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Tendinomuscular Meridians: Less is More – Part 2

Author’s Note:

I hope practitioners will find this article useful.  I would like to hear about your experiences using it and other ways of approaching these fascinating channels. (jdeast@earthlink.net)

Splattered on the wall

By Deborah Valentine Smith, AOBTAR-C1, DIPL.ABT (NCCAOM)

We conclude Deborah’s article with some techniques you can try on TMM or on ordinary meridians.

The Toothpaste Tube Effect 

Even though we palpate the entire meridian first to see where it needs the work and where to spend most of the time, we will get more profound effects by opening the beginning of the TMM at the hand or foot.  It’s easier to move the toothpaste with cap open!  Clients often report that it is deeply satisfying to spend a whole session on the foot or the hand and have it fully open.  In many sessions chronic muscle or tendon problems elsewhere are resolved in one session of just working the hand or foot.  Clients have felt full body responses from this very specific work.  Their breathing deepens; they feel a general sense of ease and a feeling of elongation in the muscle.  It’s also important to be hydrated, because of the importance of fluids to the movement and flexibility of the fascia.  This technique can take some time, but working with the body instead of pushing it has its benefits.  When we work like this from the beginning of the channel, we start to feel the Qi moving in a broad ribbon.  It feels like it’s spreading out over an area like the delta of a river.

Continuity:

We want to keep the body’s sense of connection along the meridian, so we don’t skip around.  As an area frees up, we can move the bottom hand to the next restriction and then work up from there.  We can bring into play other parts of the theory that we know about.  So when I’m working with someone’s leg and I know I want to work a couple of the Yin meridians of the leg, I might add in Sp 6, for instance as a bridge between them.  It is also effective to work with the Six Division Pairs, the Yin/Yang partners (the meridians often pass through agonist/antagonist muscle pairs).

Shaking Out:

This technique of gently shaking the limb until it lets go’ can release both muscle tension an adhesions, especially if you grasp the limb at the significant binding, connection and joining points and enlist the Qi flow in the process.

Palming:

The pressure of the palm can also be like squeezing a sponge to distribute water to the dry places.  When the pressure is lifted, the ‘dam’ accumulated behind it releases its contents into the adjacent areas.

Pulling and Lifting:

Sometimes the adhesions in the fascia are between the muscle and the bone.  Gently grasping the body of the muscle and lifting away from the bone provides that small stretch in the fascia that opens the flow into the tissue.

Meridian Stretches:

I can pull or stretch smaller areas between my fingers as I hold points.  Remember that just the suggestion of a stretch works as well as an actual one.  We are letting the fascia, the Qi and fluids do the work.  We can actually feel the tissue plump up with Blood.  It is very clear at the fingers and toes.  At first it feels like there’s nothing but skin over the bone and then suddenly there’s flesh and the finger or toe feels soft and pliable like a baby’s.  This also brings consciousness to the area because the practitioner is making the connection of the pathway with their hands.  Starting with the Jing-well point, the practitioner ‘pins down’ one end of the pathway and uses the other hand to stretch along it.  In Shiatsu we learn to position the limb in the stretches so that the meridian pops out as we work along it.  If we place our hands at a distance from each other and explore different angles of pull as we gently suggest stretch between them we feel when the meridian pops out, without even moving the limb.  It’s very subtle.  Starting with Jing-well point and the most distal Ashi point, every time we move up an inch we have to re-find the position of stretch.  What we’re doing, between our two fingers, is stretching, opening the fascia to the flow of Qi and Blood.  We also work these stretches in a pulsing fashion: we give it a little bit of pull, then release to give it a rest and then pull again.  We don’t want to use a lot of pressure or a lot of stretch over a long time.  We want just enough to keep it gently lengthening without setting up resistance, which not only slows down the progress, but tires out the practitioner!

Log Jams:

Sometimes there are little knobs that act like bone or ‘gristle’ but disappear as we work.  If we hold gently where the accumulation is, we don’t have to use a lot of pressure.  We let the build-up behind our finger push through the restriction as we gently let up.  We can also stretch the knob just a little and feel it flatten.
This bring consciousness to the area because the practitioner is making the connection with their hands
Sometimes just changing the angle will get to something deeper.  We really don’t need to press hard, but it’s not easy to break the habit of working hard!  When I worked at an up-scale spa in New York back in the 80’s I developed a cellulite treatment combining acupressure and massage that was very effective.  I would work mainly the Gall Bladder meridian because most women were concerned abut the area we called ‘the saddlebags’ on the outside of the thigh.  I would work with releasing armouring in the pelvic segment to open the Qi and Blood circulation and then feel for the lumps and bumps of accumulation along the route of the meridian, which I came to call ‘log jams’.  After I did some release work around the sacrum, I would just hold the lumps and bumps with distals and they would disappear!

Cellulite is actually the result of a circulatory insufficiency to the legs and belly because of pelvic armouring.  The body lays down fibres to isolate the wastes that can’t be carried away; these little ‘packages’ further impede circulation and are painful to the touch.  This is not just a cosmetic problem, because that poor circulation will eventually lead to more serious health problems.  I suspect that pain diagnosed as fibromyalgia and even arthritis may actually be related to, or originate from blockages like these.

Scars and spurs also inhibit flow in a similar fashion.  Scars result from both injury and surgery.  Internal adhesions of tissue are also like scar tissue.  Spurs are usually created at the site of attachment of a muscle that is working very hard and thus pulling on the bone, or as a result of postural problems that cause stressful impact on the bone.  Working to stretch and soften the soft tissue is very important in recovery of normal function.

Active resistance:

Jeffrey Yuen works with the TMM’s by taking it to extreme Yang so Yin can occur’.  He teaches a series of Sinew Channel Releases with specific positions for each TMM.  The principle of these releases can be applied to any muscle group independently as well.  Once the restriction or adhesion is found, the practitioner determines the movement that is being inhibited by the holding pattern and applies gentle pressure in the direction of that movement (toward the present), while at the same time inviting the client to resist the movement (toward the past).  The client is then asked to let up on the resistance ‘one inch’ and then bring it back.  Gradually, by degrees managed by the client to the process which, as Jeffrey says, take it from the level of the Wei Qi (instinctual response) into the level of the Blood (emotions) where we have volition.

Six Divisions:

There are many connections between meridians that affect the TMM’s.  Perhaps the strongest connection is between the Six Division pairs of these muscle meridians.  Stretching through the finger of the ‘hand’ meridian in the hand/foot partners will have an effect in the path of the foot partner or vice versa.  I think this is because they follow fascial routes that go from hand to foot.  Tom Myers has written a book called Anatomy Trains, which describes how these different layers work.

Self-help:

We can work with the Six Division connections very simply and powerfully on our own bodies.  In brief, we can work out our own muscular tension/pain by stretching through the appropriate finger or toe of the meridian that goes through the Ashi point twisting until we find ‘the connecting’ and sending the breath along the stretch.  One can also add the Six Division partner in the foot or hand and stretch through the whole body, looking for the ‘twist’ that relieves the symptom.

Originally presented in AOBTA’s Pulse Newsletter, copyright Deborah Valentine Smith.

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