changed, and in the end I heard it from the person who came up with it.
Among the things learned in continuing training, some become main tools and some get used now and then. Himotore turned out to be the second kind. I do not think of that as a failure.
There is a similar shape elsewhere. I took twelve days of the beginning level in Somatic Experiencing in 2021 and did not go on to the intermediate levels, since it was clear they went into quite specialized territory. Some years later I came back to that same territory as an interpreter. You do not have to build a system to the top for something from it to stay with you.
One more thing about what I was looking at that day.
Wrapping the cord loosely opens the range further than wrapping it tightly. Releasing the lower body releases the upper body.
Both of these came back two years later under a different name: pre-movement, which the Rolf Movement training addresses. Where the effort goes in order to stabilize the body before a movement is carried out — that is Aline Newton’s definition.
During Part 2 of the training, in a client session where the shoulders and chest would not let go, Rita Geirola pointed out that working with an intention to release the pelvic floor, coccyx included, would change things. When I tried it, a sense of the spine lengthening came, and the shoulders opened without any work being done on them.
Release below and above releases. The same thing I had seen with the cord.
I wrote the same about bandha in yoga. Hold it as tightening and put effort in, and the spine gets pulled down, the chest narrows, the shoulders lose their range. The tighter it is held, the less it moves. The same structure as a cord opening the range more when it is wrapped loosely.
As a technique it never took hold. What I saw that day, though, came back under another name.