Qi Heals And How!!

The Newsletter of the SIKE Health Qi Community

TABLE OF CONTENTS, ARTICLES:
  Eastern Medicine/Western Culture May 2004 (Issue #1)
  One Thought Fills Immensity (Projecting Qi) August 2004 (Issue #2)
  The Core Issue (Treating Auto-immune Diseases) October 2004 (Issue #3)
  The Path of Health (The Pleasure of Breathing) December 2004 (Issue #4)
  Meanwhile, On the Other Side of the World (Springtime in Asia) February 2005 (Issue #5)
  Change and Renewal 1 (Treating Emotional Scars) April 2005 (Issue #6)
  Change and Renewal 2 (How Qi Works) June 2005 (Issue #7)
  The Body's Priorities (Overcoming Pain) August 2005 (Issue #8)
  Spinal Integration August 2005 (Issue #9)
  This Magic Moment (Thoughts on Halloween) October 2005 (Issue #10)
  Putting the Body in Order  (FAQs about SIKE) December 2005 (Issue #11)
  The Mind Must Submit to the Humanity of the Body April 2006 (Issue #12)
  Stress, Physical Tension, Anxiety, and Fatigue September 2006 (Issue #13)
  Thoughts at Year's End 2006 December 2006 (Issue #14)
  Remembering Takeshi Watabe Sensei March 2007 (Issue #15)
  From Here to Tranquility (I) April 2007 (Issue #16)
  From Here to Tranquility (II) August 2007 (Issue #17)
  Qi and the Elderly October 2007 (Issue #18)
  Thoughts at Year's End December 2007 (Issue #19)
  Remembering Ron Gorow March 2008 (Issue #20)
  Wit of Dennis Keene May 2008 (Issue #21)
  Stress is Back in the News June 2008 (Issue #22)
  Going with the Flow July 2008 (Issue #23)
  Biorhythms September 2008 (Issue #24)
  Thoughts at Year's End 2008 (Issue #25)
  Oh, Baby!, Part 1 (Issue #26)
  Oh, Baby!, Part 2 (Issue #27)
  Thoughts at Year's End 2009 (Issue #28)
  Change of Pace (Issue #29)
  How the Body Adapts, Part 1 (Issue #30)
  How the Body Adapts, Part 2 (Issue #31)
  Qi For Pets, Part 1(Issue #32)
  Qi For Pets, Part 2 (Issue #33)
  How Divine! A Qi Perspective (Issue #34)
  About the Sike Technique (Issue #35)
  Anger and the Body (Issue #36)
  Treating Lower Back Pain, Part 1 (Issue #37)
  Treating Lower Back Pain, Part 2 (Issue #38)
  Move On! Circadian Cycles (Issue #39)
  Thoughts at Year's End 2010 (Issue #40)

EASTERN  MEDICINE/WESTERN  CULTURE

Both the oral and literary traditions of SIKE Health History relate the story of how Mallory, through a lengthy, fruitless quest to heal a debilitating illness, came upon a Japanese qi-based health association practitioner who quickly and cheaply healed him. Therese followed suit with her physical problems, and both of us convinced Mallory's mother to fly to Japan for (successful) treatment for her chronic and unremitting sciatica. We were so enamoured of the simplicity, elegance, and effectiveness of the technique that, while pursuing full-time occupations, we trained assiduously for 12 years as students and apprentices, and began to practice professionally in 1991.

The Technique, we were frequently informed, was devised in the classical tradition of Eastern medicine... to be easily accessible, inexpensive, and effective without reliance on invasive procedures, drugs, or supplements. Our Japanese mentors ceaselessly and strenuously impressed upon us the need to explain to people that the essence of medicine is maintaining health, not the treatment of illness.

"Just as a good swordsman anticipates an opponent's blow and evades it in order to strike, a sound medical regimen anticipates illness and avoids it through health care."

As long as we were living and practicing in Japan, we were 'preaching to the converted', and we had a practice based more on blending with seasonal changes and strengthening bodies and body systems than on curing an illness or mending a bad back.

As opposed to the health-oriented Technique we were taught, the culture of America is illness-oriented. No one but a lunatic would visit a physician to say he felt great and wanted to feel even better! Much less ask for guidance for passing from a hot season to a cold season!  And yet, it is just this "lunacy" that we, as holistic practitioners, applaud.

The majority of Americans uphold the Eastern paradigm of health not with their bodies, but with their automobiles. No one would dream of going 25,000 miles between oil changes, or wait for the brakes to completely wear away before changing them. Do you wait, hoping to get 100K miles out of your tires, or do you change them before they explode? How do you feel about being stranded for lack of engine coolant in Lower Slobovia? Yes, America is a land of car maintenance, not health maintenance.

For goodness sake, don't pamper your car at the expense of your body. What is more—it is a clinically proven fact that regular qi treatments make a person nicer!

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ONE THOUGHT FILLS IMMENSITY

It was in February 1981 that my sciatica/paralysis was healed by Dr. Matsuura, and I continued having regular treatments from her until her death in May 1985. It then took me two years to find another practitioner whose high reputation was justified by his skill. He astonished me on my first visit to him by feeling my qi and saying: "Did you ever have treatment from the late Kayoko Matsuura? I seem to feel her qi in you." Her qi lives on in me and contributes to my health and well-being. I do not know if it blended with my qi or has a distinct life of its own. I do know now that the qi of all those who have (literally) touched us with love or kindness or goodness or a sincere desire to help us resides within us and elsewhere, and can be accessed to provide us pleasure, comfort, health, and happiness. The feeling is as palpable as a transcendent memory of bliss.

I had my introduction to communing with the various qi within me in 1991. It was at a meeting of the Te No Kai (The Society of Hands), a sort of Baker Street Irregulars for qi practitioners in Tokyo. Someone mentioned how communicating with the qi of his long-dead grandmother had seen him through a recent crisis, and I was surprised that not a single member present smirked... in fact, they all nodded as if it was a trite truism.

The grandson of the deceased said:

"Qi is breath, it is electricity, it is spirit, and it is more. It is the link, the nexus of the mind and body. It is thought, and thought is the great bond, the supreme unifier. Just as light is both a discreet unit and an unbroken wave at the same time, so thought is qi itself and the means of transmitting qi to wherever we choose to send it. And nothing, not even electricity, is as fast or as penetrating as thought. You might say that qi is the purest form of energy, and like energy of any sort, it cannot be destroyed. When a person dies, their qi returns to the universe where it can be accessed by the living. At the same time, their qi remains on Earth inside of those they loved. Christians talk about guardian angels. They are probably manifestations of a loved-one's qi. At the moment of my grandmother's passing, she held my hand and whispered, 'Death will keep us together.' And so it has."

That evening I joined a small group of people sending their qi to heal those who were in hospital or bedridden at home or living abroad and unable to come for treatment. It was an experience that opened vistas for me not unlike, I am sure, those geographical vistas seen by voyagers during the Age of Discovery.

Today I communicate with the qi of a person, living or dead, whose respect and approval I seek. I dedicate my workday to that person, and use their qi together with mine for healing and promoting tranquility. We also do "long distance" qi treatments regularly, and guide our trainees through the experience of working hands-on on an absent person.

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THE CORE ISSUE

Over the past 5 years, we have seen an increase in persons suffering from the following "cocktail" of symptoms--lower back pain, tingling or pain in the fingers and toes, headache, loss of appetite, poor sleep, loss of mental clarity, weakened immune system, and fatigue. The common diagnoses are usually Rheumatoid Arthritis, Lupus, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), Fibromyalgia, and in extreme cases, MS.

What all of these sufferers share is a lack of a core, and this core is, of course, two-fold: mind and body. Or, from the qi perspective, a single deficiency of mind/body.

The physical manifestation is a weak lower back/pelvic girdle. These persons tend to live from the margins of their body. When they sit on a chair, their feet will not be planted on the ground, but they will be on their toes; or they will be leaning forward with their hands or elbows on their knees for support. They tend to hold people and objects from the fingertips rather than with the hand. When they stand, they usually need support because of the weakness of their core. They will lean on whatever is available or hold on to an object to steady themselves and hold themselves upright. And it will always be either the left side or right side that is leaning. People without a core have a definite left/right bias for support.

In terms of personality, such people rely on others for their ideas, motivation, and philosophy. In Japanese, they are called "pillows", because the heaviest head leaves the deepest impression...meaning the louder or more insistent the argument, especially by older, "parental-type" figures, the more they are likely to agree and follow regardless of the merits or demerits of the content.

People without a core, therefore, rely on others to provide support. This support can be material, such as nursing or caretaking. It is also mind-oriented meaning sympathy, guidance, and providing direction. When the support is either unavailable or insufficient, the physical symptoms mentioned above strongly manifest themselves. What we do is to explain to people about the core, and then strengthen their core area and lower body, while enabling them to become psychologically stronger and more independently-minded. Mind follows body. We have a significantly high success rate.

Since most people are unable to see themselves as others see them, we have, for the past four years, been using President Bush as a classic example of a person without a core. We have no intention of getting into the lamentable schoolyard name-calling that passes for political discourse in this country. The President is a highly visible celebrity who possesses all of the physical and mental traits characterizing a lack of core. A person has only to go home and switch on the nightly news to see what we are talking about, which simplifies things for us.

Have a look to see what we mean.

Walking: "Some people call it a swagger. In Texas, we call it walkin'." If so, the entire population of the Lone Star State should drop whatever it is they are doing and schedule a SIKE appointment before it is too late to save their upper spines from serious disability. Since Bush has no core to support his upper body, he relies on his shoulder blades (scapulae) to carry him. The scapulae are the third largest bones in the body (after the femurs and hips, which should be supporting him), and people without a core use them to hold themselves up in mid-air as it were, rather than let the ground take their weight. Hence, Bush's arms never dangle at his sides, but are always splayed out as if they will turn into wings. This puts a terrific strain on the neck and upper back. Whoever was transformed into the President's 7th cervical vertebra must have done something awful in a former life that completely ruined his karma. That poor vertebra is suffering by taking the weight of the scapulae which are taking the weight of the body.

Standing: Bush cannot support his upper body, so he leans on the lectern when he makes a speech. His left forearm/elbow is on the lectern, his body is leaning left, his neck is twisted, and his upper body is bending forward. When he tires of that posture, he will grasp the lectern with the fingertips of both hands for support, but his left hand is extended further than the right, and so his body is still bent to the left. His neck compresses/recedes like a turtle pulling into its shell, his eyes narrow, and he gives the impression of someone who is very uncomfortable in his body.

Sitting: The President sits at the edge of his seat with his hands or elbows on his knees, his upper body leaning forward. He looks as though he is ready to get up and leave at any second, but in fact, he is keeping his mid-section and lower back from caving in.

The Mind: It has become the comedic equivalent of shooting ducks in a barrel to point out the President's frequent lapses of grammar, syntax, and common sense. The cumulative effect of these lapses leads many people to compare his intellectual bona fides with that of toaster-oven. The fact is, however, he cannot get the words right because they are not his. He relies on the dictates and directions of agenda-oriented "mentors".  

Cheney and Rumsfeld are remnants of his father's presidency. Rice is George Schultz's proxy from their Stanford days. He introduced her to Bush and made sure Bush took her on board. Schultz is an even older and more formidable parental-figure (he gave the nod for Bush to enter the 2000 Republican primaries), and is inseparable from the Bechtel Corporation. The "pillow" that is Bush is receiving the triple-head-with-one-voice of "older and wiser" mentors that supported his father. What is paradoxical is that, unlike his body's natural inclination, they are not left-leaning.

Should you or anyone you know experience the "cocktail" of symptoms listed above, look at the President as a standard for comparison, and if you note his characteristics in yourself, get to work restoring your core.

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THE PATH OF HEALTH

Tranquil, steady breathing is the pathway to health.

There is nothing worth racing or rushing for.

The breath of Nature is rhythmic and tranquil.

Flowers do not succumb to the pressure of time and rush to bloom.

But we fall into disorder, agitation, and commotion when we 'fall behind' time.

Humans are the only organisms capable of conceiving the future.

Most of our stress and all of our anxieties come from thoughts of the future.  Until we realize that our anxieties are always one station ahead of us, and thus groundless, the future remains a prime source of human agitation.

Agitation disrupts our breathing.

Every moment of agitation is a moment lost to our span of life.

Calm yourself by gently slowing your agitated breathing and returning to the present.

Restore yourself to a steady repose.

With the natural rhythm of breath, our bodies will move as Nature intends, toward health.

Happiness, sadness, anger, suffering, pleasure...all are interesting.

Observe a child: tears give way to laughter, and pain gives way to pleasure. Binding oneself to any single transient emotion disturbs our breathing and subverts our core of tranquility. In extreme cases, we stop breathing altogether.

Each life is encircled by an ever-turning wheel of varied emotions.

When the wheel turns to anger, get angry; when you are facing sadness, feel sad; conform to the changing reality before you without losing the healthy rhythm of your breathing.

This is the path of health.

 

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MEANWHILE, ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD

The Chinese have always been fanatics about keeping records and statistics, and the Japanese are not far behind them in enthusiasm. Until modern times, the mortality rate for children in those countries was high, the peak incidence for girls at age 3, and for boys at age 5. If a child lived to age 7, he/she was considered to have survived childhood, and likely to go on to marry and have children.

Thus, the 3rd day of the 3rd month (March 3) is Girls Day. The 5th day of the 5th month (May 5) is Boys Day. The 7th day of the 7th month (July 7) is Lovers Day (it is also an astronomical event—the "rendezvous of the stars Altair and Vega). In Japan, people mark these days by visiting shrines and decorating their homes to give thanks for their children's health, and to wish for continued good health.

It is good for us, too, to take a moment to count our blessings and, like Oliver Twist, ask for more.

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CHANGE AND RENEWAL 1

Emotional scars leave clear physical traces.  The traces take many forms. Poor digestion, poor sleep, headaches, backache, sensory loss, impotence, lethargy, muscle pain, twitching, fatigue...In short, emotional issues result in a loss of flexibility somewhere in the body, and that loss of flexibility is the beginning of a physical problem that diminishes quality of life.

Over the 15 years of our professional practice, roughly 90% of emotional scars/physical traces resulted from anger/resentment/frustration left unexpressed, which, therefore, had become internalized. This unexpressed anger has a corrosive effect on the flexibility of the body.  Diagnoses ranging from MS to lupus to rheumatoid arthritis to chronic fatigue syndrome cleared up quickly once the embedded anger was removed from the body.

Perhaps the most unusual case we saw was of the elderly holocaust survivor. She and a boy she later married survived the Nazi camps, displacement, and unspeakable hardships—always together-- to carve out a life in the U.S.  The two were inseparable. On the eve of his 80th birthday, her husband died in his sleep, and she awoke to find him lifeless by her side. Within a week she lost her sense of taste. Everything she tasted and smelled was bitter.  We treated her two years after the event. When I suggested that her body was holding onto anger, she confessed to being furious with her late husband for leaving her behind, abandoning her as it were.  What truly enraged her was that he left without saying good-bye, and without allowing her a leave-taking.

From a qi perspective, the physical scars of emotional issues are most commonly found embedded in the scalp and spine. We all watch a person's face for physical signs of emotion, never thinking that the scalp moves in the same way, and is just as revealing. And unlike the face, which can be consciously configured to hide the truth, the scalp never deceives, nor does the spine.

Hence, we approach emotional scars through the body. First we use the scalp and spine as a diagnostic "map, and then seek to restore flexibility to that part of the body that has been robbed of its freedom of movement and change. The stomach can shift position and shape, and the resulting discomfort is intense (think IBS). Compression to the upper cervical vertebrae can lead to everything from migraines to insomnia to loss of feeling in the fingers to fatigue, etc.

Once flexibility has been restored, the individual "opens up", and that almost always results in a physical outburst that we call "cleansing", and others call an emotional catharsis. Tears, crying, gasping, spasmodic sobbing, and panting are all physical cleansing elements, designed to invigorate and cleanse the ears, nose, eyes, throat, lungs, digestive system, and (believe it or not) brain. If your chest has been compressed through tension/fear/emotional issues, what better way to jumpstart your lungs than taking in huge lungsful of air in order to sob? The tears themselves are saline and cleansing. The muscles between the ribs are exercised and the chest expands, the upper thoracic vertebrae can relax, and the upper cervical vertebrae (base of skull) can be released from compressed tension.  Circulation, especially needed by the brain and liver, accelerates. The organism experiences full-fledged, full-body dynamism for the first time in years.  Perhaps since you were an infant exhibiting the same behavior naturally...

Joseph Campbell writes of how an "ordinary" person becomes a Hero: The Hero... reassociates with the powers of Nature, which are the powers of our lives from which our mind removes us. This consciousness is a secondary organ of a total human being, and it must not put itself in control. The mind must submit and serve the humanity of the body.   (My underline) 

In other words---Mind Follows Body.  Even the so-called somatic (body)-oriented psychotherapies, if they help at all, are time-consuming, verbose, and costly. If you seek change and renewal, look first to your body. Emotional scars are clearly visible. Find them and cleanse them from you. Then keep your body and soul cleansed by doing kiryu.  

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CHANGE AND RENEWAL 2

I am asked from time to time just how qi works. Meaning, I suppose, in a deeper sense, just what is it and how is it able to effect changes in living things? The Honda Motor Company has been studying and researching qi in their labs in Tsukuba, Japan, and some of their findings have been interesting and even enlightening. I have synthesized some of their findings with my own experience and philosophy to propose the following.

All life is movement. All movement creates sound through the medium of vibrations. These vibrations are measured in Hertz (vibrations per second). The human ear is capable of perceiving from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz. The planet Earth vibrates at about 8 Hz, which is called the Schumann resonance. As the musician/musicologist Ron Gorow has pointed out, "Perhaps not coincidentally, the human body in a relaxed state resonates at the same frequency, as do alpha brain waves, characteristic of states of higher consciousness, inspiration, and creativity."

Qi itself is a flow of vibrations that produces an "echo effect" on systems in which the qi is flowing and vibrating at a harmonious frequency, but qi is frequently stymied in its motion when encountering something that is vibrating little if at all. This latter effect is commonly termed "blockage", and it is what we look for when diagnosing and treating a health problem. Most people assume that I am somehow using my qi to force an opening in their qi in order to restore the flow. The drain rooter effect comes to mind.  Shove it in, whirl it around, remove the debris, and get the flow back.

In fact, what we do is nothing of the kind.  We relax all or part of the individual to the point where his/her own qi will naturally begin vibrating in the "blockage". In short, we add nothing and apply no external forces to produce change; we remove tension in order to renew the free flow of qi in the people we treat. The body, with a little nudge, fixes itself. This is the basis of kiryu. The body will remove its own impediments to the flow of qi, and health is maintained and enhanced. What we do is therefore persuasive, as opposed to the coercive techniques of, say, chiropractic and rolfing.

Another definition of qi is "the link between mind and body." English is a clumsy means of expressing this concept; it might be better to say that qi is the medium in which mind and body live as one. And so besides the physicality of vibrations, and renewing movement where it had been blocked, qi treatments entail a psychological perspective, what in Japan is called "altering the conscious".  To put it another way, we attempt to change the direction of people's thoughts regarding their ailment, or to put an end to some thoughts entirely.

The mind, like the body, expends a lot of energy. The most fatiguing types of thoughts are repetitive or obsessive thoughts, and those not guided to any realistic end. If you do repetitive exercise with only your arms, you will develop, then overdevelop, then cripple, specific muscles while the rest of the body goes untouched.  The breakdown comes from excessive tension at one point or place.

It is the same with the mind. Repetitive thoughts develop only one segment of the mind, and left to their own devices, these thoughts can ultimately inhibit the free functioning of the mind AND cause bodily damage. The qi collects, swirls, and ultimately coalesces into blockage through repetitive thinking.  This includes obsessive thinking about illness.  Just as people will unconsciously pick at or habitually touch a sore, many people think (without being aware they are doing so) over and over about their ailment. We seek to divert people's minds in order to remove mind-induced blockage and allow the body to heal. As Dr. Matsuura told each of us who came for treatment, "Now get out of here and have some fun!"

Our discipline is based on a modern revision of classical Chinese medicine. About 80 years ago, Haruchika Noguchi blended the physicality of qi with the Western paradigm of anatomy and physiology. Noguchi was, not surprisingly given his intelligence and wide-ranging interests, an accomplished student of Zen. His commentaries on Zen "classics" are eccentric, humorous, and insightful. His study of Zen brought him to the brilliant innovation of adding the mind to medicine, and making the mind as physical as the thumb. There has never been in 1400 years of Zen records, a single enlightenment (satori) that was not triggered by a physical stimulus. The sound of a stone striking a bamboo, the sound of laughter, a blow to the head, the sight of a meat market...

"A monk stood before the Zen master. "My mind is deeply troubling me," he said. "Show me your mind, and I will remove your troubles," replied the master. The monk laughed, and walked away, happy."

Noguchi would often use Zen "illogic" or contradiction to break the logjam in people's minds while he was touching their bodies. Happily, he was in the country where Zen is most widely practiced, and people were familiar with it and responded well. Unfortunately, Therese and I are practicing in a country where a Zen outburst could provoke a lawsuit.

Most of the great thoughts and revelations of history have been physically induced. The blinding conversion of Saul to Paul; the fiery presence before Moses that changed civilized morality; the sight of the emaciated corpse that changed Shakyamuni into the Buddha; the apple that fell in front of Newton leading to the Principia; the key that fell out of Einstein's pocket that led to the Special Theory of Relativity; Proust's petit madeleine; Wordsworth's daffodils, Keats'  nightingale...

We attempt to heal the body by re-directing the mind through touch and the physicality of qi. Once people begin feeling they have more energy, more focus, more mental acuity, we know for certain that their bodies are on the mend. And the road to mending is not always the shortest distance between two points. But that is for the next Newsletter.

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THE  BODY'S  PRIORITIES

We last wrote: "And the road to mending is not always the shortest distance between two points. But that is for the next Newsletter...

I recently received an email from a disgruntled woman .  (Emails from gruntled people go up on our website as Testimonials.) The gist of her email was that her return to health was not following a logical progression.  The worst of her pain was over, but it still returned unexpectedly from time to time. Not only that, but the results of each treatment were unpredictable and "uneven."  One treatment left her feeling blissfully pain-free, while another made her tired and nauseous, while yet another produced so much pain in her legs that she thought she would pass out, while yet another made her feverish and sweaty, while still another made her hungry, and she ate much more than usual. And, what is more, enjoyed what she ate!

To sum up her complaint as a composite of most of the complaints we receive would produce the following:  "It seems to me that if I were getting better, there would be a steady linear progression from much pain to no pain at all. I don't think we're making progress." Or  "I don't see why getting rid of PMS has caused my skin to get blotchy." Or "I've cut my medications back 80%, but I can't cut them off completely. I don't think this is working."  As the King of Siam liked to say, "Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera."

Prolonged pain is frustrating, debilitating, and dehumanizing. It takes away our human pleasures, and leaves us with little more than basic life-sustaining bodily functions that become more and more difficult to perform. The loss of pleasure, optimism, and creativity associated with chronic pain produce extreme psychological effects that can last for years.  Sleep is no longer refreshing or rejuvenating. Pain also leads to wide-ranging side effects: our bodies produce chemicals to help us cope with pain. When powerful analgesics are added to our natural chemistry, our quality of life declines even more as side-effects increase. Some analgesics, notably steroids, can become habit forming. Other drugs create a psychological dependency. They can never be cut off completely without an accompanying personality change.

Pain leads to a rapid decline in muscle tone. We cannot move, much less exercise, as much as we used to, or as well as we would like. The body's balance has been compromised. If the left leg is causing the pain, the body will naturally transfer its weight to the right leg. The hip joint will be affected, as will the sacrum.  Muscle tone declines even further. Talk about a domino effect...

Now add to this external factors: Stress at the workplace; financial worries and hardships; frustration and anger at any number of things, including the "unfairness of life; caretaking your elderly or infirm family members whose gratitude at your efforts is dubious at best; worry over a persistent, debilitating, and costly disease in your pet that has the vets stumped; living with one or more teenagers; concern for the shredding social fabric and degraded environment; an obsession with your declining health status; etc, etc, etc.

Given these internal and external factors, why should there be...no...how can there be a steady linear progression of returning to health? There is not one PAIN to be dealt with at this time. There is tissue damage, nerve damage, compromised musculature, corrupt sleep patterns, several flavors of anxiety, and poor digestion. The body's cleansing system has a "to do" list about three feet long, even if were robust enough to undertake its task.  What seems like an isolated pain in the lower back and leg is, in fact, a body-wide medley of problems. And you can't fix the one without fixing the others...

The trouble is, once SIKE starts the healing ball rolling: restructure the muscles and bones, stimulate the cleansing system, stimulate the nerves, relax the stomach, stimulate the liver and heart, promote sleep, etc., it is very hard to know which of the problems the body will naturally deal with first. Regardless of your priorities, your body will direct its healing energy according to its own needs.

It may be the cleansing system, in which case vomiting frequently occurs; this is unpleasant, but it is the fastest and most effective means of body cleansing. Cleansing could be endless diarrhea, or a fever accompanied by sweating. One man produced a bowl of ear wax!  The skin as the largest organ of the body is a major agent in cleansing. Changes to the body, especially the body's hormones, register right away on the skin.

It may be sleep. Many people yawn after treatment, feel overwhelmed with a pleasant languor, and nap for several hours. Some people (including Therese) have actually passed out and slept for a day. Once they are rejuvenated by sleep at a cellular level, their bodies will move on to its next task.

It may be healing the inflamed nerves, in which case those little neural synapses will party like Pamploma, Mardi Gras, and Rio Carnival all in one. The pain is stupendous. But when the party's over, you feel great.

And do not forget...when you get out of pain, if only for a couple of hours, and use your body as you wish, your lack of muscle tone will become apparent as aches and pains. These are often mistaken for the original problem.

Remember this:  If you can be out of pain for a couple of hours, those hours will extend into days, then weeks, then months, etc. etc. etc., and you will be pain-free.

The body's priorities for progress and your desperate wishes to be ailment-free do not always coincide.  But everybody gets better in the end.

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SPINAL  INTEGRATION

Now, I consider that the phrenologists have omitted an important thing in not pushing their investigations from the cerebellum through the spinal canal.  For I believe that much of a man's character will be found betokened in his backbone.  I would rather feel your spine than your skull, whoever you are.  A thin joist of a spine never yet upheld a full and noble soul.  I rejoice in my spine, as in the firm audacious staff of that flag which I fling half out to the world.                                                Herman Melville, Moby Dick,  Chapter 79

TF writes: Over the course of these last few Newsletters, Mallory has given a concise overview of the "Qi Energy" side of our practice, which I, for one, greatly enjoyed and appreciated.   Even if you've been treating with qi for 20 years, it's refreshing to hear it explained from another slightly different slant.  Since I'm beginning work on a SIKE structure book soon, I want to elaborate a bit on the "Spinal Integration" portion of our work.  Not that the boundary is inviolate; during the course of a normal treatment we integrate both to the same end: a better balanced body.  A body, we hope, which has readjusted its strength and relaxation, so that changes enhanced by treatment will continue, and the overall sense of well-being will be improved.

In the world of body mechanics (yes, you do have a design), or if you will, body alignment, the spine is literally the backbone of support.  Interestingly, the use of the traditional military posture: feet together, knees locked backward, backside tilted up, chest out, and chin flying up, ignore the spine entirely.   Proper body alignment creates a Central Line of Support from the inside out, which is the spine and joints, and from the bottom up, which is the feet, knees, pelvis, shoulders and head.  If there is proper strength in the short ligamental muscles which surround the joints and spine, and, if the body is aligned with the joint below supporting the joint above it, the body is brought into its proper relationship with the "Law of Gravitation".    When this relationship is in place, a natural uplift occurs, which in turn allows the longer, improperly used muscles of the body to relax, and an immediate elation is felt from the combination of relaxation and new-found strength and length. 

We incorporate a series of movements and exercises in our practice, which redesign the body and the mind, so that proper alignment is achieved and maintained in all resting and moving states.  Sleep is more relaxed and deep, that tennis game improves, added breath improves the singing voice, it's more comfortable to stand in line, and sit during long meetings.   The SIKE series is actually taught so that when the body and mind develop the proper "memory", it becomes a tool for a home "workout", and allows progress to continue without coming in for treatment.   For proper balance to occur it takes some people a mere 5-10 sessions, for others, perhaps with more serious structural problems, it can a year or more.  But as Dr. Matsuura always said, "It may take time, but what else do you have to do as important to your well-being?"

And here-- for those interested parties-- is a supine exercise some of you may know, designed to promote spinal extension, the Supine Exercise:

Lie on Back.  Bending the knees, place soles of feet flat on floor,

and gently press lower  back flat on floor.  Relax body.  Extend

arms outwards from body to form a cross, making sure shoulder

blades are flat on floor.  Look up to the ceiling (no TV watching,

music listening is good) and hold pose for 5 minutes.  If the

fingers begin to tingle, bring arms in and lay hands on chest

wherever they feel most comfortable.  If there is tension in the

neck, slowly turn the head to left and right, inhaling through

nose before moving, moving on the exhale, and stopping in the

middle before moving the other side.  Using a small pillow to

support the head is also good.

Just a quick reminder to help pass a healthy summer's end – keep your knees released and always look where you're going.  Remember: Mind follows Body, Body follows Eyes.  If you don't believe me, try singing "Mary had a little lamb" while running blindfolded at Mile 26 in your next marathon.

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THIS MAGIC MOMENT

Halloween

Human beings have had since prehistoric times a speculation about, and fascination with, death. Life was then, indeed, "nasty, brutish, and short", and it was natural for ancient peoples to ponder what came next rather than what was presently happening. Communing with the dead was the one sure way of getting information about the "other world".

Whether the community was hunter, nomad, or agrarian, the cycle of birth, life, death, re-birth was a natural concomitant to the change of seasons. Season change meant watching the sky, and so astronomy quickly became an advanced "science" long before the word existed.

The ancients (as we do) marked the change of seasons with solstices and equinoxes, but reserved cross-quarter days, which fall midway between these events, for feast days. These astronomical events were imbued with magic and mystery, none more so than the time of year when departed souls returned to earth to rejoin the living for a brief communication. To the northern Europeans, the "bridge to the other world" (Yule) opened at the winter solstice. To the Chinese and Japanese, the spirits of the dead returned at the quarter day (Bon) between the summer solstice and fall equinox. To the Celts, the quarter day between the fall equinox and winter solstice (Samhain) was the day the world of the dead had access to the world of the living.

The Chinese and Japanese viewed the return of the dead as a benign and pleasant event. Even today, paper lanterns are lit to direct the spirits to food which has been prepared and set out for them. The Scandanavians lit fires to scare the spirits back to their world. The Celts set aside our present November 1 as the day to deal with the dead. People might be visited by supernatural powers or spirits, and many spent the previous night in burial mounds to commune with death in life. In Ireland, there are many legends of great heroes dying at Samhain.

The Catholic Church, determined to extirpate paganism once and for all, declared November 1 All-Saints Day, known as All Hallows Day in Britain. The common people, equally determined to preserve their tradition, celebrated Samhain the night before, which came to be called All Hallows Eve or Halloween. The Celts built bonfires and wore frightening masks and costumes in order to scare the spirits away. However, this is not the origin of our costumes and trick-or-treat.

As the feudal system declined in Britain in the 15th century, the Antwerp Entrepot - the largest wool market in the world—grew wealthy. The British landed gentry had traditionally allowed local peasants to use marginal land ("commons") to graze their animals and grow subsistence food. In order to expand production of wool for sale in Antwerp, the gentry evicted the peasants and enclosed the commons for their sheep to graze. The Enclosures Movement saw the dislocation of thousands. A generation of homeless people was born. Civil unrest occurred as the esurient peasantry struggled to maintain life at a time when "sheep devoureth men".

These homeless took advantage of quarter feast days to roam the countryside begging for food. Because Samhain followed the harvest, it was usually the most opulent and lavish feast day. There was a tradition for housewives to bake "soul cakes for the dead. These seem to have been small fruit tarts. Bands of homeless would gather at Samhain, and walk through the countryside from home to home, asking for soul cakes. They disguised themselves, so as not to invite retribution from local authorities. They stood outside of homes and sang, "Good Mistress, please,/a sweet soul cake we pray./Apple, pear, peach, or cherry,/ anything to make us merry."  The implied threat of violence was not lost on the housewives, who usually handed over the cakes.

It is interesting to note that one of the most exciting and interesting events on a child's annual calendar had its origin in death, persecution, turmoil, and fear. Our health and sanity depend upon us living through inimical events, be they physical or psychological, and coming out the stronger for the passage. My prolonged illness of 25 years ago has almost faded from my memory. I have now "legendized" it to the point where it glows as the happy opportunity to meet  Dr. Matsuura and her qi, which in turn set me on this unexpected, strange, and rewarding path of hands-on health care.

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THE ART OF PUTTING THE BODY IN ORDER

Contrary to popular belief, and what the AMA would have us believe, medicine is not a science. The premise of science is the infinite replication of the same procedure to obtain the same results. The methodology used to obtain precise coordinates will get a rocket to the moon every time. Change any step along the way and your rocket will land elsewhere.

Medicine is an art. There are statistical data indicating how Jill Average is likely to react to a medication or procedure, but the fact is, each of us react differently. This is true for caffeine, nicotine, aspirin, codeine, and any other chemical put in the body. I am glancing at a magazine ad for cold medication, and find a list of possible side-effects including dizziness, nervousness, sleeplessness, and gastritis. Some of us will experience no side-effects, while others will suffer them all. The artfulness of medicine resides in knowing what to apply to whom, and in what quantity and duration. More below...

Believing as we do that Life resides in the mind/body as a continuity of experience (rather than as a series of transient, punctuated events), TF and I have sought to introduce some history into this year's newsletters.the object being to show how ancient and far-off events still reverberate in the collective mind/body of the world. And so, I am going to end the year by presenting a brief history and philosophical background of the health discipline we practice. It may help answer many of the FAQ we receive.

Haruchika Noguchi (1911-1976) was born in a tough neighborhood of Tokyo. He was a thoughtful child with a taste for the Chinese classics, much as Victorian children studied the literature of classical Greece and Rome. He soon became fascinated by Chinese medical treatises, and early on recognized his ability to transmit his qi to others and produce healing benefits. You can imagine that, in a poor neighborhood, word of a local boy with the gift of healing soon made him a popular figure. By the time he entered middle school, he had a local reputation as an adept of classical Chinese medicine.

His reputation was sealed at the time of the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1924. The devastation in Tokyo was so immense that it was hard to separate the dead from the dying. Bodies were taken to Hibiya Park near the Ginza and placed wherever there was a spot on the ground. Noguchi went to the park, and passed from person to person, putting qi into their ears with his fingers. People who showed a response (such as a fluttering of the eyelids or muscle twitches) were taken to makeshift clinics. Those who did not exhibit a response were considered as deceased. The 13-year old Noguchi became, if not famous, then well-known in the downtown Tokyo community.

Noguchi continued his study of Chinese medicine, and at the same time, began learning Western medicine, especially physiology. By the time he was in his early twenties, he had a profound knowledge of both disciplines, and established his first dojo in a middle-class neighborhood. He named his discipline Seitai. Sei means to put or arrange something in the best possible way. Tai means "body. Together they mean "to put the entire body in its best possible order".  

He did this by using the body's nervous system as a sort of grid, and inducing the body to heal itself by applying qi to the necessary location along the grid. He believed in maximizing the body's natural healing power while minimizing external "aids" to health. He devised an exercise that he called Katsugen Undo (Source of Life Movement) which, if practiced daily, brings the body to its maximum potential for health. The movement stimulates the extrapyramidal motor system to use the body's own qi as a sort of full-body scan-and-repair mechanism. We have slightly modified Katsugen Undo, and called it Kiryu (The Flow of Qi). A lengthy explanation and discussion of Kiryu can be found in my book, Qi Energy for Health and Healing.

He did not believe in adding his qi to another's body to promote healing. Rather, he sought to remove impediments to a person's health. There are many reasons why qi gets blocked—some mechanical, some systemic, others psychological—and Noguchi sought to remove impediments so that the person's own qi could fulfill its healing powers. To that end, he inveighed against doing anything to "help" a person. All that was necessary was to guide them to the condition where they help themselves. He warned his students about trying to force qi on a person, even for his own good. "Just as a few drinks can make you happy, and suddenly that next drink makes you unpleasantly drunk, so does too much qi lead to a counterproductive result. Know when to stop!"

Noguchi's style of medicine found unqualified acceptance in pre-war Tokyo. It was fast, cheap, and effective. It could be done at home, and people were taught, for a nominal fee, how to provide basic seitai treatments to others. Further, Noguchi had a charismatic flair and healing manner that attracted hundreds of people to his lectures and workshops. He formed the Seitai Association (Seitai Kyokai), which he turned into a sort of alternative membership HMO. It is still going strong today. He began taking promising men and women into his home and dojo to train as practitioners.

After the war, Japan was in ruins. Tokyo had been firebombed several times, and the toll of death and destruction exceeded that of Hiroshima. Medical equipment and supplies were almost nil, and most doctors found themselves unable to treat people for want of the facilities, medicine, and equipment they were used to. It was now, indeed, that Noguchi's qi-based style of medicine became popular, not only among the blue collar class, but among the upper/educated class. Many doctors and educators joined Noguchi's association to learn his style of medicine in order to make themselves useful in the post-war recovery process. After the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, Noguchi approached the American Occupation Authorities, and offered 3rd tier war criminals the chance to avoid prison time through expiatory public service by joining his association and practicing medicine in poor neighborhoods for free. The sight of former generals and admirals doing hands-on medicine in ruined neighborhoods gave the association both gravity and luster in the public's eye.

Though only in his 50's, Noguchi had become the Grand Old Man of holistic medicine in Japan. Moshe Feldenkrais, through his practice of judo, had a long acquaintance with Japan. He sought Noguchi out to discuss with him Feldenkrais' ideas of holistic medicine. 

The interview did not go well. Feldenkrais, whom Noguchi referred to as 'the Israeli' in his reminiscences, had a mechanistic view of the body, and told Noguchi that there was a different treatment for every problem. Noguchi replied that he had one treatment for every problem –Katsugen Undo—and that qi could fix whatever was fixable. Feldenkrais disputed this, and tried to get Noguchi to accept a more physical/mechanistic approach. This caused Noguchi to froth at the mouth and terminate the conversation. He had no kind words for Feldenkrais after that. Feldenkrais left no record of the discussion.

Noguchi was a firm believer of quality of life having precedence over quantity. He often said that "The person who lives with joy and vigor will enjoy a tranquil sleep." This was, for him, true on a daily basis, and also on the visionary basis of dying with no regrets. He smoked and drank heavily, and died "young". He died with no regrets. His widow survived him by 28 years, passing away only last year. Two of his sons now run the organization and provide treatments at the Headquarter's Clinic. The Association's Board of Directors reads like a 'Who's Who of the Prominent' in Japan, including the ex-Prime Minister Hosokawa.

Noguchi was learned in the Chinese Classics, and used the classic literature of Chinese Zen as a teaching tool for Seitai. He relished the Zen element of surprise to divert the mind from its pre-conceptions. Like Shakespeare, he knew that "When the mind's free, the body's delicate", meaning sensitive and flexible. He was skilled at taking peoples' minds off their troubles, so that he could successfully treat a physical problem.       

He created a new medical art which was highly esteemed by other artists. Noguchi himself and the Seitai discipline were and are very popular with potters, painters, writers, poets, and musicians. He was a particular lover and patron of music. He cultivated the friendship of musicians, and spoke extensively on the relationship between the rhythm, tone, and texture of music, and his style of medicine.

His calligraphy is prized simply because it is his. I cannot tell if it is exquisite or awful. It is certainly unusual...powerful and childish at the same time. He was a lover of seasons, and marveled how the human organism changed daily in order to blend harmoniously with season change. He was stern, and often harsh (he did not suffer fools gladly), but he had a warm heart and, when he showed it, a truly endearing smile.

Through illness, I joined the Seitai Association in February 1981, and after studying briefly with Mrs. Matsuura (a physician who joined the Association right after the war), I apprenticed to the grandson of a general who had done his public service under Noguchi. We are still very good friends and colleagues. 

The Mind Must Submit and Serve the Humanity of the Body

                                                                                              Joseph Campbell

MF writes: A veteran psychotherapist came in recently to have a treatment for lower back pain. When the session was concluded and she got off the massage table feeling loose, relaxed, and pain-free, she began to muse.

"I cannot begin to understand how people accommodate themselves to pain, and yet rush right out for $1000 worth of psychotherapy when they experience a twinge of anxiety." I asked her to elucidate.

"I have over a dozen patients who are clearly in a state of physical pain. It might be back pain, or shoulder pain, or recurring headaches. I ask them what they are doing about their pain, and they say that they are used to the pain, that it has been with them for years, or that they are taking painkillers of varying strength. What they all have in common is that they have given pain a home; they are sharing their bodies with pain. They have stopped exploring avenues of healing.

"However, they say they cannot live a second longer with anxiety. Give me drugs, do something, anything, just get rid of this awful feeling. But no one has ever died of anxiety. You feel crummy, but it's nothing like sciatica or migraines. With the proper tools, you can fix it yourself in an hour. You can't say the same thing about pain."

For those of you who wish to learn everything there is to know about the physiology of anxiety, I recommend Robert Sapolsky's excellent book Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers. By the time you have read the book cover to cover, you will never worry again. Trust me. The physiological effects of worry are scarier than almost anything you can imagine.

For those of you who wish to know the SIKE take on anxiety, read on...

At the base of the neck is a big vertebra, the 7th cervical (C7).

Below it, are four small thoracic vertebrae (T1-4). The nerves coming off these four vertebrae are linked to the brain, the heart, and the lungs. In other words, these three organs work together. This is why when you perceive something frightening, your heart starts pounding (tachycardia), your throat and lungs grow tight, your breath becomes shallow and rapid (hyperventilation), and you find it difficult or impossible to concentrate your mind on anything meaningful. Just say BOO to an unsuspecting person and you will see this result.

For better or worse, human beings are the only creatures capable of conceiving the future. All other beings live only in the "eternal present".

Anxiety occurs when we have a fearful thought about the future (usually irrelevant to the present), and we "believe" the thought.

It is a beautiful day, sunny and mild. You are driving merrily on the freeway listening to music when, suddenly, the thought enters your head, "What if I suddenly lose control of my myself, and my mind forces my body to steer the car off the road". At this moment, the muscles alongside of T1,2,3,4 grow tense, the vertebrae lose their flexibility, and the nerves running from them to the organs become agitated. If you exhale strongly so that your shoulders drop, the four thoracic vertebrae release their tension, and then think to yourself, "How ridiculous! There's no way I could ever lose control. What a stupid thought!," anxiety will not occur. The vertebrae will relax, and the nerves will continue functioning as usual.\ If, however, you suck in your breath and hold it, and think, "What if I really do lose control? I'll crash and die. This is serious!," you will have an anxiety attack. Your scalp will tighten, your chest will constrict, your heart will pound, and your breathing will speed up. In other words, your body has given a thought a home. You have this great big body, but you let a little disembodied voice/thought usurp its power. It is a voice in the head, a thought, just like Gee, it would be great to win the lottery,  or  Maybe I'll vacation in Maui this year,  thoughts that you would ordinarily let pass casually in and out of your mind. 

Mind follows body. If you don't believe it, try imagining what will happen to your mind when your body dies. Naturally, we at SIKE take a body-oriented approach to removing anxiety.

Fight Back

These anxious thoughts are messages from somewhere in the mind that tell you that you will lose control of yourself. Each person has his/her own "special message", but they are substantially the same across the spectrum of humanity.  The message is like a tape loop that is repeated over and over, until you can hardly believe that there are times when you are free from the message. Those times will always be when you are doing something physical and mentally engaging. No one feels anxiety during an orgasm.

No one can produce a palpable message, in the way that they can produce urine or sputum for a sample. The message has no body, yet seeks control of the organism. Don't let it!

The best thing to do is to make fun of the voice. "It will take more than your empty words to get me into a car crash!"  You can and should get angry at the voice. "How dare you threaten me!" Go into a safe "haven" such as your bedroom, and thrash a pillow to death, thinking of it as the message-producing voice. Get a punching bag, and beat the voice to death, shouting at it and getting truly angry and indignant; or even mad as hell.  Do something physical and loud, even violent, to the anxiety, and it will quickly submit to your body which is, after all, real.

However, if you are timid and fearful of the voice, and submit your body to its domination, you will feel awful, and no amount of prescription drugs will help you.  The mind does not feel its own message. The awfulness of anxiety is physical, and its physicality comes from the effects explained earlier. Your body, driven by your "true voice", is the cure for this unpleasant condition.

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STRESS, PHYSICAL TENSION, ANXIETY, AND FATIGUE

MF writes: When muscles become tense, the sensory receptors (spindle fibers) within them send out a constant stimulation to the brain asking it to relax the muscle. The message is outgoing, fills the nerve channel, and therefore no incoming message is possible. The brain itself becomes tense from this unending barrage of requests. The muscles weary of their fruitless labor, and lose the capacity to receive clearly messages even if they were able to get through.

The result is that the local muscle tension cannot be relieved. 

When tension in the head becomes the focus of our attention, we lose awareness of our muscle tension, yet it remains. We can alleviate mental tension by relaxing the afflicted muscle. Or, the reverse is also true: relaxing the brain will release muscle tension.

To put it another way, the brain must be freed from its thrall to the stimulation of the muscle's sensory receptors. The brain's attention must be turned in another direction.

For example: you're studying for a test. The body automatically gears up to work at full throttle. As you read and write, your neck becomes tense, then warm, then even feverish, at which point neck ache begins. When the tension in the neck passes a certain critical level, the tension leaves the neck and goes to the head, producing a sensation of swelling to the skull, and tightness in the skin around it. At this point, the brain can no longer work or concentrate effectively. No matter how much you force yourself, there is too much tension to allow penetration and retention of information and data. The problem with the head is, in fact, a manifestation of a neck that could not support its tension.

The muscles in the neck are responsible for the mental tension. It is they who have sent the unending stream of messages to the brain that ultimately clogged the nerve channel. However, the head alone is thought to be both the cause and effect of the problem, the head alone is worked on, and the true problem is not alleviated. 

Tension in the arm will produce a change of thinking; if it persists and worsens, it can lead to a change in personality. Relaxing the head is a start; however, relaxing the arm is necessary to return the individual to his/her original self.

It is possible, therefore, to 'read' a person's character and way of thinking by observing the state of tension in the body, especially if the tension persists in the same way.

This approach is a little hard to follow. Why should there be an interaction between mental function and physical movement?

The fact is that we manifest this interaction constantly. When we are angry, we clench our fists. When we are annoyed or frustrated, we clench our jaw. When we are frightened, we open our eyes wide and hold our breath.

To test this interaction of mind and body on yourself, try laughing out loud while looking down at the ground, or weeping while looking up toward the sky. You have to force yourself to do it. It feels 'unnatural', which is why Hollywood heroines crying up at the camera produce such a powerful reaction on us viewers.

One overlooked, perhaps unknown, relation between physical and mental tension, is seen in the relation between the Achilles Tendons and mental activity. The tighter (tenser) the Achilles Tendons, the greater the useless mental activity. People suffering from anxiety have AT's as tight as bowstrings. Tight AT's result in what I call "mental static", meaning repetitive, unwanted, and useless thoughts that rob us of mental clarity.

Human beings learn life from the ground up. Babies lie on their back and seek their environment with their legs and feet. To calm, sooth, pacify, and induce sleep in a baby or infant, just hold their heels and AT's in your hands as they lie on their back, and send qi into the tendons. You will have a quiet, sleeping baby within a minute!

The 4th thoracic vertebra (T4), located about 3-4 inches below the neck, is related to shrinkage/tightening/ tensing of the body. It is thus a reliable indicator of anxiety. When the muscles on either side of T4 tighten, you can expect tightening somewhere in the upper body. For example, stiff shoulders are common. Extreme tightening alongside T4 can pull the muscles aligning T5 and T6, and this leads to gastric problems such as belching, acid reflux, heartburn, and loss of appetite.

This upper body tightening is closely related to brain tension. The mind loses its clarity, discernment, and sharpness of perception. In cases when the sufferer takes his/her shoulder pain and loss of mental powers to a physician, he/she is usually told that the problem comes from stress. But it is never made clear just what stress is. The sufferer goes home thinking that simply by changing his/her lifestyle, or by removing something harmful from his/her daily activity, the aches and pains will disappear, and his/her mental powers will be restored.

I propose that stress is not a cause, but a result. That to talk about stress, you should define it as: a muscle which has shrunk so tight (or grown so rigid) that qi cannot be released into or out of it; and thus the muscle cannot perform its proper function. From this single source, the tension spreads until it comes to impinge on the brain, the stomach, or both. The source of the tension may be internal or external--however, the body cannot be restored to health without releasing the original muscle and then relaxing the brain.

Speaking of tension brings us to fatigue. If the entire body became fatigued, one would die from a breakdown of all bodily functions. The body may feel fatigued, but in fact, only one part of it is. Restore flexibility and vigor to that one part, and all the rest will follow. 

Fatigue is related to body habits, and thus usually crops up in the same place in an individual over and over again. The hallmark of a fatigued part is that, though there is the flexibility to expand and contract, there is not enough of either. The body part functions neither well nor poorly. It just feels unsatisfied and unsatisfying.

To return to T4, even infants can suffer from anxiety. I once treated a 22 month-old infant, clearly suffering from anxiety and a nervous-related rash. T4 was twisted to the right, and it quickly became apparent that anxiety had produced the twist and not vice-versa. But why? It turned out that the mother had told the child she was determined he would be potty trained within two weeks. She declared a deadline. She would take away his diapers with or without being potty trained after 14 days. After all that time of being allowed to pee and poop as he pleased, the child's response was one of anxiety bordering on panic. T4 was easy to untwist once the mother told her child that she would gradually wean him away from diapers. His rash was gone within 48 hours.

Finally, tension/stress results in a decrease of our powers of enjoyment. When we are not happy when we should be, when we do not have the physical/emotional/sexual desires that stimulate and promote our well-being, our energy has been blocked, perhaps even turned inward. It is the task of SIKE treatments to restore relaxation to the afflicted body part and the whole mind, so that full mind-body satisfaction becomes once again possible.

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THOUGHTS AT YEAR'S END 2006

MF writes: I have always tried to maintain the happy, Wordsworthian outlook that "all that we behold is full of blessings," and to bring that optimistic outlook to those I treat. In the back of my mind, however, have lurked the misgivings of Aldous Huxley in his amusing and dark essay, Wordsworth in the Tropics.  Huxley wrote that as long as Wordsworth was in England's "green and pleasant land" where he saw "a host of golden daffodils/beside the lake, beneath the trees/fluttering and dancing in the breeze," where he and Mary could give laudanum-laced high tea to their cultured friends, and the most vicious animal around was a rogue sheep, his romantic and optimistic outlook was perfectly natural. But change the environment:put him in a tropical jungle with wild beasts, vipers, crocodiles, poisonous flora, and an oppressive climate... a hostile environment which demands the utmost energy and skill simply in order to survive... well, Wordsworth would not have had the time or strength to write uplifting poetry, much less paeans to all things comfy, blessed, and ethical. In fact, poetry would have been far from his mind.

In short, all of the "things meant to comfort and aid us are of benefit only in so far as we have the physical leeway to accommodate them. Shakespeare, of course, put it succinctly: "There was never yet philosopher/That could endure the toothache patiently."

Over the years, I have written and counseled (in an optimistic and Wordsworthian way) about restoring mental equipoise and physical health through breathing, walking, kiryu, and a variety of body-based exercises. You know the message: "Every breath lost to agitation is a moment lost to life. Stay calm and centered. Breathe deeply. Laugh often." I had been living in a "green and pleasant land where my counsels had brought me, if no one else, comfort and blessings. 

This year I was abducted and dropped into the "tropics. My philosophy was too soft and complacent for the harsh realities of that environment, and began to wilt. More than that, the magnitude of the suffering I encountered so overwhelmed me that I was at a loss for any philosophical solace even for myself.

Only When I Laugh

During this year, I was asked to treat, for the first time, ALS  (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, also called Lou Gehrig's disease).

I had an initial experience with a group suffering from RSD (Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy), the new nomenclature for CRPS (Chronic Regional Pain Syndrome). I was also presented with a woman whose story of emotional trauma was so bizarre and shocking, that I would not have believed her save for the extremity of mind/body suffering that her tragic accident had created.

The dreadful suffering and sadness of ALS knocked me for a loop. However, my encounter with RSD was particularly horrifying. I was asked to give an educational and inspirational lecture on "Coping With Pain to a support group of RSD sufferers. During the years of my practice, I have sometimes come to see myself in the role of Healing David versus Pain Goliath. RSD was a different dimension. This was Goliath's bigger, meaner brother together with 18 of his scary friends. How do you tell 20 people with morphine pumps that tranquil, steady breathing is the key to health and longevity?  What uplifting words come to mind when confronted by unspeakable, disfiguring pain caused by a medical mishap? "Take long walks, and don't forget to floss!?

My mind went blank, then two thoughts arose. The first was that there really are worse things than death. The other was an old joke:  The battle is over, and a soldier is shot full of bullet holes. Life is draining out of him. A well-meaning chaplain rushes over and asks, "Does it hurt, son?" "Only when I laugh, Father," the soldier says, and expires.

How do you comfort strangers in an unremitting extremity of pain and suffering? What are the words? How do you avoid the pitfall of the well-meaning, but buffoon chaplain?

Back to Wordsworth

Wordsworth has an uneventful poem called Michael in which an elderly shepherd and his wife lose their son. The poem contains the lines: 

                There is a comfort in the strength of love;

                'Twill make a thing endurable, which else

                Would overset the brain, or break the heart.

What is gripping about the passage is that the reader is left to decide what that love is. Is it the parents' love for their dead child? The couple's love for one another? The old shepherd's love for Nature? Nature's love for the old shepherd? Or is it just Love?

The comfort exists in the very depth of the emotion. The details are immaterial.

Now stay with me.

I had to find a deep core in order to enable myself to endure the suffering I encountered, so that I could help ameliorate that very suffering. I re-discovered the strength of qi. The qi which is adaptable, the qi which is intention: the intention to help, to comfort; the intention to love life, your own and others'. By substituting qi for love, I became proof against heartbreak, and found the strength to help.

Wordsworth was back!

Life is indeed lovable, especially when one is healthy. Never mind Wordsworth in the Tropics. You could write the same essay on Wordsworth at the Infirmary. A loss of health diminishes quality of life, and certainly calls into question the "inherent lovability of living.

Huxley got it wrong in one large sense. Wordsworth would have been a poet in the tropics, but he would have been a different sort of poet. His poetic voice would not have had the range in the tropics that it enjoyed in the Lake District. He would not have been so lyrical or optimistic. But he would have found a love of life, an intention to be uplifting and ethical, and expressed it within the severe limitations of his environment. His qi would have adapted.

Pow!  Zap!  Boom!

Meanwhile, back at the infirmary...

The Gospel of St. John begins: "In the beginning was the Word..."

The poet Goethe revised it to say: "In the beginning was the Act..."

I realized that words were worse than useless; that was where the chaplain blundered. To act was the only healthy expression of intention. My qi surged together with my desire to act.

I said nothing to the ALS woman. I focused on my intention to restore to her even a shred of conscious control over her own body by finding links along her neural pathways. She was able to consciously move her foot after 45 minutes.

I said nothing to the RSD group. I took a volunteer and treated her while the group members circled around me in their wheelchairs, and watched. The woman's pain diminished, and she regained a bit of movement in her arm. Her face had good color. (The group members were very pleased with the outcome, but angry with me. The volunteer had not been a group member, but an observer there just for the evening. Even so, I am still part of the group.)

And the emotionally traumatized woman of great pain? She went from wearing only black clothing so that she would be suitably dressed for death, to bright pink ensembles. She is pain free. I am not sure that bright pink is a life-affirming or qi-enhancing color, but it works for her.

I could provide these sufferers no hope for the future, nor could I provide them an optimistic outlook on life. What I did manage to do, in a small way, was to provide relief and comfort. A sort of restful lodging for the night during a long, ghastly journey.

Yeah, So...?

I will try to remain optimistic in outlook, and try to provide hope to the people I treat for a bright, healthy future. I have my health, and so I have the leeway to keep the spirit of Wordsworth alive within me when I work.

However, I will no longer be writing of guidelines to health, keys to health, breathing for health, Tranquility for President, Serenity is King, chewing your food slowly guarantees long life, a positive attitude removes wrinkles, or any other platitudinous panacea.

I will keep my mouth shut, and act in such a way that I exercise:

...the best portion of a good man's life,

His little, nameless, unremembered, acts

Of kindness and of love.

               William Wordsworth (1798)

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REMEMBERING TAKESHI WATABE

1915-2007

On Sunday, September 7, 1975, I wandered into an old, wooden aikido dojo in suburban Tokyo. I was attracted by the hastily written sign:

No one who enters is turned away.... No one who leaves is pursued

The instructor was Takeshi Watabe. He was friendly without being familiar, eager without being pushy. He asked me if I wouldn't like to start learning right away, dressed just as I was in jeans and a T-shirt. He taught me a couple of nifty moves that afternoon, and continued to teach me nifty moves and more for the next 27 years.

He had just retired at age 60 from the Japanese Ministry of Defense. He was one of the finest metallurgists in the country, and had been seconded to the U.S. military command to investigate the composition of Soviet submarine propellers. Scraps of metal would be retrieved after subs scraped rocks or other surfaces in the North Pacific, and Watabe would analyze these to determine how the Soviets muffled propeller noise.

His job consisted of long stretches of nothing to do punctuated by brief, hectic activity. He was smoking two packs of cigarettes a day out of boredom,  doodling a lot, and reading Agatha Christie novels in translation. A friend suggested he join the Ministry's aikido club, so at the age of 40, he quit smoking and doodling, and took up aikido. He received his black belt (1st Dan) at age 48. When I met him he was 4th Dan, and very well respected within the aikido community.

Watabe shortly thereafter became an instructor of Jo (Japanese quarter staff fighting), and an instructor of Tai Chi. He taught Tai Chi for twenty years. He learned to swim at age 65, and five years later received his scuba instructor's license. He led scuba trips to Guam and the South Pacific until age 80, when he found he could no longer carry the equipment comfortably on land. He took up ballroom dancing when he was 70, and loved to put on fancy clothes and twirl younger women around. He continued dancing twice a week until he was 87. He ended his aikido career at age 89 as 7th Dan.

In 1995, the Tokyo Institute of Gerontology together with the Asahi News Corporation published a book entitled Growing Old In Tokyo. The book was an analysis of data from a three-year survey of health, happiness, and quality of life of the elderly living in Tokyo. The results and conclusions were bleak, even depressing. Hidden like a shining nugget in the gloomy depths of the book was a chapter entitled Successful Aging. Takeshi Watabe was chosen as the ideal of successful aging for maintaining the vigor of his mind and body, for his active pursuit of social networks, for his intellectual curiosity and positive outlook, and for his enjoyment of teaching. The book revealed that the local elderly in his community referred to him as Super Wa, and the name stuck. That is what most of us called him, though not always to his face, until the end of his life.

THE HOLY TRINITY TRANSFORMED

In March of 1979 I was diagnosed with chronic sciatica, and by the Fall of 1980 I was bedridden. I was no longer able even to leave my apartment to observe aikido, and so Watabe would visit me several times a week with food and cheery conversation. In February, 1981 I met Mrs. Matsuura, and thanks to her qi ministrations, was healed and back doing aikido, albeit very slowly, by early Spring. Watabe was excited and curious to know more about healing by qi.

I began studying with Mrs. Matsuura, who, from the first, stressed what I called the Holy Trinity of qi medicine: Opportunity, Space, and Degree. Opportunity means the practitioner's ability to sense the precise moment to address directly the patient's complaint. Most adults are physically and mentally tense, and so are not fully receptive to qi treatment. Qi works quickly and effectively when the mind/body is in a state of relaxation, and so the bulk of a qi treatment consists of relaxing the patient so that the qi can be successfully transmitted. It takes experience to sense the right opportunity for effective transmission of qi.

Space means the ability to distance oneself from the patient and observe how the treatment should progress, and is progressing.

Degree means the effective amount of qi to be given, and the effective duration of transmission time necessary for positive results.

When I told Watabe about this trinity, he was first thoughtful, then merry. "That's what I've always said was the essence of aikido: the right move at the right time. Know when to start, when to stop, and how much to do in between." He was very pleased to have found that qi had even more applications than he had thought. "However," he said, "it seems to me that together with opportunity, space, and degree, you have to add movement, certainly in aikido. Without movement, nothing really occurs. Of course, it is the nature of the universe to be in constant motion. We add our movement to that of others, and we have a great qi experience whether for killing or healing."

I thought: Einstein added the 4th dimension, Time, to Newton's three spatial dimensions, and so revealed an active universe in infinite motion. Watabe added movement to Matsuura's Holy Trinity, and created an active relationship between practitioner and patient. By blending my movement ---both micro- and macroscopic movement---  to that of the patient, we form a bond that enhances the quality of the qi treatment. Another nifty move.

"ALL ARE EQUAL ON THE MATS"

The characteristics that made Watabe so admirable and lovable to me were, paradoxically, not valued by most Japanese. Many people, including his family members, considered him a kawatta hito, really offbeat. What made the Japanese most uncomfortable was his irreverence toward authority, especially his own. Whereas most Japanese martial arts instructors are dogmatically insistent that students do waza (movements/techniques) exactly as they are taught, Watabe encouraged students to find a style that suited them best, and encouraged them toward their own greatest mind/body freedom and ease of movement. He required that students show respect for the art and its traditions, but not necessarily for him and members of the aikido hierarchy. In fact, he banished hierarchy from the dojo.

Japan is a precisely stratified society, and dojo of any sort (from karate to ikebana) are the most rigidly stratified micro-societies of all. They are civilian copies of military society. To enter a society in which each individual's social position is not well defined is uncomfortable to most Japanese. This was the case for the majority of newcomers to the dojo. Watabe would state from the first, "All are equal on the tatami (mats)," which made a lot of beginners feel hopelessly adrift in what they expected to be a rigidly formalized society. It was as if the apex of the pyramid had told the base of the pyramid that the pyramid itself was an illusion, and that they were all standing on the same stratum. Those who had the psychic wherewithal to cope soon loved his style of liberty, equality, and fraternity, and respected him far more than if he had demanded their respect. He became each student's friend.

A BRIEF TRIBUTE

At age 88, Watabe was the oldest practicing martial arts instructor in Japan, and was asked by the Aikido Federation to give a demonstration of his art in front of an international audience of 4,000 people. I was asked to write a brief piece about him, which I have included in this remembrance.

My Aikido instructor, Takeshi Watabe, was a model of successful aging, and part of the reason was his fondness for getting and receiving qi. Another part of the reason was that he became a teacher at the cusp of "old age," from age 60, and remained eager to teach through his extreme old age. He taught until he was 89. As eager as he was to teach, so there were students eager to learn from him, and a healthy give-and-take of energy was the highlight of his old age.

He did not spend 49 years practicing Aikido in order to become a hero or warrior or to protect himself from attack. He practiced in order to develop his qi and to maintain his health. He enjoyed learning and he enjoyed teaching. He enjoyed the company of people who enjoyed exercising their qi. He avoided people who exercised only their strength.  Mr. Watabe was a small man, and could not compete in strength with an average-size man, especially an average-size American man. Added to this, he did not begin his study of Aikido until he was forty years old, by which time he was considerably past his physical prime. This meant that he had to rely on qi to become a proficient martial artist. As he put it, "Making the right move at the right time."

And so he trained his qi, and his breath, and his sense of timing, so that strength and size became irrelevant to his understanding of Aikido. His technique was always fluid and flexible. It never fell into a pattern of "do such-and-such in so-and-so situation." His technique came from his personality and the refinement of his qi. It did not come from repetitive imitation of a martial art paradigm. Proficiency with qi gave him the ability to "read" people and situations, and it was a rare occasion that he did not make the right move at the right time.

His qi was of its very nature and cultivation a constructive rather than a destructive qi; in other words, his qi was a healing qi. He maintained a mental and emotional flexibility long after his body lost its nimbleness. Still, his body responded remarkably quickly to qi treatment. He suffered an accident at age 86 that twisted his sacrum and pelvis, leaving him in great pain. It took only two short treatments to restore him to his original shape and health.

Thoreau in Walden tells the parable of the artist of Kouroo, who, "As he made no compromise with Time, Time kept out of his way, and only sighed at a distance because he could not overcome him." In the same way, Takeshi Watabe made no compromise with size and strength. Therefore, when he reached old age, he had neither size nor strength to lose. He refined his qi, which kept him vigorous, flexible, esteemed, and in harmony with his environment. The infirmities of old age only sighed at a distance because they could not overcome him. I never knew him young, but I always knew him youthful.

Takeshi Watabe died of pneumonia on January 12. He was a mentor to many, a father to Therese and me, and was an active and loving grandfather to Corin. The body that gave him and his students so much pleasure and instruction is gone, but the qi that animated him is with us still.

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FROM HERE TO TRANQUILITY  (I)

I have been, for twenty-five years, a student and practitioner of holistic medicine. During that time, I have never met an individual who suffered from an excess of relaxation. Or, to put it another way, I have never met an individual who suffered from a chronic lack of tension.

To the contrary, about 80% of the people I treat present stress-related symptoms and problems. (The remaining 20% consist of injury-related, age-related, and congenital problems.)  Stress-related problems include insomnia, anxiety, depression, upper and lower back pain, headaches, migraines, female infertility, male impotence, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, acid reflux, and stomach ulcers.

If the United States government were to regulate competition between causative factors for ill health in the same way it regulates, say, competition between companies regarding market share of an industry, a team of anti-trust lawyers would descend upon Stress, Inc. and order it to be broken up. Stress has such a clear-cut monopoly over every other causative factor that it is not just anti-free market, it is undemocratic. Those of you who love democracy and wish to see it preserved and enlarged should band together for a War on Stress. Although on second thought, that might prove too stressful, and end up being counter-productive.

Qi treatments and lessons for stress reduction and stress management are the most effective holistic preventive health measures I know of. This two-part article will explain how.

Let us for a moment consider an ideal, stress-free day. It's difficult, isn't it? That's because it doesn't exist. Most people think that life without stress means bad things not happening. For example, "It would be great if Baby slept through the night and I could catch up on my sleep," or "If I could only get to the office without hitting heavy traffic". The idea of a stress-free day comprised of a string of good things happening is almost unimaginable. The following is what I consider to be a generic ideal day.

THE IDEAL DAY

You wake up five minutes before the alarm, fully refreshed from eight hours of dreamless sleep. The hot water flows out as soon as you turn on the faucet, and your electric toothbrush is fully charged. You get on the scale, and find that you lost 3 pounds during the night. Junior is dressed and enjoying a nutritious breakfast that he made himself, while doing extra study of math drills. As he leaves the house, he beams cheerfully and says, "Don't worry, Mom, I'll have that cold fusion problem licked by dinnertime."

Your hair works not well, but splendidly, and your skin has a healthy glow. Your husband notices, and makes risqu suggestions for that evening after Junior goes to bed. You set out for work feeling youthful and frisky.

Traffic is light, and your favorite classical piece, Shubert's Trout Quintet, is playing on the car radio.  The music is briefly interrupted by a news flash announcing that the Dow has risen 2600 points, and the 1500 shares of the lemon stock that you never thought you could unload  are now up by $638 a share. Exhilarated, you call your broker on your hands-free car phone, and order him to sell.

At work, four clients phone to thank you for your brilliance and efficiency. Your secretary is courteous and cooperative, and you note with delight that he has for once spelled your name correctly rather than phonetically. You leave work feeling fulfilled, and looking forward to an evening with your loving family.

You return home to find that Junior is finishing up his homework, and begging for household chores to do. You let him clean out the rain gutters before dinner. He is so grateful that he volunteers to load the dishwasher and take out the garbage after dinner.

Your husband returns home with a bouquet of fragrant flowers. He leers at you the way he did before Junior was born 12 years ago. You feel as sexy as you did the night you got pregnant.

Dinner is a perfect poem because you had the revelation that half a cup of Calvados would add a gustatory frisson to your chicken casserole. Even Junior asks for seconds.

When dinner ends, you and your husband hold hands across the dining room table and gaze amorously at each other while listening to the sweet sound of Junior laboring in the kitchen.

Junior bathes, and puts himself to bed by 9:00. You and your husband change into your pj's, and watch a little TV in bed. The news reports that nothing of any significance happened anywhere in the world today, and that tomorrow's weather will set new records of excellence.

You turn down the lights, and enjoy an amorous hour before falling ---- excited, fulfilled and exhausted, aaaah .... --- into a dreamless slumber.

If, on the other hand, you live in the same sort of industrial society upon the same planet as I do, then your day is pretty stressful, as follows.

THE ACTUAL DAY

You wake up after hitting the 5-minute XtraSnooze button on the alarm clock three times, and haul yourself out of bed feeling like you need another couple of hours of sleep. The bathroom is chilly, and it takes a good three minutes for the sink water to become warm. Your electric toothbrush has lost its charge, and you remember that you saw Junior chasing the cat with the recharge cord two days ago. You stumble into the kitchen hoping to find him, but he is eating cold pizza and drinking a can of root beer on the new den sofa while watching a steamy soap opera in a language unknown to you. He tells you that the cat took the cord and buried it in the garden.

Your frustration mounts as your hair seems to have a life of its own. Your husband compares your look to that of a porcupine. You leave for work feeling old and edgy.

The drive is somehow worse than usual. One man calls you an idiot, one woman calls you a jerk, and a young woman flips you the bird as they drive by. Your frustration is rising high, and you take several deep breaths and turn on the car radio. Your favorite classical work is interrupted by the news that the Dow has fallen 383 points, and your particular gilt-edged, foolproof portfolio has lost 29% of its value. You fear that you may not be able to put Junior through college or retire as early as you would like.

As for work ---- well, the less said about it the better. People either failed to understand what you told them or else botched the execution of your orders. The result was confusion, some hard feelings, and frustration over having to re-do what should have been a straightforward procedure.

You return home to find Junior waiting for you with a note from his math teacher, asking you to see him in order to clarify just why your son is performing at a level he should have surpassed three grades ago. You feel anger and disappointment.

Your husband returns home cheerful, but is crestfallen when he reads the teacher's note. He says that the two of you will have to dip into your meager private time in order to tutor Junior in math for a while. Either that or lose your summer vacation in order to put him through summer school.

Dinner is tasty, but uninspired. You have a brief, intense row with Junior in order to coerce him to help with the cleaning up. He compares you, unfairly, to Hitler, and you again feel anger and frustration at how little help you receive, and how even that little help is grudging.

Junior finally succumbs to relentless coercion, has his bath, and goes to bed at 9:30. You pray he sleeps and does not play with his Gameboy under the covers. Meanwhile, you and your husband, who hardly had time to notice each other this day, change into your pj's for a quiet moment of conversation and TV news. The news seems to have little else than stories of homicidal pedophiles, and the two of you feel a clutch in your hearts as you think of your naiANve and defenseless child in the next room.

Slightly uneasy, you have trouble falling asleep. Your dreams are complicated, and you wake, agitated, twice during the night to pee.

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FROM HERE TO TRANQUILITY (II)

Our present attitude to stress differs radically from that of earlier societies, who perceived stress as a physical problem. Take the Victorians and their literature for example. Victorian descriptions of reaction to stress are almost always concrete. "Her throat constricted, and her mouth went dry. Words would not come." "His legs suddenly lost the strength to support him. His worry had robbed him of the powers of movement." "His heart pounded so fearfully within his chest that he doubted it could continue without bursting." Their expressions of the physicality of stress appear overblown and melodramatic to us.

Nowadays, we prefer to mellow out with anti-depressants and mood elevators. We choose to portray each of life's stressful moments from an "emotional" point of view.   "She felt/he felt" is commonly used to express the phenomenon of stress, especially stress that obtains, not from a situation that confronts us that moment, but from an anxious thought. Stress is usually considered as a mental/emotional phenomenon. Thus, programs for alleviating stress are centered on a mental process. We are instructed to gaze tranquilly at a lava lamp, or listen to the sound of waves on tape, or lie still with our eyes closed and imagine a gorgeous beach scene. These mental approaches to dealing with stress seek to divert our thoughts. Most of them work to a degree, and some for a goodish amount of time. But, alas, our thoughts return, and with them, stress-inducing fears of the future.

We are told to take a break, or to go on vacation "to recharge our batteries" (whatever that means). This is all well and good, but every break and vacation has to end, and returning home with recharged batteries is not going to help us stand up to the stress that drove us to vacation in the first place.

In the last Newsletter describing an Ideal Day and an Actual Day, I wrote that stress is the prime causative factor for ill health in our society. This is because every emotional response to a stressful event produces a corresponding physical reaction. In terms of bodily as well as mental health, the "you" of the Ideal Day has had her store of health increased. The "you" of the Actual Day, on the other hand, has received many small but telling blows to her muscles, heart, lungs, circulation, digestion, body cleansing mechanism, and emotional equipoise. Repetition and accumulation of these blows will lead to a physical breakdown that impairs body functions.

Follow The Leader

But is it only the mind that reacts to stress and sets the pernicious physical effects in motion? The qi perspective takes it as axiomatic that it is more frequently physical responses to stress that produce emotional reactions. In other words, my approach turns conventional wisdom about stress on its head.

Marcel Proust had his memory/emotions jogged by the physicality-the aroma, texture, and taste-of a little cake, and went on to write a four-volume novel that is considered a modern masterpiece. His body set his mind in motion. John Keats heard a nightingale, and was moved to write a poem. In the same way, we hear  unpleasant news at a meeting, and our blood pressure rises and our stomach starts secreting acid. We then feel under stress. On the other hand, a gorgeous or picturesque sight will lower our blood pressure and set our stomach purring. This is the physical trigger that suddenly releases us from the tension of the day that Keats refers to when he writes: "The setting sun will always set me to rights." And at that sight, we, like Keats, feel the happiness that is the hallmark of an absence of stress.

The body is capable of relaxing the mind and keeping it relaxed. This is how the SIKE approach differs from that of others. By giving primacy to the body rather than to the mind, we are able to re-associate with the powers of Nature. Restoring the integrity of the body to its rightful position of power lessens the effects of the "swiftly dividing mind," and restores us to tranquility.

All of us know that we should close our eyes and count slowly to ten before giving way to anger. This is about as close as conventional stress management comes to incorporating the body alone in stress management. This is, no doubt, a very good and useful means of deflating stress-induced anger, and has probably saved countless children from a spanking. However, what I propose is a change of awareness of, and attitude towards stress, while at the same time adopting physical exercises as preventive measures.

Breathe, Darn Ya, Breathe!

The First Step is to recognize the stress that you are under. I do not mean the origin of the stress-the bad traffic or the pressing deadline or your spouse's health problem--, but the physical sensation within you. That sensation produces mental stress, which in turn aggravates the physical sensation. You will notice that your breathing is shallow, irregular, unsatisfying; perhaps you are barely breathing!

The surest way to give stress and trauma a good home is to hold your breath. Whenever you hear bad news, see an awful sight, touch something creepy, smell something revolting, or taste the bitterness of despair or the bile of anger, exhale through the mouth as powerfully as you can. Most people suck in their breath, and hold it, releasing it only in small, nasal bursts.  You have now given food, clothing, and shelter to stress and trauma. You can release tension from your body with a powerful exhalation, followed by a conscious effort at stabilizing your breath into a satisfying rhythm.

The uniquely human consciousness of time, both short-term and long-term, causes us agitation, whether it is the fear of dying tomorrow, or the worry of arriving late somewhere. Thoughts of time disturb our breathing. Again, it is good to exhale powerfully, and get back on a rhythmic breathing track.

You will be amazed by what a healing difference an awareness of your breathing will create.

The Second Step is to be aware of locked-in tension. Men tend to clench their jaw. You can see the jaw muscles bulge. Women tend to clench their buttocks. Both men and women lock tension in their shoulders.

Are your jaw muscles tense? Are your shoulders relaxed and sloping, or are they high and tight, something like the Ed Sullivan Look? Is your neck extended, or is it withdrawn like a frightened turtle's neck? Is your backside soft like Jell-o on springs, or hard as a board?

You can relax your body by exhaling through the mouth and letting the jaw go slack. A second breath will relax your neck and lower your shoulders. A third breath, combined with bending the knees will release tension from the backside.

Having done this, if it is possible, take a short walk, even around the house, letting your arms dangle and taking long strides.

The Wonder of Kiryu 

I devoted a chapter in my book Qi Energy for Health and Healing to kiryu, what it is and how to do it. This being a short Newsletter, I will not take the space to reiterate what I have already said there at length.  Kiryu is, in my experience, the fastest, most effective, and overall best way to remove stress, induce relaxation, and keep the body balanced, meaning harmony of internal and external movement. 

Kiryu is Japanese for "the flow of ki (qi)". This flow follows the neural pathway of the extra pyramidal motor system  (EMS), releasing tension when it is excessive, and inducing tension when it is missing.

The Extrapyramidal Motor System

The extrapyramidal motor system and the autonomic nervous system govern all facets of the balance of tension and relaxation within the body. The application of qi to the EMS will trigger a flow of energy throughout that system and throughout the ANS. This energy flow will bypass the central nervous system and transcend thought (conscious behavior). It will sweep away blockages and barriers to the smooth passage of qi. It will remove tension and promote relaxation, and will restore the functioning of organs to their original integrity. In Japanese, the exercise promoting the uninhibited flow of qi is called Kiryu.

Kiryu creates physical anarchy in a way we have not experienced since early childhood. We were then free to respond to the body's demands and express its striving for health any way we liked. We could fart, belch, burp, roll around on the floor, cry, yell and scream, jump and run, giggle uncontrollably...all with impunity. As we aged and learned manners and entered society, we learned to suppress a fart, squelch a belch, curb our physical impulses, etc. In other words, we repress and suppress all the hundreds of little release mechanisms designed to rid ourselves of tension.

Above all, we feel self-conscious about movement. We join movement classes and dance classes and exercise classes in order to have a safe and approved environment in which to move in a manner different from our "everyday" manner. No one seems to notice that while our minds are in constant motion, our bodies hardly move in proportion in our daily life.

Social conventions state that the fewer our movements, the more well-behaved we are.  "Children should be seen and not heard." We take pride when our young children do not run around and make noise in a restaurant, but sit with a minimum of movement and talk. "We are good parents," we think, "we have taught our children self-control. Now we can enjoy our meal."

Looked at from your own physiology, stress can "teach" you self-control. Stress can impair the movements of cells, nerves, muscles, and organs so that they sit quietly doing nothing. ...you would like to get your body "moving again" to improve your health and enjoyment of life's little pleasures.

The EMS and ANS, stimulated by qi, use any and all of our original release mechanisms to promote relaxation and restore our bodies to a healthy equilibrium.

The body is always adjusting and fine-tuning itself.  Kiryu releases the body's full potential to adjust and fine-tune.

And just as each person has his own anatomy and qi characteristics, so each person reacts in subtly different ways to Kiryu. There are, however, a number of characteristic responses to Kiryu.

1.   The most common, indeed universal, response is uninhibited movement. Your body may begin to twitch spasmodically, shake, shiver, or sway. You may feel you want to walk or simply lie on the floor moving your feet or legs. You may feel like flapping your arms or shaking your wrists or snapping your fingers or all of the above.

The qi will naturally go to any part of the body that is over-tense, and seek to relax it through movement. If you have bruised your right elbow, you may expect your arm to shake so that the muscles relax and the elbow joint gently moves. If you have a headache, you may expect your head to sway and your neck to swivel in order to relax the muscles along the 1st and 2nd cervical vertebrae (C1 and C2).

Movements are never violent. They are always pleasurable.

2.   Yawning is a typical response. You would be surprised how many people do not yawn at all. Or cannot yawn at all. Yawning is a sign of health, a sign that the body is capable of relaxation. People who cannot yawn are destined to sleep dysfunction and lower back pain. Kiryu stimulates the body to yawn and to stretch. When you have done Kiryu for some months, you find that you begin to yawn and stretch just at the thought of inducing Kiryu.

3.   A release of vocalized sounds is a common response. This could be laughter or giggling, it could be a moan, it could be humming, it could be singing, it could be noises pushed out with your breath.

4.   A release of fluids frequently occurs. Tears are common in the case of women, less so in men. A woman may suddenly feel "emotional," not necessarily happy or sad, but having an irrepressible desire to cry, releasing both fluid and sounds at the same time.

As the muscles in the jaw and neck relax, the body may produce a lot of saliva.

Another type of fluid is mucus from the nose.

And finally, the body may sweat profusely without becoming feverish. The sweat may come from the entire body, or it may be localized, such as from the scalp or armpits.

 5.  The stomach and intestines may gurgle and rumble as they are released from  their usual bondage of tension.

The effect of Kiryu is a release from tension. You feel remarkably relaxed and clear-headed. Minor aches and pains vanish, and there is usually a sensible diminution of major aches and pains. The cumulative effect of Kiryu-that is, to make Kiryu a daily or thrice-weekly part of your health regimen-is to promote deep, refreshing sleep, improve digestion and muscle tone, strengthen the body's immune system, and keep the cleansing system functioning effectively.

Kiryu is the cheapest, easiest, and most effective preventive medicine measure ever devised. (I wish I had thought of it.)

A word of caution: Because Kiryu stimulates and strengthens the immune system, people with artificial body parts should not attempt the procedure. Their bodies will seek to reject the artificial "intruder."

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QI AND THE ELDERLY

Wrinkled with black spots,

Bent back, bald head, white beard,

Trembling hands, wobbly legs,

Teeth falling out, failing hearing, failing vision,

Wearing a headscarf and glasses, walking with a cane,

Fearful of death, lonely,

Greedy, impatient, foolish, nosey,

Annoying, and bossy,

Praising one's children in the same old stories,

Proud of one's health,

Hated by everybody.

(Afflictions of Old Age)

Zen Master Sengai (1750-1837)

The image of the elderly has hardly changed today.

Sengai was a kind-hearted man, and his poem is meant as gentle irony. However, it is hard for people (especially for people who do not deal directly with the elderly) to realize that, while true, much of what Sengai wrote about can be prevented, ameliorated, or cared for.

The defining feature of aging is loss of flexibility. Eventually, this loss becomes so great that we return to the helplessness of the infant.  We become dependent on the help and good will of others. This is not a welcome condition to someone who has been to some degree autonomous since age two, not to mention someone who has held positions of responsibility and managed to raise a family.

A decline in autonomy frequently leads to an alteration of the character of our qi; we become, as Sengai wrote, "greedy, impatient, foolish, nosey, annoying and bossy." These are not attractive characteristics, yet they certainly provoke an immediate and powerful response, which is something that dependent elderly enjoy.

The physical loss of flexibility is apparent. Everything from vision to stamina to hearing to recuperative power declines. There is nothing anyone can do about this however many "anti-aging" products one devours. It is doubtful that the loss of flexibility can even be delayed or retarded. Diminishing flexibility is part of the human condition, and has to be accommodated rather than mourned. New avenues that allow us to utilize what flexibility remains should be pursued. The growth and spread of senior centers and elderhostel programs are recent phenomena that provide new avenues and outlets to make the most of our reduced capacities.

On the other hand, within our physical decline it is possible to fulfill our potential for health and flexibility by giving and receiving qi. The phrase "within this physical decline" is of supreme importance here, because it defines the parameters of health.  A program of qi is not going to rejuvenate an 80 year-old body into a 50 year-old body. It may improve eyesight, but will not restore it to teenage levels. It will not bring back acute hearing. It will alleviate aches and pains, but will not prevent them.

It will bring out the full potential for health and vigor available to that 80 year-old body.  But why wait for old age? Participating in a qi health program creates a benign transition into old age, and is excellent preventive medicine.

Loss of physical flexibility is frequently accompanied by a decline in mental and emotional flexibility. The person who was once grateful and cooperative for any and all help received now becomes cross-grained and bad-tempered.

To put it another way: What was once a flow of qi of cooperation becomes a cycle of resistance and conflict.

The elderly person's behavior becomes an expression of that resistance. Cooperation seems like a further loss of autonomy, while resistance is felt to be an assertion of independence.  A spirit of harmony and conviviality brings about a weakening of the qi, while argument and aspersion bring fire and strength back to the qi.

To digress for a moment in my allusion: The Japan Socialist Party (JSP) was, from the time of its inception, an opposition party. And oppose it didAc It was a very skillful opponent, and its resistance to government policies and projects kept it lively and healthy. Suddenly, through a wild vagary of political fate, the JSP came to power in the mid-1990s, and was in a position to enact policies of its own. The trouble was, it had none. It had become so used to opposing as a reflex response that it had never developed any creative or constructive vision. Once the party came to power and there was nothing left to oppose, it withered and died.

The same holds true for many of the elderly whose qi has altered through lack of flexibility of mind. These elderly people want to be harangued, pleaded with, and cajoled.

 "If you don't get out of bed, you'll get bedsores and have to enter a nursing home. You have to get out of bed every day and do a little walking."

 "You should let me cook for you. Eating ice cream three times a day is not a healthy diet."

 "You can't insult your attendants like that. They'll quit and then where will you be? Good help is hard to find."

If you were to agree with everything the resisting elderly said, and let them have their way on every point, they would follow the JSP, and wither away.

To many of the elderly, resistance is a natural form of exercising their qi. It keeps them sharp, alert, and vigorous. They are not seeking a confrontation which demands a "yes or no" resolution. To force a confrontation to a resolution would probably leave them at a great disadvantage from what they presently enjoy. What they are seeking is an ongoing dialog that tests strength of will.

Thus, an energetic refusal to change an unhealthy lifestyle such as poor diet, or an indulgence in anti-social behavior such as verbal abuse or smoking cigarettes is a natural exercise of qi. The elderly person actively seeks to provoke reactions that will force her to resist even more. She seems to be selfishly trying to get her own way. This is, to a certain extent, true. She is also stimulating her cleansing mechanism through resistance. Her physiology becomes energized. Moreover, resistance binds the caretaker or family member more closely to the elderly person, providing the elder with a sense of security.

 "I can't just walk away from her and let her decline even more. After all, she is my mother, no matter how bad her behavior is."

This may seem perverse. After all, most people are willing and happy to care for their elderly loved ones. Honey attracts more flies than vinegar, etc. and so harmony is a more powerful bonding agent than conflict. However, by resisting and provoking conflict, the elderly person feels that she has the upper hand in the bonding process; that it is she who writes the script which you willy-nilly follow, rather than vice versa. She becomes much more active and involved in the bonding process if you have to harangue her for fifteen minutes to take a walk, rather than were she to acquiesce and hop out of bed at your first suggestion of healthy behavior.

Redirect the Energy

The closer the elderly comes to death, and the more the idea of death intrudes upon her conscious, the more she will resist and reject as a self-strengthening endeavor.

This is, to friends and family, tedious and irksome behavior. It is also an interesting phenomenon, vital to a true understanding and appreciation of the human organism, and how it seeks to make itself strong and healthy by any means available. The justness or unjustness of your advice and demands is not an issue with the elderly. He will resist in the same way he will reflexively scratch an itch. And, as in the case of scratching an itch, it provides him with relief and satisfaction.

One way to bring an elder "out of himself" and get him to exercise his qi in a positive and harmonious way is to seek qi from him. The strength of qi does not decline with age, and the qi of a 90 year-old is every bit as potent as that of a 20 year-old.

The elderly enjoy talking about health issues, especially the declining health of others. There is almost nothing that produces a glow of schadenfreude in the elderly like hearing a younger person complain about a health problem. Should you divert the elder from his attitude of resistance to one of assisting you and yours with your health problems by means of his giving you qi, you will be redirecting the thrust of his natural energy from rejection to generosity, and thus helping it enlarge.

Just have the elder place his hands on his grandchild, his great-grandchild, or any passing child you can lay your hands on, and tell him to direct the qi of wisdom and longevity into the child (or into you or your spouse). Breathe together with the elder. Synchronize your breaths and imagine a harmony of spirit. You will see that, as the elder gives qi, his shoulders drop, his abdomen relaxes, and his breath deepens. These are all healthy signs.

As William Blake wrote, "Damn braces. Bless relaxes." Rather than the negative energy of resistance, the positive energy of providing what blessings you still can promotes the health of the elder and his caretakers.  

I have met only one elder who preferred the qi of resistance to the qi of generosity when given the choice.

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THOUGHTS AT YEAR'S END 2007

Freed from intricacies, I am taught to live

The easiest way, nor with perplexing thoughts

To interrupt the sweet of life, from which

God hath bid dwell far off all anxious cares,

And not molest us, unless we ourselves

Seek them with wand'ring thoughts and notions vain.

But apt the mind or fancy is to rove

Unchecked, and of her roving is no end;

Till warned, or by experience taught, she learn

That not to know at large of things remote

From use, obscure and subtle, but to know

That which before us lies in daily life,

Is the prime wisdom; what is more is fume,

Or emptiness, or fond impertinence,

And renders us in things that most concern

Unpractised, unprepared, and still to seek.

John Milton    Paradise Lost  VIII   182-197

This is the very tragedy of human existence. In its depth of feeling and insight into the human condition, Milton's sentiment goes far beyond Shelley's: We look before and after/And pine for what is not.

We human beings trivialize that which lies directly in front of us, the "prime wisdom of daily life", and yearn incessantly for what we had, might have had, might have had, might have, or will never have. We live in a mental and emotional environment of "fume, emptiness, or fond impertinence." We feel baffled, frustrated, and disappointed as events beyond our control derail our aspirations. We do not stop to listen to what Yeats called "the deep heart's core", nor do we see that "all that we behold is full of blessings".

This is never more true that when we behold our bodies, if we behold them at all beyond a cursory glance. Your lungs that breathe, your heart that beats. The lungs and heart working together, about four heart beats for each breath you take. Your body's self-regulating heating system of about 99 F (37C). The perpetual motion of your cells, living and dying, recreating every atom in your body every six years. The digestive system that processes the drek you put in it. The same body that has put up with tension, emotional and physical trauma, junk food, broken bones, torn muscles, cigarette smoke, cheap booze, recreational drugs, pain killers, anti-depressants, pro-depressants, flu, colds, fevers, cosmetic surgeries, jet lag, and Lord Knows What Else for half a century, and is still carrying you forward. We pine for a "better body".

We are forever putting demands on our time and on our body. I want a Lexus sedan, no, a Jaguar convertible. I want to be strong: No pain, no gain. I want a six bedroom house, a figure like Aphrodite, a mind like Einstein, a soul like Buddha, the wisdom of Socrates, a case of Viagra, just the teeniest 4-carat diamond ring. I want my child to go to Harvard. I want to jog twenty years off my life. No wait, I'll just have liposuction. We talk to ourselves about these demands constantly, and work extra hours to achieve them, and consume even more hours fretting that we shall not obtain them.

What we do not hear are the demands our body is making of us. "I need to be fed, and with digestible food. I need less food, my stomach is overworked. I need more water. I need more sleep. I need more movement. I need more rest. I need more fun. I need cleansing. I need relaxation. Stop holding your breath, and let me breathe! I need recognition of my existence in the here and now."

We recognize these demands in our newborns and infants, and respond immediately, most of the time effectively and with good humor. We stop listening to our own body's demands from an early age. By the time we are old enough to drive ourselves to the doctor, we are almost completely out of touch with our bodily demands. We are demanding of it, and ignore its demands of us.

In other words, we cease having an endless dialog with our bodies, and listen only to what our mind is saying. But who, in the end, is the more truthful and the more powerful, the mind or body? The following is a late 16th century riddle, very popular with the Elizabethans. The statement: "My mind to me a kingdom is." The puzzle: "Find the king." If you think the answer is "I", then who or what are you? The correct answer is, of course, "The body", which does, in fact, define who you are and determine your existence.

You should not regard the demands of your body as irksome or dangerous. It is ignoring and suppressing these natural demands that creates a truly irksome and dangerous reaction in your body. And wait to see how that affects your mind...The body's demands need to be acted upon, not when you remember to get around to it, but now!

Ghandi and Me

Mahatma Gandhi, in a bit of irony just before his assassination, made a provocative alternative list to the Seven Wonders of the World- the "Seven Blunders of Mankind". His list of World Blunders from a half-century ago is just as historically important and globally minded as the contemporary swirl of interactive maps, international media, and new age hype, but more abstract. Abstraction notwithstanding, the Blunders will hit home to each reader in a particular way.

His list:

1. Wealth without work  

2. Pleasure without conscience  

3. Knowledge without character  

4. Commerce without morality 

5. Science without humanity  

6. Worship without sacrifice  

7. Politics without principle

To these I would add: Health without personal responsibility.

We have delegated control of our health, mental and physical, to "experts", rather than use our own powers of health, sensibility, and sanity to provide wellness and comfort.

Joe/Josephine Average SIKE Health Client walks in for an initial treatment and presents the following: stiff to painful neck and shoulders; regular headaches; poor sleep; tight chest; mild to bad acid reflux; irregular bowel movements; diminished sex drive; recurring lower back pain; dehydration; a feeling of being "out of touch" with their body; fertile women, in addition to the above problems, present irregular periods, PMS, and fibroids causing heavy bleeding and lower back ache.

To deal with these problems, J/J Client takes daily: Cardizem (for high blood pressure-from a cardiologist), Vicodin and Xanex (a mood elevator to balance the painkiller Vicodin-from an orthopedist and/or neurologist), Prevacid (for heartburn-from a gastroenterologist), Ambien or Lunesta (for sleep-from an internist), Estradiol and Naxopron (for vaginal bleeding and PMS-from a gynecologist), and Lexapro (an anti-depressant to feel happy in the face of all these afflictions-available from all of the above).

In addition to this comprehensive allopathic health team, J/J Client has an alternative health team comprising a chiropractor, an acupuncturist, a homeopath, a personal trainer, a past-lives analyst, a psychotherapist, and a massage therapist, each of whom is a "total genius".

By my count, it takes 13 total geniuses and a lot of drugs to get J/J Client upright and out the door each day. This is what I mean by delegating our health to experts and their pharmacological minions. By "powers of health, sensibility, and sanity", I mean listening carefully to your own body's demands, and acting upon them swiftly and unequivocally. Re-order your life's priorities so that the Physical You does not rank below the acquisitive and vain you. Make sleep and rest top priorities. Your body will tell you exactly what needs to be done. Find the time to do consistently what it demands of you, and the J/J Client team will be reduced by 13, leaving only you and me!

  USEFUL HEALTH HINT

How to Catch a Monkey

Take one large, heavy metal vase with a thin neck and a fat bottom to a place where monkeys congregate. Get the monkeys' attention, and, in a conspicuous way, put some appetizing monkey food into the vase. I suggest watermelon or pumpkin seeds. Place the vase on the ground, walk away, and conceal yourself where you can see the monkeys.

All of the monkeys will rush to the vase, but one will be bolder or stronger or quicker than the rest, and will stick his arm into the vase and grab a handful of seeds. Once he has a handful of seeds in his fist, he will try to pull his arm out of the vase to eat the seeds. The fist will be larger than the neck of the vase, and the monkey will be unable to remove it.

Now you reveal yourself and walk toward the monkey. All he has to do is drop the seeds, pull his arm out of the vase, and escape. However, monkeys never do this! The monkey will pull and tug fruitlessly, but will not let go of the seeds, even though it costs him his freedom and possibly his life. Now collar the monkey, and make him your pet or your dinner.

Human beings are like this, too. They hold on to "fume, emptiness, and fond impertinence" which stymies their movements, and robs them of their emotional freedom and happiness. Let useless things go...toss them overboard. Lighten your emotional load, and escape to a safer, happier place.

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REMEMBERING RON GOROW

1939-2008

I didn't speak to Ron the first two years I treated him. He arrived at the West Hollywood office punctually once a fortnight. He would change from his civvies into grey sweat pants, white sweat socks, and a grey T-shirt. He would put his check into the money box on the counter, and then wordlessly climb onto the table, face-down, and await treatment. The only thing I knew well about him was his qi. His qi and my qi blended famously. His energy was forceful and tranquil. He was very receptive and his body was, despite his chronic condition, flexible. The first time I saw him I thought he was wasting his money and I was frittering away my time. But then I touched him, felt his muscles respond, and thought there might be a bright light at the end of a very long tunnel.

At our first meeting, I stared at his back and wished I were somewhere else. Ron had one of the most pronounced cases of scoliosis I have ever seen. His spine was straight from T-1 to T-4 (the first through fourth thoracic vertebrae), and then bowed out significantly to the right from T-5 to L-2, a total of 10 vertebrae. The spine did not become completely realigned until L-3. In other words, Ron had 7 vertebrae in alignment out of a total of 17. When I first treated him, T-9 and T-10 were 2 1/2 inches to the right of true!  This meant that his right shoulder and shoulder blade were raised to the level of his ear. His right ribs, which were attached to the thoracic vertebrae, were bunched up, hunchback like, and crisscrossed at some places. Besides his structural pain and discomfort, the nerves coming off of his spine were so impaired in their function that Ron suffered from stomach pains and acid reflux, poor sleep, and poor liver function.

I had heard he was a jazz trumpeter and flugelhorn player, which astonished me. His right lung was so compressed by his distorted ribs that I could not believe he could play a wind instrument. Also, he was lacking so much musculature on the right side, that I could not see him standing up with his horn for hours at a time.

Amazingly, his spine responded to treatment from the first. Or rather, his qi responded to mine, and his muscles began to move his vertebrae. By the second treatment I had his T-5 in place, and his stomach problems cleared up. T-6 soon followed, his shoulder blade began to descend, and his sleep improved, as did his circulation and liver function. By the end of two years, Ron's shoulders were of equal height, T-5, 6, and 7, as well as L-2 were in alignment, the maximum curvature in his spine at T-9 and T-10 was 1 inch off of true, and he had developed good musculature along his right side.

But until then, we never spoke. He would present his spine, I would work on it, call it a day, he would change back into his civvies, and go wherever it was he went.

Then one day, he changed into his grey "treatment outfit", pulled his check out of his T-shirt pocket, and handed it to me saying, "Business before pressure." I laughed and laughed, and that broke the ice. From that moment he never stopped talking for the six years we continued together. I loved his talk, and learned a great deal about music from him.

By the end of four years, Ron's spine was straight (about 1/2 inch off true) and his ribs had settled down so that he now had a slight bump on his right back, hardly noticeable. He was so pleased that he said he would like to write a testimonial for the SIKE website. I had never thought about having testimonials, but he insisted, and so became the first to contribute. His words are still on the site today.

After six years, he suddenly declared that he wanted to write a book with me about his life with scoliosis, and the treatment that corrected it. He was a natural writer with a clear, flowing style. He would write the book, and I would provide him with technical information.

I had asked him at the start of his treatments if he would allow me to photograph his back, but he steadfastly refused. I asked him several times during the first year, and again met with refusal. He refused to be photographed except for headshots, usually in tandem with his wife, Judy Kerr. Now, I said, we have no before-and-after pictures. How do you expect to get a believable book without the seeing-is-believing part? He went to Colorado to visit his mother, and combed through her photo archives, but could find nothing better than a blurry photo of himself as a teenager that showed nothing of his back. He was disappointed at not having a photo. Life was good: he had forgotten just how bad his spine had been, how much discomfort he had been in, and how he had been too self-conscious to allow photos to be taken. He really wanted to do that book.

Ron was a small man with a mischievous, frequently sardonic, sense of humor. His hands were small and expressive, and he rarely used them in conversation except to make a point. He had a smile that made you feel like kin, and a slow, laconic way of speaking that was relaxing to hear. Reading his book Hearing and Writing Music for the first time, I fell under the spell of his profound knowledge of music and his approachable way of expressing it. He was at his most articulate and engaging when talking about music: why he loved bebop, why he hated Kenny G., the vibration of alpha brain waves blending with the vibration of the earth, the charm of the flute, the need to let children "horse around" with musical instruments until they establish a "voice" of their own, the mathematics of sound, Chinese and Grecian harmonics --- and of course, dozens of fascinating anecdotes about his life in music and working with musicians for over 50 years.  He heard music in city noises and in the still of night. Ron is the only person I have ever met who had a good MRI experience\he composed a movement of a flute concerto while motionless in the tube. When he learned that I play the clarinet, he wrote a series of concertos for me using the pentatonic scale entitled Tozai no De ai  (East Meets West). There are no melodies per se, but the sounds are subtle and haunting.

At the age of 65 he went back to college to study art, history, and art history. He was an excellent student, and would come directly from class for a treatment, brimming with ideas and questions. In our eight years together, I never experienced an unsatisfying or dull moment with Ron. Our time together passed all too quickly, and we sometimes finished our thoughts and conversations by email. Just two weeks ago, we were talking about Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Anthroposophy. I sent Ron information about the Steiner schools and their approach to education through the arts, and he wrote back: "I want to enroll there. Will they teach me how to pronounce anthroposophy?"

About the time Ron was writing his testimonial in 2004, Therese and I were considering writing an e-Newsletter, and I put the idea to Ron. He enthusiastically endorsed it, and instructed me in the html format and how to do a mass mailing. He responded to each issue the day after receiving it with words of appreciation and comment. He was an endless source of advice about music and sound, and I could not have written the issue on the vibrations of qi without his assistance. Sadly, the only issue he will never comment on is the one about him. I am sure he would have much to say. He filled many lives with warmth, wit, lively energy, and music. He is sorely missed.

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THE WIT OF DENNIS KEENE (1934-2007) - May 2008


MF writes: Dennis Keene was living in Oxford, England in 2004 when he turned 70. I wrote to him, asking his thoughts on reaching this milestone. He wrote: My only regret, and its a large one, is that I did not put more fun in my life. I am not sure why this was. I believe myself to be a fun loving person. My country, my culture, my religion, my occupation, even my friends told me that life is serious and that I should be serious about life. And now, with arthritis and missing teeth and a new bicycle to ward off heart attacks, I neither see the seriousness of life nor the usefulness of seriousness at all. If I can just pass the Bagpipe Test so that we can buy a retirement cottage in the Highlands, I will devote the rest of my days to fun.

In September 1973, I walked into my first interview with my Ph.D. tutor, Kenneth Strong, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He greeted me by handing over a fat book, and said, I have just been the external examiner on this thesis from Oxford. It is the finest I have ever read, and I expect no less of you. The work was written by Dennis Keene.

The thesis sent me into a depression. Here was a man so wise, witty, learned, and articulate that I knew I could never hope to write anything half as good. I imagined him somewhat around my own age, 24. It gave me a bit of comfort to learn, some years later, that he was actually about 40 when he wrote his book. Not a lot, only a bit. The intellectual brilliance of the work astonished me, but what gave me hope that writing a doctoral dissertation might not be pure hell was Dennis humor. He made erudite and astute references in a satirical vein in English, French, Japanese, and, yes, Latin, but he also cracked jokes. And believe me, this was no mean feat in a work dealing with Gustave Flaubert, Emile Zola, the transmission of culture, and the Japanese experimental writer Ri-ichi Yokomitsu.

Six years later, Dennis was my external examiner. I did not know him very well. What I did know was that he was intellectually demanding, academically rigorous, completely fair-minded, and very witty. Kenneth Strong was ill, and would submit his questions by mail. The Oriental Board of London University therefore requested that the Viva (oral exam) be tape recorded for review by Kenneth and by the board.

Dennis guided me almost paternally through the first 30 minutes of the Viva, by which time I was quite relaxed and replying fluently, even coherently. At this point, he produced, as if by magic, a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label, and poured us each a couple of fingers. At the end of the first hour, we had downed about a third of the bottle, and I was feeling euphoric. I could see my name up in lights: Mallory B. Fromm, Ph.D. from London and Oxford.

Dennis suddenly rose out of his chair, and switched off the tape machine. He was a big man, 61 weighing about 230 lbs. He paced the room excitedly as if ordering his thoughts, and then turned to me: How could you, an obviously intelligent, thoughtful man, devote not only years of your life, but great mental energy to a topic like this?! This topic, the whole field of Japanese studies, is not worthy of your talent. My God, take a line of Blake. The cut worm forgives the plow. You could think a lifetime on that, and find truth, wisdom, and humor. And what about An Island in the Moon? Youve read it of course. Why could you not devote your talents to that?!

He saw that I was respectfully flabbergasted, and said something like Steady on, sat down, switched the machine back on, and finished the Viva. We had drunk about two-thirds of the bottle at the end of almost three hours.

A week later he wrote me the following: I played the tape back and found it amusing to listen to. There is a lot of sparring at the beginning, with you maintaining a fairly powerful left, and me vaguely circling about. Around rounds six and seven there are a few fancy jabs from me, more or less taken on your gloves, and an actual flurry of blows around round ten, although the nearest approach to a knock down scene is a heavy uppercut from your left hand scoring pretty consistently, and the end result seems to be a points win for yourself, but no disgrace to a plucky challenger; which is how it should be, unless one wants blood all over the place in the first few rounds, which some examiners seem to like as they slip illegal steel inside their gloves. Anyway, I cant see any possible reason why you should not get the speedy result you want.

Dennis frequently advised me against having children: You will gain only a knowledge of pity and terror which is no good for anything except writing classical Greek drama. And, my favorite: Dont have any children. They give a quite spurious sense of direction to ones life, and I cant feel it is good for one.

But he was delighted when our son was born, and wrote the following about our choice of name, Corin Blake: I like CBs name as it suits him for any career. Corin Blakes latest mystery keeps the reader ever eager to turn over the next ten pages: Blake Fromms definitive edition of the Complete Works of Herbert Marcuse is a must for every college library: let me recommend my solicitors Blake, Corin, and Fromm, who are slightly old school, but very reliable: Corin Fromm made a solid 47 when he opened the innings for Yorkshire: Blake Baxter, retired CIA agent, has been accused of garroting his former mistress, the reigning Miss Universe; the possible permutations seem inexhaustible.

Dennis was a very practical problem solver. To those who decry the decline of civilization, I say, take some action. Agitate and lobby to have the creation and dissemination of bad art made a capital offense. Bring back public executionshangings are goodfor bad art. They could start small, say, a couple of poets, and then move up through playwrights, tv writers, artists, and composers until there would be only fine art remaining. Of course, Rupert Murdoch, the Lorenzo de Medici of the vulgar and meretricious, would have to be taken care of in a special way. Perhaps an auto-da-f broadcast live over satellite.

Dennis, Therese, and I were eating ice cream cones in a park on a lovely June day in 1996. He was looking immensely pleased with himself, and was practically quivering with laughter. He seemed ready to explode with fizz. So? we asked.

The BBC was making a documentary to commemorate the Suez War. It was called Suez: Forty Years On. Dennis had been asked to narrate his part in the conflict. I was the biggest man in the regiment, so I had to carry the bloody Bofors gun all over the desert. I wasnt allowed to shoot it, just carry it. We were stationed in a little mud brick village named Sweetwater. The BBC decided to send me back there, trust to my creaky memory, and have me reminisce about Sweetwater in 1956.

Dennis dieted and lost 20 pounds. He went to Savile Row and had a suit custom made. He grew a beard. He was the center of attention in Sweetwater. The streets of the town had been cleared of people. Two dozen BBC employees danced around him putting on his makeup, checking the lighting, laying rails through the village so that the camera could track him, running lines of script with him, etc. All while the villagers stared at him from behind earthen walls. He was obviously a man of importance.

He began chuckling as he told this to us. Im walking down the street looking at the camera, gesticulating solemnly, stopping to peer into the sky as if in the throes of a vision, but actually trying to remember my lines, trying to ignore the dozen or so people frantically waving directions at meYou know what its like to be the center of a small universe.

Suddenly a little boy of seven or eight was pushed out from behind a wall and came running to my side. Tugging at my sleeve, he looked up at me with lustrous, adoring eyes and said, Meester, who are you?

I looked down at him and said in my plummiest voice, Bond. James Bond, and kept walking straight ahead. There was pandemonium in the village.

Therese and I were holding our sides with laughter. Dennis eyes were big and bright. At that moment I thought, this is why I carried that f***ing great gun around; this is what I was meant to do. And I realized I could now die with no regrets.

Dennis did not send his annual Christmas message last year, nor did he reply to mine. I recently learned that he had died (on my birthday in November) of a brain tumor after undergoing months of chemotherapy. A horrible and ironic end to a man with a great heart, and an even greater mind. Dennis was a remarkable scholar, a superb translator, a fine poet, a doting husband and father, and a loyal and generous friend. The world has lost a wealth of laughter and sanity now that he is gone.

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STRESS IS BACK IN THE NEWS

We have written often and in detail (notably Newsletters Nos. 16 & 17) on the pernicious effects of stress on health. We counsel pre-fertile, fertile, and post-fertile women on the relationship between stress and their reproductive system until we are blue in the face. We talk about fibroids, and cysts, and irregular periods, and PMS, and infertility, and violent cramping, and sporadic spotting, etc., and how they are usually stress-related. We have counseled women about stress during pregnancy, especially in the first term when it is often a cause of chronic morning sickness, and in the third term when it can lead to premature labor and birth.

Now comes word from (gasp!) the AMA that stress effects a womans reproductive system and influences pregnancy outcomes.

America ranks high in the world (#34) among countries in infant mortality before the age of one. (I believe Iceland has the lowest infant mortality rate.) This is the worst record in the industrialized world, and is far higher than even a country in a constant state of war such as Israel.

What is even more remarkable is that the rate of infant mortality and premature births in the black American community is twice that of the white American community regardless of education and socio-economic status. Well-educated and high-earning black women have much higher rates of infant mortality and premature births than uneducated, relatively poor white women.

Epidemiological surveys have shown that genetics is not an issue, as black African women have identical rates of premature birth as white women. Education, wealth, and availability of medical attention are not factors. All the evidence points conclusively to one factor: racism.

The researchers believe that chronic stress of social prejudice and unequal treatment keeps black women in a state of mild to medium anxiety. Racism is not an occasional problem, but a daily stressor that causes the constant release of stress hormones. The cumulative effect of these hormones is the degradation of the bodys organs (call it advanced wear and tear). It is speculated that these hormones can lead to premature birth by: 1) acting as a trigger mechanism for labor

2) causing the diameter of the placenta to shrink; the babys life becomes endangered, and the body seeks to expel it 3) inflaming the lining of the womb, which induces labor.

One of the benefits of a SIKE treatment, and the greatest benefit of doing kiryu daily, is the removal of stress from the body. Its no good spending a fortune on organic, fair-trade, eco-friendly food and drink if your organs cant process the food adequately due to stress. Think beautiful thoughts, and come and see us.

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GOING WITH THE FLOW (Season Change and the Body) - July 2008

MF writes: The four seasons according to Americans:
Spring: March Madness gives way to Easter, a holiday in which thousands of high school and college students celebrate the death and resurrection of Christ by running amok at resorts.
Summer: Hot hot hot! Lets go on vacation.
Autumn: A boring stretch of time redeemed only by children returning to school. Leaves change color and dieho hum. Maybe Halloween and Thanksgiving will provide some excitement.
Winter: Cold cold cold, but filled with holidays and the thrill of spending ourselves into debt.
Few of us believe that the change of seasons exerts a physiological effect on the body. After all, thanks to thermal technology, we can live and work at a constant temperature throughout the year. New Zealand and Chile provide the Northern Hemisphere with summer fruits and vegetables during our winter months, and I have no doubt that we reciprocate the favor during their winter months. Refrigerators and freezers preserve food well beyond their natural lifespan. Man-made fibers resist the winter cold with as little weight as summer cottons. Clean drinking water is piped into our homes year-round, and we do not have to contend with seasonal droughts or floods for the precious fluid. The length of each day is unvarying thanks to electric lighting. We have just as long a workday during the short days of winter as during the long days of summer. Neither scorching heat nor arctic blasts prevents us from socializing with our friends thanks to well-equipped automobiles. Movie theaters, playhouses, sports arenas, and other places of amusement and entertainment offer us diversion throughout the year.
The list of devices, techniques, and facilities to baffle and defeat the environmental changes of the seasons goes on and on.
Stephen Jay Gould wrote that the three greatest factors extending human life were the discovery of sanitation and hygiene, the invention of the X-ray (allowing us to see under the skin), and the discovery of penicillin. Whereas life was once nasty, brutish, and short, it is now no longer short. However
THE CAVEMAN IN YOU

Human life was conducted in caves and mud huts for much longer than it has been conducted in centrally heated condos and tract homes with all the modern conveniences.
Put simply, we have not yet evolved into our contemporary living spaces.
You may revel in the fact that you are a Homo Sapien with a university degree and a six figure income, but physiologically, you are strictly Neanderthal, and as such, susceptible to all the physiological seasonal changes as your hairy forebears.
There are actually only two primary seasonally induced changes, but each of these induces smaller changes throughout the body in a ripple effect. The body is always adapting/fine tuning itself to the subtle changes produced by season change.
The two primary changes are, of course, tension and relaxation.
The body is in a constant state of flux as it expands and contracts. It expands (relaxes) in the warm and hot months, and contracts (tenses) in the cool and cold months. There may be as much as an inch difference in your height between the hot and cold seasons.
The body tenses from the feet upwards, and relaxes from the head downwards. You may visualize a wave starting from the soles of your feet and working its way slowly upwards, and then, reaching the crown of your head, beginning its descent to the ground. The wave never ceases from the moment of birth until the moment of death.
The body does not begin to adapt to the season when the season changes, but well before so that it enters the season fully prepared for the environmental change. The body will never be caught off-guard by season change, unless you abuse it to the extent it is unable to change. Left to its own healthy devices, the body will never have to play catch up or slow down with the change of seasons.
So, for example, the body begins its change for winter in late August or early September. The body is always one step ahead of the season.
BASIC SEASON CHANGES

(ANTIPODEAN READERS SHOULD INVERT THE SEASONS)

Autumn Changes (Late August to Mid-October)
The body needs to contract: skin, hair, teeth, and internal organs all begin to tense. However, we place demands on our body in the form of activities that hinder the contracting process. We work just as long hours; we still attend PTA meetings; we maintain an active schedule to fulfill duties and obligations.
In order to promote and facilitate the contracting process, the body will become tired. We do not feel as energetic as usual, and this forces us to cut back our activities. This tiredness is manifested by tension in the spine, particularly at T1-4, and weakness in L3 and L4. If the body cannot obtain rest by means of this tiredness, it will next resort to catching colds.
The ankles begin to tighten and stiffen at this time. It is important to rotate the ankles in order to keep them flexible.
The sweat glands, hitherto wide open, begin to close in order to protect the skin. The skin itself begins to tighten as if battening down the hatches against the cold of winter. This battening down process accelerates as the air becomes cooler and drier. Women frequently get dry, flaky skin. The dryness begins at the shins and calves, and progresses up the body to the scalp.
The female pelvis tenses and contracts. When women get an autumn cold or feel tired, this may lead to menstrual irregularity and/or lower back ache.
As the body contracts, the pain of old wounds and blows may resurface, and muscle ache, rheumatic-like pain, and other aches and pains arise.
Small children are prone to ear ache and nose bleeds at this time.
The stomach contracts, however most people continue eating the same quantities of food as during summer. This can lead to more tiredness, even to fatigue as the stomach struggles to cope.

Pre-Winter Changes (Late October to Early December)
The bodys contraction is almost complete. The spine has now contracted, and the scalp begins to contract. The body has a tendency to become dehydrated. Plenty of liquids, especially warm liquids such as soups and broths help ease the body into winter. It is good to slightly increase salt intake.
If the lips and sides of the mouth become dry, this is a sure sign of dehydration. The body will do all it can to retain water, and so will become swollen if liquid intake is not increased. This swelling is usually seen in women in one of the thighs. It will be larger than the other. Increasing water intake will result in the release of stale water by the body.
The T11 vertebra may become stiff and painful if dehydration persists. Middle-back pain can be alleviated by drinking a lot of water.
Finally, a lack of water at this time will lead to stiff shoulders.
The hamstrings become tight and tender to the touch. It is good to give direct qi to the hamstrings if you feel stiffness there.

Winter Changes (Early December to Mid-January)
The body has closed up; contraction is complete. The skin is tight and has lost a lot of moisture. The waist and hips are also tight, and so the body loses some flexibility. Twisting and turning from side to side are not as easy as in the period of warmth. One arm is likely to feel dull and the shoulder blade on that side may get tight, even a bit achy. The lumbar vertebrae are frequently tight, and the muscles alongside them may become tender to the touch.

Early Spring Changes (Mid-January to Mid-February)
The body begins to loosen in anticipation of spring. The loosening process begins at the top of the head, and works its way slowly downwards. You can feel the scalp relax from the crown of the head to the lower back of the head, and the skin of the scalp and face becomes more moist and oily. Following this, the cervical vertebrae begin to loosen. This expansion should be encouraged. This can be done by letting warm water run over the back of the neck when showering. It is also useful to take a hot compress and place it on the sides of the bridge of the nose for two or three minutes daily.

Spring Changes (Mid-February to Mid-March)
The cervical vertebrae will have relaxed by now. It is time for the thoracic vertebrae to follow. In early March, the lumbar vertebrae and pelvis will loosen, so that the body will be flexible and relaxed for the warmth of spring.
As the thoracic vertebrae begin to loosen, people commonly experience stiff shoulders or pain in the upper back. In extreme cases, upper back spasms occur.
It is not uncommon for T6 to twist, and this leads to problems with digestion, most notably acid reflux (heartburn).
As the head, neck and upper back begin to relax, the mind, which has been fairly tranquil during the cold months, begins to buzz with activity. It may become filled with repetitive, annoying thoughts or hints of thoughts. (A healthy mind indulges in flights of fancy or imaginative fantasies.) The sensation of anxiety is not uncommon at this time, and this feeling leads to shortness of breath. I have been told that this is the peak season for suicides. Feelings of anxiety or repetitive morbid thoughts should pass as the weather turns warmer, and the body is naturally induced to sleep more deeply.
As the thoracic vertebrae relax, female skin may blemish easily and lose some of its natural moisture. It is a good time of year to add body oil to your bath water.
March is the most important time of year for the female reproductive system. There may be a tender, stationary lump in one of the breasts, located on the side of the breast where it meets the ribcage. It is easy to check for this lump by lying on the back, and feeling along the side of the breast with the middle, ring, and little fingers of the opposite hand. This lump will pass as the season changes. This breast usually corresponds to the working ovary that month. (Lump in left breast indicates that the left ovary is working.) It is a useful means of ascertaining the working ovary in order to keep track of the menstrual cycle.
Women should give themselves, or receive from others, direct qi to the resting ovary in order to ensure a smooth and regular menstrual cycle for the rest of the warm weather period.
As the ankles begin to relax from the tension of winter, they may be weak and unstable. Be sure to give them plenty of stretching exercise to impart strength and flexibility.

Early Summer Changes (Mid-March to Early June)
Summer is the season of peak expansion. The spine lengthens to full extension, and a person normally grows a half-inch to an inch in height. The shoulders, lower back, and hips tend to twist in the direction of the individuals dominant side. The result is often a weak or aching lower back. Twisting the body by looking over your shoulder should be done several times a day as a corrective to this natural twist.
The body enlarges despite a smaller appetite. Weight gain of 2-4 pounds is not uncommon during summer. The body stabilizes itself by lowering its center of gravity slightly. Weight is directed downwards, towards the ground.
The bodys metabolic rate increases. Body cleansingthrough the digestive system, urinary tract, and the skinis performed faster at this time of year. External stimuli are felt more keenly, as are emotional stimuli. Joy, sorrow, optimism, anger, etc. seem more intense at this time of year. There is a tendency to act on impulse, and it is good to think something through before putting the impulse into action.
The quality of sleep will improve from early May. Sleep will become deeper and more refreshing. When this happens, the mind will relax and anxious thoughts will pass.

Summer Changes (Early June to Late August)
There is a tendency for the pulmonary system to weaken. Be aware of your breathing and if you are feeling satisfied by the fullness of your breath.
Putting qi directly into the top back of the head will strengthen the pulmonary system, increase appetite, and prepare the body for a smooth transition into autumn.
If the elbow joint(s) becomes stiff during summertime, hold the elbow in the palm of your hand and give direct qi. Anyone who has ever dinged his elbow knows about the existence of the funny bone. This is a nerve cluster at the elbow joint. This is the point into which you put your direct qi.

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Biorhythms - September 2008

MF writes: Our bodies are in a state of unceasing flux and motion both microscopically and macroscopically. Our hearts beat, our lungs respire, our skin expands and contracts, and all the atomic and sub-atomic particles that constitute our corporeal self zoom all over our living autobahn. Our bodies also come equipped with an unceasing rhythm that naturally tenses and relaxes us. In the world of qi, this rhythm is called a tide, and our minds and bodies are always moving between flood tide and ebb tide. You may think of the former as active and the latter as passive. For those of a Far Eastern bent, think yang and ying.
The tides are like the Russian folk dolls that live one inside the other, each becoming progressively smaller. Our largest tide is birth and death. We are born at flood tide, and die at ebb tide, though there is a sudden and powerful transition to flood tide at the exact moment of death. Each of us has a lengthy rhythm cycle of varying duration. Mine is nine years; that of my wife is seven years. The next rhythm durations become progressively shorter: a yearly rhythm, a monthly rhythm, a weekly rhythm, and a daily rhythm. We are most aware of our monthly rhythm.
A pregnant woman goes into the active flood tide from the moment of conception until approximately 10 days before labor begins, at which time she goes into the passive ebb tide. The fetus is in ebb tide until the mother swings into ebb tide, at which time its biorhythm changes to flood tide.
The woman is physically responsible for the welfare of herself and her fetus for the term of the pregnancy, and so stays at flood tide. The fetus is dominated by the mothers qi and physicality, and so stays at ebb tide for nine months.
When labor begins, Nature has seen to it that the baby fight its way into the world through the birth canal, and this requires it to be in the active flood tide. At the same time, the mother must relax so that the pelvis opens to maximum width in order to allow the baby to come out easily. She goes into the passive ebb tide.
At the moment of birth, the baby once again lapses into ebb tide, and the mother, faced with feeding and nurturing a helpless creature, changes into flood tide. It takes the new mother about six weeks to return to her characteristic flux between ebb and flood tides.
The physical and mental characteristics of flood tide are: the face is firm, compact, and has good color and sheen; the hair is firm and works well; you do not need as much sleep time or food to function at full energy; the memory is sharp; you do not forget or lose things; you tend to be forward looking and even optimistic.
The physical and mental characteristics of ebb tide are: the face is pallid, loose, puffy, and seems wider than usual; the hair is soft, lank, and does not work well; the palms tend to be moist or sweaty; it takes more sleep and food to function at full tilt; you tend to be absent-minded, and forget or lose things; your outlook is past and present-oriented, and life does not seem to present many opportunities.
The tides manifest themselves in a pulse just below the navel. This pulse rate corresponds to that found on the wrist. Having accessed your qi, place two fingers 1 inch below and 1 inch to the left of the navel, and see if you feel the pulse. Then try placing your fingers 1 inch below and 1 inch to the right of the navel.
A pulse on the left indicates flood tide, a pulse on the right indicates ebb tide. The pulse may travel further than an inch from the left or right of the navel. The further from the navel the pulse is found, the more pronounced the degree of the tide.
Another way to ascertain tide is: with the person lying on his back, watch carefully as they inhale and exhale. If the inhalation is longer than the exhalation, they are in a state of flood tide. A longer exhalation indicates ebb tide.
Doing kiryu on a regular basis will keep your bodys natural rhythm moving smoothly between the two tides.
Case History

My wife, Therese, was feeling and behaving uncharacteristically. Her hair wouldnt do what she wanted it to; she was constipated; she was moody; she slept and slept, yet could not shake off a feeling of tiredness; food did not taste as good as it used to; she had trouble concentrating, and frequently dropped things.
This state of affairs continued for a couple of months, and though it was annoying, we were only slightly worried that it indicated a deeper problem.
Our qi practitioner, Kayoko Matsuura, on the other hand, was overjoyed.
Your biorhythm is on a seven year cycle, and you are now at the lowest point of it, she chirped with delight. You could come out of it naturally, but that would take months. Why wait? Lets start you climbing back into flood tide today.
Mrs. Matsuura worked on Therese for thirty minutes, and declared that she was out of the woods.
We left Mrs. Matsuuras house and began walking towards the train station when all of a sudden Therese said she felt tired. She had been saying that for two months, so I did not pay any attention, but continued walking. I had gone about 20 feet when I realized that I was walking alone. Therese had fallen down in the road, dead asleep.
I could not revive her. I half-carried, half-dragged her to the station and pushed her onto a train. She slept the entire two-hour trip to our station. I then had to carry her home. The sight of a white caveman carrying his mate like a sack of potatoes excited a lot of comment in Tokyo. I dropped her on the bed, and she continued sleeping for eighteen hours.
When she awoke, she raced to the toilet where she ensconced herself for two hours of almost continuous relief. With the final flush, she returned to bed and slept another eight hours.
The next day her hair was working well and all of her lovable characteristics had returned.
She has passed through three more seven-year cycles since then. Her low point was never as pronounced as that first experience, by means of applying qi to the pulse on her right side, and by doing kiryu twice a day during her low period.

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THOUGHTS AT YEAR END 2008

MF writes: Become serene and think on this. The
full, rich, satisfying life is Either/Or.

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???????

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If you wish for death,

Then die! If for life,

Live on!

But, oh! What joy

Just to have been born

In this world.

Tanaka Shozo (1841-1913)

Be active without hasteenjoy the pleasure of deep breathingbe fair to yourself and othershave fun

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OH, BABY!

Part I (#26)

One of the most pleasurable qi experiences is to engage the qi of a fetus. From the moment of conception, the vital spark, the energy, the qi with its own brand of DNA are present and can be felt. The fetus has no political or religious affiliations to lock horns with, has no desires other than to get big and stay in a warm wet environment, and is eager to please in order to realize his/her desires.

After a two-year pregnancy drought, we recently had the pleasure of taking two women from conception to childbirth. We detected the presence of conception days before the result of the pregnancy test was announced. We monitored the pregnancies throughout their course, and true qi babies were born: 1) at the moment of birth, the baby is alert, and seems aware of its surroundings; then it goes into its baby mode 2) the baby has a lot of bottom, meaning it feels solid, almost heavy when you hold it 3) the skin has a glow and sheen.

So, you ask, what does baby qi feel like? Most commonly, it is a buzzing sensation like something tiny and intense vibrating in the hand. One of the women had a very mellow baby. This child produced a warm, flowing, wave-like sensation in the hand that never varied from conception through birth. This baby was very cooperative: she let her mother sleep through the night, did not kick or elbow her during rest times, and turned nicely about week 32.

The other child was more typical. He liked to play hide-and-seek from the qi, and would not always respond when called. What do you mean, when called?, I hear you ask. I mean that I place my hand on the mother in a location likely to find the fetus (for example, until the baby rises, the fetus is always under the pubic bone on the mothers left side; the baby always rises on the left just below the navel, etc.), and send qi specifically to the fetus. The fetus will respond with a burst of qi back to my hand.

Babies in the womb love to have the base of their skull caressed with qi, and will frequently come to the qi and turn so that they receive that caress. The hypothalamus is at the base of the skull, and this stimulates in utero growth and development.

In Chinese and Japanese, the word for womb means baby palace. This, to me, conveys a lovely image. The palace is large and clean and usually houses a single ruler. All things necessary to maintain a comfortable life are provided free of charge: food, air, water, warmth, and indoor plumbing. No wonder at some time or other we all wish to return there.

The baby palace is also a very secure place, full of sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not. The baby does not hear voices so much as experience them. He/she is enveloped by energy and vibrations within the palace walls. Qi is one more vibration for the fetus to enjoy and to respond to.

The mother-to-be lies on her back with her head on a pillow and a low bolster under her knees. Seated at her right side, I place my right hand just below her navel, usually on her left side, and my left hand on her right shoulder. I send qi with my right hand into the womb just as I would cast a fishing line into a lake, and wait to get a bite. Babies in the first and third trimester usually respond right away. Babies in the second trimester between the time they rise and the time they prepare to turn are playing here and there in the womb, stimulating their own growth and the development of their nervous system. They tend to treat my sending qi as a game. Eventually, they will come, but sometimes they will swim away and make me come to them.

This is the pleasure of the experience for me. The mother and I are both relaxed. Typically, we will have synchronized our breathing without conscious effort. I feel the warmth and security of the fetal environment, and also the sharp stirrings of life expanding. There is no eye contact, no verbal contact, no give and takethere is nothing but the physical sensation of two lives greeting each other and taking the measure of each others energy. The experience is pared to the essence of life. It may be primitive, it may be transcendent; Im not sure which, if either. It is fulfilling and bliss-inducing. It is an additional pleasure to be paid to receive such delight.

Oh Baby!

Part II (#27)

The energy, the qi, of a womans body changes perceptibly from the moment she conceives. As I have written in previous newsletters, we are all governed by biorhythms of various cycles. These cycles are similar to the Russian nesting dolls which live in diminishing size one inside the other, yet each has its own features and characteristics. There are seven year cycles, annual cycles, seasonal cycles, monthly cycles, weekly cycles, daily cycles, and even hourly cycles. The combination of these cycles we refer to as Tides. High Tide is when you feel sharp, alert, your skin texture is tight and good, your hair works well, you have a generally optimistic outlook, etc. Low Tide is when you feel dull, lethargic, your skin is texture is puffy and perhaps blotchy, your hair is a mess, and your outlook is on the dour side. In between are transition points which may have elements of both High and Low Tide.

From the moment of conception, a womans body moves into High Tide and, if the pregnancy is a typical one without complications, her body remains in High Tide until it is time to give birth.

Within a week of learning that Therese was pregnant, I felt a change in her energy when she gave me treatments. Her qi had become stronger and more incisive, yet it had a soothing quality to it. I felt this change physically, but I ascribed it to wishful thinking on my part. No doubt my delight at her pregnancy had colored my senses and led me to feel what was not, in fact, there.

Three weeks into her pregnancy when she and I were still the only ones who knew, Thereses patients began to feel the change. Not only did they comment on the intensity of her energy, but noted that her treatments, usually effective, had become much more so and took less time. What normally took thirty minutes to change in the body could now be done in ten. I had not been deluded by joy.

Not only had Thereses body moved into High Tide and remained there, but it seemed to me then and seems to me now that the female body contains a mass of latent power that does not come into play until the organism becomes pregnant. This is like Pavarotti using his voice to sing only nursery rhymes, or the space shuttle being used to go to and from the market: the greater part of the potential is wasted. The female body was created to reproduce in quantity, and it is at the moment of conception that the latent energy rises to the surface on the crest of her Tide.

The baby, on the other hand, is in Low Tide from conception, and is totally dependent on the mother for food and lodging. In the second trimester after she rises, the baby will do kiryu in the womb, exercising her developing mind and body. She will remain in Low Tide until it is time for her to be born. It is commonly understood in many scientifically advanced societies that the mother actively gives birth to a passive baby who doesnt do a whole helluva lot to get born. A lot of pushing and breathing and coaching and cheerleading are required for the mother to give birth.

In fact, just before the mother goes into labor, her body drops into a Low Tide passive state, and the baby jumps into High Tide. The baby actively fights it way through the birth canal and, if the English language will pardon me, borns itself. Once the baby clears the birth canal and the umbilical cord is severed, the baby immediately drops back into its totally dependent Low Tide state, and the mother, who must nurture and feed the newborn, swings back into High Tide.

Thereses energy returned to its original state following the birth of our son. She lost her superpowers with motherhood. Her qi changed and her biorhythm returned to normal as her pelvis closed during the first six post-partum weeks. It took about three months before we were able to gauge accurately our sons changing tides.

THE SIKE PRACTITIONER

Part I (#28)

Those who are occupied in the restoration of health of other men, by the joint exertion of skill and humanity, are above all the great of the earth. They can even partake of divinity, since to preserve and renew is almost as noble as to create.

Voltaire, 1776

It is the practice of modern medicine to see a stomach as a stomach and emotions as emotions. The former is mechanical and the latter is chemical, and so one is sent to different practitioners for each. However, a SIKE practitioner sees the mind and body as a single unit. More than that, one must recognize that the mind/body connections differ between individuals.

The difficulty of learning the technical side of SIKE is obtaining and implementing the knowledge of what technique suits what individual. Before you even begin the technical side of treatment, the practitioner must read the patients sensitivity in order to know how much to apply and where. This is, indeed, difficult, but if you are to treat each patient as an individual, you must first take a reading of his or her sensitivity/receptivity. Without taking the measure of the individual, you might end up giving them an ineffective or counter-productive treatment: like giving toast to a thirsty man.

Taking the measure of the individual is done by reading the head, both the anatomy and the energy, and by feeling the flow of qi along the spine. By doing so, we are able to discern past injuries and traumas, both physical and emotional, and how the body has accommodated them over the years. We can gauge quality of sleep, anxiety, tension, and other factors contributing to overall wellness or lack thereof.

There is a spiritual, even divine, side to giving treatment. In the moment it takes to effect a change in the patient, you feel as if you commit yourself to an irreversible action. It is as if your fate becomes inextricably linked with that of the patient who lies before you. That is why in Japan each and every patienteven parents with their children or family members together bow before receiving treatment. Practitioner and patient bow to each other. The significance of this act goes beyond the mere gesture of bonding through mutual respect.

First, it is actively involving the patient in the treatment; we give together and receive together. The sensitivity of a totally passive patient is difficult to read. Moreover, the practitioner is giving of her/himself, going all out to treat this human being as if this is the one and only time he will ever touch him/her.

To have a person lay there as passive and uninvolved as a bump on a log is not conducive to the practitioners sensitivity. The patient must be engaged in the treatment process.

Second, when you bow properly, your qi will collect at the tanden (3 fingers-breadth below the navel) as you exhale. This centers the qi of both the practitioner and patient, and so makes for a good start for an effective treatment.

Reading the spine is important, but it is just as important to be aware of the body shape, and the distribution of tension and relaxation throughout the body. Without this awareness, it is hard to know when the right change has taken place. The more sensitive the patient (and qi treatments will produce sensitivity), the faster the changes, and the less treatment is necessary. In really sensitive people, those who have had regular qi treatments, the body needs its own time and space to accommodate and adjust to the changes.

One cannot force qi on a person in the expectation of changing them quickly. That is like a door-to-door salesman flogging a useless product. It will provoke resistance rather than cooperation.

A moment comes when you feel a sudden change in the patients body: the qi has gone through and done it! It is a very liberating feeling. If at this point the practitioner thinks, Well, hes better, but not completely better. Just five more minutes of big qi will heal him completely, and act upon that thought, she will set back the healing process. You have to know when to stop.

The SIKE practitioners role is to initiate the healing process that will ultimately be fulfilled by the latent strength of the patient. Once you have felt the process begin, it is time to desist and let it carry on by itself. This means giving the patient time and space to heal himself before reading his spine again and giving treatment.

The least effective treatment is that where the practitioner takes control, and tries to force a cure. When one feels a change for the better, no matter how slight, leave it at that. Once the healing process begins, all it takes for most people is a good nights sleep for the body to adjust itself and accelerate the healing process.

Knowing the limit of each individual treatment is where the technical finesse of SIKE treatment lies. Knowing where to stop is the essence of treatment. A bad practitioner ends up doing a sort of qi-wrestling with the patient. It wears the practitioner out, and leaves the patient confused.

One must always remember, there are limitations to what one can do at a certain time. Just as one more drink will make you drunk, or one more bite will make you nauseous, that one more little bit of qi that takes you beyond a certain boundary will do no one any good.

One of the essentials of practice is learning to feel the boundaries.

Haruchika Noguchi, the founder of Seitai (SIKE in Japan), wrote: What we do is not a job or an occupation. It starts from caring for each others bodies and each others health, and so should be considered the cultivation of life and living rather than a job. In this sense, the practitioner must be an exceptional individual. He or she must bring a unique ability and potential to the skill. Certainly, practicing Seitai is immensely interesting, and this interest is what piques ones ability into action. Thus, one should not study Seitai, but rather follow ones interest.

People ask if we give medical treatment, and it is disingenuous to say No. However, if people ask what we do, I reply, 'physical education'. Literally, we educate people to their bodies. This entails changing our vocabulary, changing our procedures, and changing our outlook and goals. This is, indeed, what makes our work so special.

I do not want a clinic full of sick people waiting their turn to be healed. I want an association of healthy people taking care of each other so that, following their healing initiation into Seitai, they seek of their own accord a continuity of health and well-being and only a minimum of 'treatment'.

How SIKE differs from other qi-based disciplines and holistic modalities

SIKE does not seek to impose healing qi on an individual---rather, it seeks to remove obstacles and impediments to the individuals own flow of qi. That is to say, we remove obstacles so that the innate qi can effect a beneficial change.

Thus, we subtract rather than add. We persuade rather than coerce. We believe that the body is always inclining toward health, and that, barring impediments, health can be attained and maintained by the individual. Added to this is the power of suggestion; by this I mean working upon the individuals subconscious to induce change. We do this by carefully observing the body, and then pointing out how the individual can help him/herself simply by thinking that a healthy change is possible.

Your body is very responsive and shows great sensitivity to qi treatment. You should feel the positive effects very soon.

You may not have felt it, but your body has changed. It is very susceptible to this kind of treatment. You will probably have a slight cleansing, but nothing to worry about.

We do not rely on any tools, props, machinery, implements, tests, totems, talismans, incantations, or prayers. We seek to implant a healthy, positive idea in the individuals mind that will relax that person enough that his qi can naturally adjust his body.

We do not believe that everyone is capable of regaining health or attaining to a health status they never before possessed. We cannot turn a 94-pound weakling into a 200-pound body builder. We can, however, make him the healthiest 94-pound weakling he is physically and emotionally capable of becoming.

Since we are using qi to talk to qi, there are often instances where the qis do not get on or blend, and so treatment is fruitless. Some peoples qi defies treatment by certain individuals, and it is best not to get involved with such people if your own flow of qi is diminished or even halted.

We do most of our work through the nervous system(s) and extrapyramidal motor system. There is, naturally, some overlap of points and meridians between SIKE and other disciplines such as acupuncture, shiatsu, and qi gong. However, the majority of these overlaps do not correspond to the same organ or treatment in SIKE as in other disciplines.

This is because we work topically through the spine and the nerves therein to produce an effect or resonance that combines with points and meridians differently then when using needles or finger pressure.

Bones, muscles, and organs---any tissue---will not move without a neural command. This is how SIKE achieves its effects, by stimulating/inducing the tissue to change by means of a neural command. For example, in order to move the sacrum or coccyx or pelvis to treat backache or sciatica, we stimulate the surrounding muscle tissue to move, and this movement shifts the bones. Thus, SIKE is non-invasive and rarely uses manipulation.

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THOUGHTS AT YEARS END 2009

(#28)

Sometime around 30 B.C.E., a young Hindu ascetic found himself perplexed. There were so many different religions and schools of religious thought, each claiming its own superiority in the attainment and exposition of Truth. The young man decided to visit all the various schools of thought and houses of worship, seeking the religious leaders therein, in order to pose the following problem: standing on one leg, the sage must explain the essence of his religion. The young ascetic would offer his allegiance and devotion to whoever passed this test.

He traveled throughout India, Persia, and Hellenized Syria seeking out famous religious leaders. And to each he posed the problem. Each sage took up the challenge eagerly and with great confidence in his ability to expound the Truth while standing on one leg.

You see, each sage began, in the beginning there was this, which led to that, and so on until we come to, which led us to conceive that

After a couple of minutes, the leg supporting the sage would begin to tremble, and after another minute, he would fall over before he had even begun to discuss Truth.

The Hindu was disappointed, but was determined to visit Rome and beyond if that was what it took to hear the truth.

He was not destined to go that far. In the fifth year of his travels, he arrived in Jerusalem, and was told that a man named Hillel was a great sage with a genius for expounding Truth. The ascetic went straight to his school and put the problem to him. Hillel listened gravely.

The essence, eh? he mused, and then smiling, said that nothing could be easier.

Raising his left leg, he said, Compassion, and lowered the leg.

But how can you say that? The essence of your religion has got to be more than one word! exclaimed the young ascetic. Do you not have a lengthy Bible, and Torah, and Talmud and more? What do they represent?

Commentary, replied Hillel, and waved the young man away.


THE SIKE PRACTITIONER

PART II

Compassion is a powerful frame of mind that maintains its objective integrity. It looks upon objects and circumstances unmoved by impulse or high emotion. It is the supreme form of pity and tenderness.

Sympathy and a wish to do good at any cost are weak emotions that are at the mercy of subjectivity. They internalize an external problem, and frequently lead to wishing to put oneself in anothers place, or to take anothers pain upon oneself. One frequently has the feeling that one has been there and felt that, and that one has the ability to deal with anothers problem.

It is ear-catching political rhetoric to announce in varying degrees of sincerity, I feel your pain. The fact of the matter is, the politician neither does nor can feel anothers pain. One cannot internalize poverty or child abuse.

On the contrary, the practitioner is very susceptible to anothers pain. A gush of sympathy opens the door to the receivers qi entering you and bringing its problems with it. A practitioner who sympathizes with a receiver in the middle of an anxiety attack will himself become anxious, even panicky. To try and understand anothers stomach pain while giving qi to the stomach will bring that pain into your stomach.

Compassion keeps the mind focused and objective, allowing us to make the right move at the right time. Sympathy negates our objectivity, and clouds our judgment.

On the third day of a recent 5-day qi workshop, a participant complained of the sudden onset of a severe headache. One of the other participants exclaimed, You poor dear. I know just how that feels. Let me give you qi. She raced over and put her hands on the other womans head, and as fast as thought, the headache entered her and caused her to cry with pain. When I felt her head, the qi was stationary, and just whirled in a small space like a dog chasing its tail. These were the same symptoms as the first woman presented. She had unwittingly taken the womans pain upon herself, and was no longer an effective provider of qi. She would have provided relief and saved herself a headache by remaining dispassionate and acting out of compassion.

A sympathetic practitioner says, I will share that persons pain.

A compassionate qi caregiver says, I will remove that persons pain.

The need to remain objective and compassionate is applicable to any qi-giving situation. I call this state of mind dispassionate and compassionate. By dispassionate I mean fair, objective, impartial, and levelheaded. It is vital to bear these words in mind when giving treatment, for it is all too tempting to become sympathetic and try to save a person. You will simply take their frailties and afflictions upon yourself, and lose your ability to provide them with effective care.

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CHANGE OF PACE

(#29)

2009 was grim year in many ways. The more I think about it, in all ways. So its time to start the New Year with some yuks. Read on

A Brief History of Medicine

A man goes to a doctor to treat his earache.

2010 B.C. Here, eat this root.
1010 A.D. That root is heathen. Say this prayer.
1510 A.D. That prayer is heretic. Say this prayer.
1850 A.D. That prayer is superstition. Take this potion.
1910 A.D. That potion is snake-oil. Take this pill.
1970 A.D. That pill is ineffective. Take this antibiotic.
2010 A.D. That antibiotic is artificial and causes serious side effects. Here, eat
this root.

The Theology of Health

And God populated the earth with broccoli and cauliflower and spinach, green and yellow vegetables of all kinds, so Man and Woman would live long and healthy lives.
And Satan created McDonalds. And McDonalds brought forth the 99-cent double cheeseburger. And Satan said to Man, You want fries with that? And Man replied, Supersize them. And Man gained pounds.
And God created the healthful yoghurt, that Woman might keep her figure that Man found so fair.
And Satan brought forth chocolate. And Woman gained pounds.
And God said, Try my crispy fresh salad.
And Satan brought forth ice cream. And Woman gained pounds.
And God said, I have sent you heart healthy vegetables and olive oil with which to cook them.
And Satan brought forth chicken-fried steak so big it needed its own platter. And Man gained pounds and his bad cholesterol went through the roof.
And God brought forth running shoes and Man resolved to lose those extra pounds.
And Satan brought forth cable TV with remote control so Man would not have to toil to change channels between ESPN and ESPN2. And Man gained pounds.
And God said, You are running up the score, Devil. And God brought forth the potato, a vegetable naturally low in fat and brimming with nutrition.
And Satan peeled off the healthful skin and sliced the starchy center into chips and deep-fat fried them. And he created sour cream dip also. And Man clutched his remote control and ate the potato chips laden with cholesterol.
And Satan saw and said, It is good.
And man went into cardiac arrest.
And God sighed, and created quadruple bypass surgery.
And Satan created HMOs.

A Joke


A man goes to see a doctor because of chronic migraines. The doctor orders a battery of tests. After paying a small fortune in medical expenses and waiting a month for the results, the man is told, The problem is coming from your testicles. The results are conclusive and cannot be denied. The only way to get rid of your migraines is for you to be castrated.
The man is horrified, and stammers that there must be another way to solve his problem. But the doctor is firm, and painstakingly shows the man all of the test results and explains why they are conclusive.
Well, I am not going to be castrated, the man says.
Very well, says the doctor, youll just have to go on living with agonizing migraines.
A week later the man returns to the doctor and says that he would rather live without migraines than with his testicles. The doctor concurs, and says, I have a grief counselor on my staff. Why dont you speak with her before surgery? Im sure she can point you in a healthy, comforting direction.
The grief counselor says, Dont think of it as the end of something, but as the beginning of something. As soon as you are released from hospital, you should get a whole new wardrobe, something bright and cheery, and face the world as a new person.
So the man leaves the hospital determined to cheer himself up with a new wardrobe. Hes walked about 100 yards when there across the street is the sign
Mo the Tailor, Suits Made to Order. The man enters the shop and theres Mo, a small, elderly man wearing a gorgeous suit.
Id like the same outfit youre wearing, says the man. Its fantastic. The suit, the shirt, the shoes, the socks, everything.
Mo says, Okay, the your size is jacket 42 regular, slacks 37 waist and 32 12 inseam, shirt is neck 16 12, sleeves 33, shoes are 13 N.
The man is astonished. How can you know all that? You havent even measured me, but youre absolutely correct.
Mo shrugs. Ive been in this business 50 years. I can just look at a man and know his size exactly. Ill get the fabrics from the back.
Mo turns to walk away when the man says, And Ill take half a dozen pair of underwear to go with it.
Right, says Mo, size 38.
Hah! exclaims the man, youre wrong for once. I take size 36.
Mo shakes his head. Thats impossible. Size 36 would pinch your balls and youd have terrible migraines.

NEW DIRECTION

It is a banal truism that what every good newsletter needs to succeed is a serialized novel. Ask Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, P.G. Wodehouse or any other great figure in the history of newsletters, and they will concur. As obvious as this now appears, I have overlooked this vital point for the past 5 years. This is undoubtedly the reason why my newsletter has less than ten thousand readers, and not a single subscriber.


Now entering my sixth year of newsletter writing, I fervently wish to increase my readership, and this can be done, I believe, by removing the recipe segment of the newsletter, and replacing it with a serialized serio-comic novel. You can print it out and take it with you on your next visit to the doctor or dentist. You will be in a transport of interest and concentration in the waiting room, surrounded by miserable company who will ask what is so gripping. You will say, This serialized novel from the SIKE Health Newsletter has me mesmerized. They will rush home to order a subscription, and Voila, I will soon have a cult movement at my back.
Delusional, you say. Read on, I say.



UNCLE ARNIE

I met my Uncle Arnie only twice. He had two tickets in his pocket on both occasions. On the second occasion he was dead. I found the tickets while searching his pockets for personal effects at a funeral home.
Uncle Arnie died sitting on the toilet, trying to squeeze out the last ounce of stool. His frail, hypertense heart burst, a short sharp spasm shook his dentures loose and sent them clattering over the porcelain floor tiles, his flabby body convulsed, and he died instantly.


He died sometime between 11:20 and 11:45 on a Tuesday morning in late September. He had reported for work at 9:00 and stayed on the job until sometime after 11:10, the optimum time of day -he knew from forty five years experience- for absenting himself from his position long enough to go to the toilet without inconveniencing anyone. He was the elevator operator at the Silver Birches Home for the Elderly in Pittsburgh. He died in uniform; a bottle-green serge suit frayed at the cuffs, black patent-leather shoes smartly shined, and a doorman's cap. His underwear was threadbare and stained with yellow blotches on the front, his socks lacked heels and toes.


He was not missed until noon when a resident of the home, legally blind, groped her way into the elevator and found she would have to operate it herself. Her indignant whines brought two staff members running over from Reception. One took her to the third floor while the other launched a search for Uncle Arnie. Six people were summoned from different parts of the home, each given a sector to investigate. Arthur Pillars, the janitor and Uncle Arnie's closest friend for forty years, went straight to the toilet, saw the dentures gaping under the wall sink as if snapping at the plumbing, and kicked open the cubicle door. It was 12:20. Arthur Pillars was still crying when the ambulance arrived to remove Uncle Arnie's corpse at 12.55.


The paramedics saw in Uncle Arnie in death what everyone else had seen in life. A short, obese man of sixty with crinkly iron-gray hair cut short and unevenly, as if the barber had turned to look at a pretty passing woman while running his electric razor over the left side of Uncle Arnie's head. His face was unlined and carried his heavy lower jaw like a basket. He had drooled from his thick lips that did not quite meet, a habit of Uncle Arnie indicating surprise or excitement. His death had startled him.


Arthur Pillars picked up Uncle Arnie's dentures, wrapped them in his own soiled handkerchief as tenderly and dexterously as his trembling fingers could manage, and then placed the parcel of porcelain in Arnie's breast pocket as he rolled by on a gurney. He attempted to remove Arnie's watch as a keepsake, but the paramedics forbade him this, saying it was up to the family to dispose of personal effects.


The watch was a solid gold Patek Phillipe bought ten years before by my father, Arnie's fraternal twin, and given to Arnie on the occasion of his fiftieth birthday. The watch had a lizard skin strap that had not expanded with age as Uncle Arnie's wrist had. Two ugly, callused grooves were cut into the pink skin. People felt uncomfortable seeing Uncle Arnie wearing the watch. It is doubtful that Uncle Arnie enjoyed the watch, but it was the only lasting token of affection ever displayed him by his brother, Mort, and so he cherished it with idiotic intensity.


Luncheon at Silver Birches ends precisely at 1:00. At 1:03, residents wheeling themselves, being wheeled, walking, shuffling, limping or being led on an attendant's arm were treated to the sight of a corpse on a gurney being rolled out of the first floor toilet into the main corridor. Thinking the unfortunate victim one of their own, the residents there assembled were each and every one gripped by involuntary reflections on his own impending mortality. Reflections were given substance in spontaneous gasps, agitated shuffling, and a silent but vigorous wringing of liver-spotted hands. Emotions reached their highest pitch with the sudden spectacle of Arthur Pillars's tearful exit from the toilet. He flung open the loose-hinged door to crashing effect, propped himself against the corridor wall and wailed. Hearing aids were adjusted, and thick magnifying eyeglass lenses wiped. Holding on to his walker for dear life, Benny Balsom, Arnie's first cousin, grew agitated, then violent, and threw a punch at the attendant on his right. The young, burly attendant caught the punch on his shoulder, and grimaced with unexpected pain. Taking advantage of the cover provided by the surging ancients, the young man slapped Benny's face hard enough to swivel his head. For the first time in years, Benny felt that he was really living.


Arthur Pillars was by this time pacing the hallway, sobbing lustily in stride.
"Who is it?" cried a woman at the back, inquiring into the victim's identity.
"It's Arthur Pillars," answered a spry octogenarian from the front who misunderstood the intent of the question.
Attendants counseled their charges to that effect. "It's Arthur Pillars." The name Arthur Pillars surged through the crowded corridor, having the effect of a wet woolen blanket thrown over just-ignited kindling. Benny Balsom put down his free duke, and relapsed into vacancy.
"So we get us a new janitor," someone muttered, and the throng dispersed in mute disappointment.
That brief, intense commotion was the second my Uncle Arnie had caused since the day of his birth. He died as he had lived: alone, quietly, blamelessly, giving as little cause for offence as possible. Only the staff knew that it was indeed he who had died. They placed a memorial plaque on the elevator door. To The Memory Of Arnold Balsom For A Lifetime Of Service.
________________
Uncle Arnie's birth had turned a celebration into a commotion. His birth was the last, and perhaps gravest commotion in my Grandpa Eddie's commotion-filled life. To one like myself, raised in the affluence of post-war America, my Grandpa Eddie's pre-immigration life reads like a Jewish parable intended to scare pampered children into an awareness of the evils of the world. It is a story of mindless persecution resulting in dire hardship that should arouse the indignation of all ethical people having civilized traits. Yet indignation does not arise, for Grandpa Eddie survived, and went on to indite a classical American success story that would have been so archetypal as to be corny had not Uncle Arnie been born to mar the perfection of the tale.


My Grandpa Eddie was a youth of sixteen living in a small village in Galicia -a now-vanished Central European province- when he was abducted by agents of the Russian Army and sent to the front of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904. During his arduous passage across the Russian expanse, he was forced to learn the craft of cooper. However, a series of strategic offensives and counter-offensives necessitated his sudden re-training to the jobs of coffin and shroud maker. His introduction to needle and thread for dressing the dead would ultimately provide his livelihood, but lacking foresight, he felt no gratitude to his Russian captors. He plotted and schemed for months before seizing an opening to desert. He reached Warsaw a year later on foot, a wasted, wary boy. Ghetto Jews helped him with food until his strength somewhat revived. And with that strength he stole a bicycle and peddled his way to the French coast where he crossed by fishing smack to England.


His haphazard, but intense, wartime training qualified him for the job of tailor's apprentice. After three years of apprenticeship for a gent's bespoke tailor shop in London's West End, he obtained the title Master Tailor, and acquired as much English as he would ever know. It was now time for him to step out from the back room and into a shop of his own. He would need a helpmeet, and so engaged a Whitechapel matchmaker to find him a suitable bride. She was a small, deferential Jewish Czech immigrant then living in Whitechapel. Her world was so small it was easy to be captivated by the scale of his dream: he would take her to New York City with the intention of growing wealthy by catering to the Fifth Avenue carriage trade.


He was miserably disillusioned, of course, living with Central European Jewish immigrants as poor as himself. They brought him hand-me-downs to be mended. Bespoke was a word he never again heard. After the birth of two sons, Eddie moved his family to the seedy Heron Hill section of Pittsburgh where he opened a small shop specializing in alterations. Another son was born, and by the time his wife, Edna, became pregnant for the fourth time, Grandpa Eddie had established a stable, meager existence. He felt that his trials were over. He began to drink wine with dinner. Now that he had some money, he planned a celebration for the birth of his fourth child who, he was sure, would also be a boy.


Grandpa Eddie unknowingly followed Jane Austen's dictum to 'think on the past only as it gives pleasure', and never spoke of his past life, nor of his great disappointment at Uncle Arnie's birth. Grandma Edna was the family historian and archivist, and it was from her that I heard the tale of her youngest son's birth. She was a fresh-faced, sweet-tempered woman shaped like a cabbage. In fact, the resemblance was not only visual; a faint aroma of boiled cabbage hovered about her like a vapor, even when she wore scent. She had thick, doughy fingers growing out of flat, hard palms that she rubbed together while talking, as if to generate the heat necessary to the story her monotonal delivery lacked. She did not accept life passively, nor did she rage at life's hardships and vagaries. There was a reason for everything that happened, sometimes knowable, sometimes not. The reason for Uncle Arnie's birth was simple and final: "We were poor."


Grandpa Eddie and Grandma Edna came to visit with us in Miami when I was eight. They rented a small, dingy apartment in South Beach that Grandma Edna soon marked with the scent of boiled cabbage. It was an environment evidently congenial to Grandpa Eddie, for he rarely left it. In their old age it was Grandma Edna who had become the active and enterprising partner. She surprised me with an offer to take me to see Yiddish vaudeville. After the show, at my urging, we took a bus to First Street to see the ocean.
We walked slowly along the broad wooden pier. Grandma Edna was overdressed for the heat of Miami. She puffed rhythmically, forcing dead air out of her tight throat. Golden bars of light reflecting off the still water beneath us shone through the gaps in the planking, spangling the hem of my grandmother's plain dress as if with sequins. She looked like the queen of a down-at-heels court.
"Your Uncle Arnie would like this place," she said, spaciously indicating tall coconut palms, the vast refulgent ocean, gleaming beaches, and a powerful sun. "He works indoors and lives underground and has never had a tan. It's very sad."


There was a writhing haze wafting over the further reaches of the ocean into which swift gulls darted. A stray breeze stirred the tips of sand mounds and raised sparkling foam on the slim sea ripples. Sunlight enveloped the world, cauterizing it with rich, healthy heat. I squinted and wiped the encroaching sweat off my forehead. The sadness of a man without a tan seemed as intangible and remote as the haze on the horizon.


We sat on a bench ornamented by a laconic fisherman standing at either end like guardian deities. Grandma Edna rucked her cotton dress up to her knees, crossed her legs and removed a shoe. She massaged her foot and sighed blissfully. Her fat foot seemed delighted by the hot air; the toes wriggled like sea anemones at flood tide. After she had massaged her other foot, she settled down to the task of explaining Uncle Arnie.


Grandpa Eddie planned, for him, an extravagant celebration for the birth of his fourth child. As in the case of the other three births, this, too, would be done at home with the aid of a midwife. The family was poor and could not afford a hospital birth for each child. Besides, Grandma Edna was by that time a past master at giving birth.


In the late afternoon of September 1, 1916, Grandma Edna went into labor, the very day foreseen by the local midwife. This was to prove the longest and most painful of her four labors. But when the contractions began, it was the moment for Grandpa Eddie and his guests to begin celebrating. The midwife was summoned, but she, too, was a poor woman with many people to see and many babies to deliver. By the time she arrived late that evening she was as tired as a carthorse. Grandpa Eddie was beside himself with worry as his wife's contractions continued without any result other than increasing her pain. Grandma Edna had her eyes clenched shut and had begun praying in Hebrew, a sign for worry, when the baby who grew into my father, Mort, tumbled out pink and slick. Eddie reached for heaven as if to grasp God's neck and pull the face down to be kissed, and shouted with delight, "Another son!" Edna smiled for the first time since going into labor. A glass of wine was brought her. Everyone in the little house crowded into the narrow bedroom and toasted mother, father, and midwife. The infant was held up for all to behold and admire. At this triumphal moment, Grandma Edna went into labor again.


The midwife, groggy from exhaustion and Passover wine, stammered with surprise that there should be twins. With slow deliberate movements, she removed the baby that had become entangled in its own umbilical cord. The infant was still alive. It gasped when smacked repeatedly on the behind, but it did not cry.
"It's got damage to the brain," the midwife said sadly. "I've seen this before."
In the end, it was Grandpa Eddie who cried, as did Grandma Edna when she closed her story. I did not cry listening under the glowing tropical sun. Brain damage was a child's crude taunt, an unknown quality I frequently accused my enemies of possessing. And Arnold Balsom, for all that he was my uncle, was an unknown quality living underground in Pittsburgh, an unknown city. I could now put a name to a condition, and by so doing invented my unique taunt, 'like an Uncle Arnie'.
To be continued...

SIKE HEALTH

QI ENERGY WORKSHOP

February 20, 2010

Therese & Mallory Fromm will be giving a beginner/intermediate workshop in the SIKE Technique at our home on Saturday, February 20, from 10:00-4:30. The cost is $125, and includes: learning to access and transmit your qi, fundamentals of healing and health maintenance, an individual treatment, a great lunch, and conversation with interesting people. Detailed information about the takeaway skills taught at the workshop can be found at www.sikehealth.com. Click on Workshops.

We cannot over-emphasize the benefits of taking a workshop. The knowledge and skills learned at a workshop enable the individual to understand his/her own diagnosis and treatment; how to maintain health and accelerate the healing process at home; how to treat others for aches, pains, and minor ailments. We plan to emphasize techniques for health maintenance at home, with particular attention to kiryu as a simple, elegant, and effective means of wellness and mental clarity. And finally, each participant also receives a treatment, which is included in the cost of the workshop.

TF adds: We pride ourselves on offering each individual client the knowledge and means to pursue his/her own healing and health maintenance. If you want to know what is going on in your mind/body and how to direct yourself toward health, then our workshops should not be missed! And perhaps best of all, a facility with qi makes you nice.

For reservations and information, phone 818-992-0713, or email us at info@sikehealth.com.

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