bodyreading the meridians

BY THOMAS MYERS

72 massage & bodywork may/june 2011

SUBJECTIVE ELEMENTS
create a picture of where the three-DVD set available from www.
In the last issue, we skeleton hangs out in space.5 anatomytrains.com, which has many
Our thesis was that even though examples for you to practice on.
introduced our approach these relationships will change Grasping the common elements
in movement, and “one can never of postural position is only the first
to BodyReading—or visual step in the same river twice,” as step of a multistep process of arriving
Heraclitus warned us, there are at a soft-tissue strategy for any given
structural assessment. To recognizable characteristics in pattern. In subsequent issues, we are
movement and posture—a bit like going to go through the second step of
review, before adding to an accent in the voice—to which asking the question: What soft tissues
people return again and again. could be responsible for creating or
what we did last time, we The object of most therapies maintaining that skeletal position?
is to somehow break into these While these patterns can stem
offered quite a few caveats: neuromyofascial patterns to make from individual muscles (meaning
fundamental changes in these neurological patterning in most
• Be careful of assigning moral value
relationships. We could reverse cases), ligaments, or connective tissue
to straight, balanced, or symmetrical
that, at the risk of sounding a little structures (including the brain’s
posture—these attributes are
negative, to say that if a therapy is not dura or the organs’ attachments to
pointers, not goals in themselves.
somehow altering these fundamental the body wall), subsequent articles
• Be doubly careful not to see your client
relationships, its results are likely in this series will be looking at the
as a collection of faults or problems
to be temporary and unsatisfying kinds of patterns the longitudinal
—biologically and functionally
to therapist and client alike. meridians of myofascial linkage (from
they are massively successful to
(I hasten to add that all the the Anatomy Trains foundation) can
be able to choose you and afford
therapies I personally know, from the create and participate in. In other
you, so be aware of their strengths
most medical to the most holistic, words, we will be going through
and resources at least as much as
from the most evidence-based to the some postural patterns line by line.
their problems and symptoms.
most woo-woo, are capable of making We will touch on the subsequent
• Assessment of the skeleton from
deep changes or capable of sliding steps of the process—creating a story
landmarks without X-rays shows a
around the surface of these ingrained that fits the picture, creating a strategy
lot of inter-operator unreliability—
patterns. It’s the how, not the what.) (whether for a move, a session, or a
not just in massage therapy but
But our thesis is also that the series), and reassessing to confirm
in physiotherapy,1 chiropractic,2
more you can see and feel these or alter your strategic route—but
and osteopathy as well.3
patterns in the body, the better these are skills more properly
• Assessment of standing posture is
chance you have of seeing their conveyed in a classroom setting.
only an approximation of the real
body-wide connections, and thus the This time, let us make a few
deal, which is assessing functional
better chance you have of getting the refinements to what we laid out
movement. Stance is simply one such
postural weeds out by the roots. previously, and dive cautiously (Can
revealing functional “movement.”
To get the subtleties of the position you “dive cautiously”? Although
• The method we are proposing is just
of the skeleton in space, we used four that is an obvious contradiction in
one of many valid ways to approach
general terms—tilt, bend, rotate, terms, it is what we do everyday in
visual assessment; we hope this
and shift—in very specific ways to an alive and aware practice) into the
vocabulary will someday be objective,
make clear the body’s segmental subjective and psychological element in
but cannot say we are there yet.4
relationships. You can review that in BodyReading—the somatoemotional
In search of that objectivity, we
the last issue (Massage & Bodywork, realm of spatial medicine.6
set out a positional vocabulary for
March/April 2011, page 74) or in
the skeleton we used to describe
Chapter 11 of Anatomy Trains (Elsevier,
inter-osseous relationships, to
2009) or via the BodyReading 101

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BODYREADING THE MERIDIANS

left
inhale
anterior shift
Right rotation
left tilt
medial rotation
of right scapula
Posterior tilt
left bend/
right rotation
right tilt/
anterior tilt

R-lateral rotation
R-lateral rotation
R-Medial tilt

A B
The marks show the tilts, bends, rotations, and shifts we see as we start; your intended strategy for the session can be marked in another
color, or on another sheet.

74 massage & bodywork may/june 2011


Last time, we saw that bends and
tilts could be backward, forward, or
sideways left or right (sagittal and
coronal planes), that shifts could
be all of these plus up or down, and
that rotations (a complex series of
events in most people that we could
merely touch on in an article) could
be right or left, or medial or lateral
in the paired structures (all in the
horizontal or transverse plane).
We saw that use of just these four
descriptors could bear the weight of a
body-wide detailed analysis, or simply
to sketch out the major features of a
pattern. Here is a chart, Image 1B,
the kind we commonly use in class
(don’t get married to it, we change
these charts frequently as students
suggest improvements). The marks
show the tilts, bends, rotations, and
shifts we see as we start; your intended
strategy for the session can be marked
in another color, or on another sheet.  some toning in both the superficial
The rest of this article is a bit of a
ragbag of elements that do not fit easily
into the positional vocabulary of the
previous installment. We start from the
most objective and move toward ever
more subjective psychosocial factors.
FOUR PELVIC TYPES
There are many details of complex
bits of anatomy like feet and shoulders
that just cannot be stuffed into these
short articles. One factor, however,
commands attention because of
its centrality—the pelvis.
If we posit that tilt is the tilt of
the pelvis on the femur, such that
anterior tilt equals hip flexion, and
posterior tilt equals hip extension,
and we remember that pelvic shift is
either a position anterior or posterior
to the line of the ankle, then we get
the following four pelvic types.
Posterior shift/posterior tilt, Image 2A.
This pattern often presents with a
flattened (flexed) lumbar curve, and
(excuse me) no butt, because the pelvis
is tucked under. Once only found on
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TUNE IN FOR FREE ABMP WEBINARS WITH THOMAS MYERS AS HE CONTINUES TO EXPLORE
HIS BODYREADING THE MERIDIANS SERIES. VISIT ABMP.COM FOR MORE INFORMATION
AND TO VIEW HIS FIRST BODYREADING PRESENTATION IN THE WEBINAR ARCHIVES.
plumbers and lumberjacks (it gives them
that little vertical smile in back when
their jeans hang low), the increasing
use of improper sitting (on the tailbone)
in front of computers is giving this
postural pattern a real comeback.
Posterior shift/anterior tilt, Image
2B. Favored by toddlers everywhere,
the hips are pushed back but the pubic
bone pulled down with hip flexion. A
Normal for a toddler (who has yet to
develop balance in the psoas complex
and deep lateral rotators), but if you
see this pattern in the adult, one
can suspect neurological deficiency
or somatoemotional immaturity.
Anterior shift/anterior tilt, Image
2C. This pattern creates a lot of
compression in the low back and strain
along the front. This person needs B
relaxation along their back line, and
anterior muscles and their core. This
dumping forward is exactly what
both Ida Rolf and Joseph Pilates saw
a lot of and were trying to correct.
Anterior shift/posterior tilt, Image 2D.
Perhaps the most common posture you
will see—anteriorly shifted because C
we are all trying to get ahead in this
world, and staying on your toes is how
you do it. This one can be deceiving,
because with the anterior shift, the
pelvis can look anteriorly tilted as
well, but often another look (sorry,
but look at some of your yoga/Pilates/
fitness-obsessed clients to see this
in action) will show you these folks
are really tucked under, overly tight
D
in the pelvic floor or surrounding
ligaments, and not the happiest of Each of these pelvis types
campers, despite all their work. can come with a host of
So which type is the person individualized postures, but
you are working on? The strategies each type has some features—
differ. For more detail on these structural and psychosomatic—
pelvis types, visit Liz Gaggini’s in common.
site, www.connectivetissue.com.7
BODYREADING THE MERIDIANS
Like this man, some clients
present with an obvious weighted
leg; some, because of counter-
tilts or counter-bends, are more
difficult to read. Correcting these
problems can be difficult for
two reasons: 1) the client is used
to their weight distribution as
“normal,” so it is neurologically
difficult for them to change this
habit, and 2) there is perhaps
some reason that the unweighted
leg cannot support weight, so
that problem must be solved first.
76 massage & bodywork may/june 2011
THE WEIGHTED FOOT
Another important factor in
BodyReading is where the weight falls
on the feet. It is worth asking where the
weight falls on each individual foot—
inside or outside; front or back—as
this bears on our soft-tissue strategy,
and also where it falls between the
two feet. Often people have far more
weight on one foot than the other.
The quick and dirty way to assess
this is to simply run a mental vertical
line between the two feet to see how
much of their body falls on either side
of the line. Some folks are tricky, but
in others, the line will go straight
up through one eye or the other,
a sure sign they are more heavily
weighted on the opposite foot.
The only way to know for sure is to
get two scales, put them side by side,
and have the client step up onto them,
one foot on each, looking straight
ahead. The two readings will add up
to their weight, and the discrepancy
between the two is measured in pounds
(or kilos, for you metricists). Have
them move to where the two readings
are the same, and they will probably
say, “Oh, that feels very one-sided,”
because they are used to reporting
their usual weighting as normal.
Another pattern that takes practice
to see is when someone has more weight
on the ball of one foot and the heel of
the other. A pressure plate assessment
is the only way to get the exact reading
on this pattern for sure, but with
practice you can see it after your client
has been standing for a few minutes.
When you see this, look above—there
is almost always a pelvic or spinal twist
above the feet with this pattern.
CYLINDERS
Although the following pattern can be
described in terms of tilt, bend, rotate,
and shift, it is much easier just to look
at how the cylinders are rotated, Image
4, page 77. It is easy to imagine that
the lower body is two cylinders—our
two legs are essentially two cylinders.
Our leg cylinders can be medially
rotated or laterally rotated, and they are
sufficiently independent that one can be
rotated medially and the other laterally.
In your imagination, extend those
two cylinders right up through the
torso to the shoulders, so that each
hip, waist, and ribs become part of
these cylinders. This is, of course,
just a metaphor, an image—but it is a
useful one. If I turn all the cylinders
laterally, I look big and wide in the
front, and narrow and pinched at
the back. If I internally rotate these
cylinders, I look narrow across the front
and wide across the back. These types
correspond to John Upledger’s cranial
extension and flexion patterns (which
he extends right up into the head), or
Jan Sultan’s internal/external model.8
But in each section of the body
these cylinders can turn somewhat
independently—a commonly seen one
being someone who is narrow across
the chest (as if the rib and shoulder
cylinders are medially rotated) with
a broad belly and laterally rotated
knees (as if the cylinders from the
waist down were laterally rotated).
But you will see a lot of variation
in these cylindrical patterns.
The soft-tissue strategy for
such cylindrical patterns is simple:
widen the narrowed parts and get
them to tone and draw in the too-
wide parts. The complexities come
in where the two tendencies meet:
there is often a troubled area, either
fixed and immoveable, or painful to
the client. Unwinding the cylinders
is a prerequisite for getting the
problem to loosen up; that area is
doing the best that it can to deal
with strong and opposing forces.
BALANCING THE
CARDINAL PLANES
This is one of the easiest bits of
BodyReading to do, so it is an early
segment in educating our practitioners
to bodyread. Nevertheless, it can reveal

Here we see an example of “cylinders”
in the trunk counteracting each other.
The hips are narrow across the front
and wide across the back, but at the
waist the rotation is the opposite—wide
in the front and pinched at the back.
There will likely be trouble around L3
where these two tendencies clash—
where the cylinders stop rotating
laterally and start rotating medially.
A B C simplistic, but check it out and see
Here we see examples of (5A) front/back, (5B) right/left, and (5C) top/ bottom
imbalance. In 5A the front is seriously down compared to the back. Despite 5B’s
athleticism, very different people live in her right and left halves. Try covering
her right half and then her left to see the discrepancies. In 5C, the shoulders
and ribs look weak and ineffective compared to the pelvis and legs. Again, no
moral opprobrium is attached to these imbalances. It is just part of the story
they are working out and our job is to be midwives to peoples’ stories.
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a lot of information and give your
overall strategy an important direction.
Dividing the body at the three
cardinal planes gives you three
“halves” to compare: right/left, front/
back, and top/bottom. It’s a useful
exercise to view your client from the
front, one side, and the back to have
a quick check of which of these is the
most challenging for the client.
Right and left are, of course, the
easiest to assess, as they are the most
anatomically symmetrical. How do
the right and left compare? Some
people have obvious anomalies—one
shoulder or one hip higher then the
other—while others have more subtle
differences between who lives in the
right side and who inhabits the left.
Turn them to the side, and
compare front to back. Front and
back are not anatomically the same,
but they still need to balance each
other in dynamic posture. Often
the front looks fallen compared to
the back. Lots of anterior/posterior
shifts between the body segments
indicate poor front/back balance.
Now look from the back. This time,
look at the top/bottom balance, with
the horizontal plane between them
being the waist (though sometimes
it can vary from a hipster’s waist
to an empire waist). Does the top
feel proportionally bigger than the
bottom, or vice versa? A way to see
this clearly is to obscure the bottom
half with your hand or a clipboard,
and look at the top. Then obscure the
top half and look at the bottom—is
that what you expected to see? Do the
top and bottom fit, or does one seem
outsized compared to the other?
Now, the following is a bit
if it works for you as it does for me.
People with big right/left differences
are often working out the differences
between their masculine and feminine
sides, their animus and anima. This
struggle may express itself in many
ways in different people and it is not

A B
Bodies tending toward ectomorphy (6A), mesomorphy (6B), and endomorphy (6C).
“wrong” in any way, but you will find
that this dichotomy is expressing
itself in their life. That knowledge
can help you help them—to resolve
it, or at least make a better marriage
between their left and right sides.
People with strong front/back
imbalances often have strong public/
private issues—what they show and
what they (try to) hide. Someone with
a Napoleon complex, for example,
may puff up in front to make himself
look big, not realizing how small
he then looks from the back.
Strong top/bottom dichotomies
seem to correspond to introversion/
extroversion; the person with
the proportionally large top is
usually an extrovert, while the
person with a proportionally larger
lower half is often introverted.
SOMATOTYPING
This is a large discussion, which we
must leave for another venue, but it
is useful to place your client in the
triangle of ectomorphic, mesomorphic,
and endomorphic. Though thin,
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C movement produces the more organized
muscular, and fat are the simplest ways
to characterize these somatotypes,
the truth is more complex.
Ectomorphs are tuned more to their
skin and nervous system and are highly
reactive; mesomorphs more tuned to
their blood and muscular systems and
are big on doing; and endomorphs more
governed by their organs and intuitional
feelings. Everyone lies somewhere in
the triangle made by these extremes.
If your client is toward the center
of the triangle, this is probably not
so useful a distinction to make. If,
however, she tends strongly toward
one or the other of these types, it is
worthwhile knowing that each type
responds differently to soft-tissue
change. Basic information on the
types is available in a lot of places
(if you are familiar with ayurvedic
medicine, these types correspond to the
doshas), but the basic work comes from
William Sheldon, and is documented
in The Varieties of Human Physique.9
BODYREADING THE MERIDIANS
ORIENTATION
Some people orient more to the ground,
and then reach out from there. Others
orient by reaching out to others, or
into the environment, and then find
their ground from that connection. A
simple test shows which is dominant
(and an indeterminate result indicates
balance between the two):
Stand behind the client and have
her jump lightly and repeatedly on the
balls of her feet. It does not matter how
high or well she does this. Make two
tests, repeating these movements on
successive jumps. Either: 1) Lift her
slightly from the sides of her rib cage
as she goes up, or 2) Press her lightly
into the earth on her shoulders as she
comes down. Which slight impetus
result in the client—pressing down
or lifting up? The ones for whom a
slight pressing down results in a more
organized spring up are oriented to
the ground; those for whom even a few
ounces of lift on your part produce
a large result in terms of height and
delight achieved, are oriented out into
the environment around them.10
BREATHING TENDENCY
Breathing patterns can hover around
one end or the other of the respiratory
cycle. Those stuck on the exhale side
of the pattern tend toward depression
and introspection, relying too heavily
on their own internal world, while
those stuck around the inhale end of
the cycle tend toward a bluff heartiness,
relying too heavily on the impressions
and responses of others for their
sense of self. Artists of all sorts tend
toward the former, the latter can
often be found among car salesmen,
TV talk show hosts, and politicians.
Soft-tissue work around the affected
parts, along with reeducation of the
missing part of breathing, can often
help bring these folks toward balance.

SOMATIC MATURITY
Many systems have sprung up around
bodytyping and psychology—
from Hippocrates’ four humours
through Wilhelm Reich and the
bioenergeticists who followed him.11
Grasping the kind of patterning
in the skeletal geometry (as we have
been) and the myofascial meridians of
tension (as we will do in subsequent
issues) can lead to a different level
of seeing, and thus a deeper level of
work. One of the most interesting
contributions that can be made by
quality manual and movement work is
related to maturational development.
This gentleman hovers near
Can you see that the pelvis of
the inhalation end of the
the young woman in Image 8, left,
breathing scale, whereas the
looks younger than the rest of her
gentleman shown in Image
structure? Can you see the underlying
5A hovers at the exhalation
very small boy within the postural
end.
pattern of the middle-aged man
in Image 6A (page 81)? Are such
observations clinically useful?
REALIZING POTENTIAL
In this article, we have stepped
over the line from remediation of
biomechanical inefficiency toward
the realm of the somatic psychologist.
In my humble opinion, the two are
intimately related, and being able to
recognize such restrictions, parse
out the underlying patterns, and
realize such potentialities is one of the
more important jobs for the manual
therapists of the coming century.
I am specifically not recommending
stepping into the psychologist’s
role with your clients, but simply
recognizing what the body pattern is
trying to express can often facilitate
change without your saying a word.
Like most therapists, I have seen
many such patterns, and I have
been privileged to watch them
change under my hands, but the
This young woman’s pelvis
therapist is acting as a midwife to
looks younger than the
that change, not as a psychologist.
rest of her structure.
The Anatomy Trains map, not
specifically developmental, is one
way into seeing such underlying
patterns. It is bodyreading the specifics
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BODYREADING THE MERIDIANS
of these longitudinal myofascial
meridians to which we will turn our
attention in the next issue.
Thomas Myers is the founder of Anatomy
Trains. He studied with Drs. Ida Rolf,
Moshe Feldenkrais, and Buckminster Fuller,
and has practiced integrative bodywork
for more than 30 years in Europe, the
United Kingdom, and the United States.
He incorporates many movement and
manual disciplines in his work. For more
information, visit www.anatomytrains.com.
NOTES
1. D. Hollerwöger, “Methodological Quality and
Outcomes of Studies Addressing Manual
Cervical Spine Examinations: A Review,” Manual
Therapies 11, no. 2 (May 2006): 93–8.
2. M.A. Seffinger et al., “Reliability of Spinal
Palpation for Diagnosis of Back and Neck Pain:
A Systematic Review of the Literature,” Spine
29, no. 19 (October 1, 2004): E413–25.
3. Michael T. Haneline, DC, MPH, and Morgan
Young, DC, “A Review of Intraexaminer and
Interexaminer Reliability of Static Spinal Palpation:
A Literature Synthesis,” Journal of Manipulative
and Physiological Therapeutics (June 2009).
4. Judith Aston, Aston Postural Assessment Workbook
(San Antonio: Therapy Skill Builders, 1998).
5. Thomas Myers, Anatomy Trains (Edinburgh,
United Kingdom: Elsevier, 2009).
6. Thomas Myers, “Kinesthetic Dystonia,”
Journal of Bodywork and Movement
Therapies 2, no. 2 (1998): 101–14.
7. L. Gaggini, The Biomechanics of Alignment,
6th ed. (Boulder: Connective Tissue Seminars,
2005). Available at www.connectivetissue.com.
8. Jan Sultan, “Toward a Structural Logic—The
Internal-External Model,” Notes on Structural
Integration 86 (1986):12–18. Available from Dr.
Hans Flury, Badenerstr 21, 8004 Zurich CH.
9. W.H. Sheldon, The Varieties of Human Physique
(New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1940).
10. This orientation work from Hubert Godard is available
in English in the book How Life Moves, by Caryn
McHose and Kevin Frank (North Atlantic Books, 2006).
11. Here are some references for this type of work: W. Reich,
Character Analysis (New York: Simon and Schuster,
1949); Ron Kurtz, Body-Centered Psychotherapy
(San Francisco: Liferhythms: 1990); Stanley Keleman,
Emotional Anatomy (Berkeley, California: Center
Press, 1985); A. Lowen, The Language of the Body
(New York: Hungry Minds, 1971); Thomas Hanna,
Somatics (Novato, California: Somatics Press, 1968).