I am working my way back through 275 emails after a week away from USA and month away from home, so I am going to speak generally, and not to the specific question:

KMI (Kinesis Myofascial Integration) is my attempt to stand on Ida's shoulders, developing specifically:
1) the logic of the recipe
2) the reliability of language and process in structural bodyreading, and
3) the paedagogic model.

I moved away from the Rolf Institute to do this, going on a Leave-of-Absence from the Anatomy Faculty, and recently resigned altogether, at their request, from this group.  I did not leave because I am mad at anyone, or because the Rolf Inst was sinking, or any of that, but there was clearly no room for such a pilot program within the RI policies, and I really wanted to conduct this experiment.

My program is currently 475 hours, moving next iteration to 500 total.  I accept, with only a couple of exceptions so far, only manual practitioners (read: massage therapists for the most part, plus a few PT's or OT's, and a couple of Rolf or GSI grads, my exceptions are yoga or Pilates teachers with manual background) with minimum 500-hour AMTA-standard educational backgrounds, and minimum 3-years experience.  To date, I have brought about 50 people through this program, and another 15 will be coming through this spring, and another 20 or so starting this summer in Montana.

During this time, I have been accused of many things (stealing students from the RI, putting down the GSI, cashing in {ha-ha!} - all of which I vehemently deny, but what's the use ...I have been given a privileged position in terms of my ability to reach a number of therapists via speaking at conferences, etc.  I have tried to be a fair representative of ALL SIin my talks, since it is usually my subject - not only the 'big 3' - RI, GSI, and Heller - but also the smaller schools, who have also produced some fine and skilled practitioners - Soma, Core, Zen, IPSB, et al, and yes, KMI, too.  I was foolish enough to think thatI might even get some thanks for this, since so few others in the upper ranks of the SI community seem to be willing to go to these conferences and write the articles, etc, but very few people, I have noticed, get thanks from the SI crowd for any public effortsvs the number of people who get torn down.  Why is this, do you suppose?

1)  Paedagogic model:  like the RI and GSI, KMI training is in two fairly intensive parts of about equal length.  In KMI, Part 1, however, gives very little time or attention to the 10-series, but centers itself around a 3-series based roughtly around 8-9-10 (girdle-girdle-spine).  This allows us to get into the ideas and practice of a multi-sessions series, with its relationships, session strategizing, and the recursive nature of habit change.  We work thoroughly with fascial anatomy, bodyreading, and other contact and background skills (especially in the way they differ from massage), and work with the 3-series in the same way we will with the ten - working on a classmate, working on an outside model, pictures, self-recrimination, the whole bit.

This has three results:  a) the whole body is covered so that we get a sense of the whole banana (rather than doing the first three sessions of the series, say), b) the students have something concrete and discrete to practice between Parts 1 and 2, and c) 8-9-10, when we reach it, are not such a mystery.  Too many SI folks I know, from ALL schools, feel like they run off a cliff when they get to the last 3 sessions.  They cling to something they heard, they work out something of their own, they work on whatever's left in the client's structure - but it is a weakness of our educational system in general.  This is my attempt to be creative with this problem.  It seems to be working, but more time and some comparison among practitioners would be needed to be sure of that.

Part 2 is very similar to what used to be called 'Practitioning' - classmate and model exchange on the 10-series - with minor differences - one of which is that I am changing the logic of the recipe, to a 12-series.

2) Logic of the recipe:  Any of you who have seen my material on the Anatomy Trains can view my reworking of its logic.  The concept is simple, perhaps simplistic, and has not been out there long enough for anyone to take a serious shot at it, but I am looking forward to that process.  The first three sessions parallel the first three sessions of Ida's recipe, except that I outline them in terms of the Front, Back, and Side Lines of myofascial concitnuity, thus breaking the lower leg, for instance, into its separate fascial compartments to accompany these three sessions.

I am now inserting a 4th superficial session, a Spiral Line sessions, to counter what I feel to be an over-emphasis in Ida's recipe on the body's ability to hinge, and slight neglect of its ability to rotate.  Therfor, the summary session of the superficial part of the series is the Spiral Line, which weaves in and out of these other superficial lines.

Sessions 5 & 6 parallel the original 4 & 5 - the lower and the middle portions of the core or Deep Front Line in my terms.  Ida's session 6 (my session 7 now) is a 'Deep Back Line' session, or (again my terms) 'inner bag' (peri-articular) session.  Session 8 (Session 7) likewise puts th top on the Deep Front and Deep Back Lines.

To the usual 8-9-10, as earlier discussed (and practiced in Part 1 for KMI-ers), I have simply added an arm session, for the Arm and Functional Lines in my book, and no one can deny that these poor hangers-on have gotten short-shrift in SI education.

Voila, a 12-session series - the basic 10 with an addition of a rotational session after the first three, and an arm session during the last 3.

3) Logic of bodyreading:  please read chapter 11 in my book, or Michael Morrison's article on a structural terminology a few Rolf lones ago.
 

I am not wanting to hide what I am doing; I am happy for everyone to share in it,  subject it to critical evaluation, use it, bounce off it, whatever.  There is mystery enough in this world without holding tight to some thing you think you can know and not tell others.  The SI world has been in that position for too long, and the world is passing it by for that reason.  Take your light out from under its bushel!  Shine, shine, shine.

Sorry for the long post, verbosity is unfortunately the only soul my wit knows.

Respectfully submitted,
Tom M
 
 

ETOAL4@... wrote:

 Hi all,
I would love to hear more about the KMI 3-series Eli mentioned.  Tom?
Ed Toal

In a message dated 3/8/2002 7:06:48 PM Alaskan Standard Time, bostonmassage@... writes:
 
 

PS. the 3-part basic series that I am referring to is Tom Myers first
level KMI training.  It is a once over in 3 sessions, as far as I
understand it is the ending of the 10-12 part session, designed to
fine tune and mesh the work into a consistent whole... perhaps there
is someone else here who can speak better of it...

 

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