Yin Sotai

The Development of Yin Sotai

My Sotai journey starts with Stephen Brown, whose Sotai seminar I took twice (1999 and 2001), to Peter Thompson (2003) and Jeffrey Dann (2004). With all of them I had ongoing contact after the initial study. Stephen also taught me the Shudo style of Meridian Therapy, for which I will also be forever grateful. Peter’s work arrived in my life at just the right moment when I had ample free time to explore what I learned from him. It changed my life. The same could be said of Jeffrey’s Koshi Balancing system, which includes Sotai. 

What I gleaned from these three teachers and worked out with my patients eventually started to evolve a bit into a more personal style, a style a bit gentler than what I had learned. I had a dream (literally) that I should bring Trager bodywork into my practice of Sotai, so I learned Trager style bodywork and used it as a sort of linkage between Sotai moves. Trager bodywork is characterized by a gentle rocking, the goal of which to bring nervous system change. I also went on to study Feldenkrais (not the whole training), took 12 years of Alexander Technique lessons, studied Taoist qigong tuina (a very subtle pulsing of yin and yang in the tissues), and all of these influences pushed me in a very yin, i.e., gentle, direction. Again, dreams came to confirm I needed to move an already gentle system, Sotai, in an even gentler direction. Thus, was slowly born over time Yin Sotai.

The Role of the Nervous System

Sotai, as conceived by Dr. Hashimoto, is a nervous system therapy. Some even call it neuromuscular reeducation. A lot has been learned about the nervous system since Dr. Hashimoto passed away, and we can use these new findings to influence how we do our Sotai. This was key in establishing Yin Sotai.

Moshe Feldenkrais had a profound understanding of the nervous system. He lived years before we were speaking of neuroplasticity, but he understood and utilized the concept. He emphasized the need for subtle inputs if we want to make significant nervous system change. I took this to heart and now request my patients to be soft in their efforts. I know stronger patient efforts deliver results, because this is what I did for years, but my investigations now are far subtler. I think of this Yin Sotai almost as a research project.

Feldenkrais also sought to challenge his clients’ habits with sophisticated movements. He might ask them to move their head one way, but their eyes the opposite way, all while doing movements in the pelvis. The idea was not to learn to do these movements “right.” The idea was to create new neural pathways, to create a greater degree of freedom for the client, so that they were no longer slaves to their habitual movement patterns—the idea being that in many cases these very habits led to the pain that these patients contend with. In Yin Sotai I use more sophisticated movements as well. I might, for instance, ask a patient in supine position to move the right shoulder anteriorly while also moving the left ASIS posteriorly. 

My first thought was that patients would not be able to do the more complicated movements, but I have found that to not be the case. Everyone is able to do these types of movements. What I have discovered is that these movements involving shoulder to hip, hip to knee, knee to ankle, and so on, are able in just a few minutes to make a significant global shift for the patient.

Pattern of Distortion (POD)

The POD is a key theoretical concept in Sotai that explains how dysfunctions can move through the body. For example, if we have plantar faschiitis in the right foot, we will walk in such a way as to favor it. This means we will have too much weight coming into our left leg. The tendency then over time will be for a problem to develop in the left leg. The POD concept says that it likely will show up in the left ankle. From there it might over time create a problem in the right knee and then on to the left hip, and so on zigzagging up the body (actually it is a spirallic movement through the body, not a zigzag, but we represent it that way on a piece of paper).

It occurred to me that the POD could be used to generate Sotai movements. I assess with a light touch—just a little more than gravity. This signals to the patient that our work together will be gentle. For instance, as I rest my hands on the patient’s knees I can tell which one does not “want” to move down toward the table (relative to the other, that is). I request the patient to move this knee up toward the ceiling, while with the other knee I start in an elevated position and invite to move back to the table. This idea of playing one side off against the other is a key element of Yin Sotai. This cros-body work activates the core pelvic stabilizing muscles. It is amazing how much positive change it generates.

The key areas I assess in my POD exam are ankles, knees, ASIS, ribs, shoulders, neck. A 20-minute supine session might look like this (but don’t treat this as a kata per se):

  1. one ankle dorsiflexes while the other plantar flexes
  2. one knee lifts while the other moves back to the table
  3. right ankle to left knee, then left ankle to right knee
  4. ASIS anterior of posterior as testing shows
  5. ASIS to left knee, then ASIS to right knee
  6. Ribs sliding left or right as testing shows
  7. Ribs twisting
  8. Ribs sliding one direction and opposite ASIS taken up or down as testing determines
  9. Various shoulder moves possible
  10. One shoulder moves anterior (toward ceiling) while the other starts up and moves back to the table
  11. One shoulder slides up to the ear, while the other slides down toward the foot
  12. Rotation in neck
  13. Lateral flexion in neck
  14. Extension-flexion in neck

Treatment as Education

Instead of “fixing” a patient’s problem, I see myself as offering educational insights into how the patient organizes her movements. F.M. Alexander simply referred to the “organization of the self.” We serve our patients best if they leave a session with us a bit wiser and with a greater degree of freedom in their bodies. I want them to learn something new about how they do life in their bodies each time they come for Yin Sotai.

Novelty

Jeffrey Dann got me thinking about novelty early on. He has his patients get ever gentler as they do the same Sotai movement three times. Moshe Feldenkrais, I suspect, would be happy with this idea. In Yin Sotai we can also introduce other avenues to novelty. Instead of three movements at the ASIS alone, we can do one, then involve the ribs as well, then involve the shoulders as well. All of this keeps the nervous system from getting entrained. We want to create newness for the nervous system if we want change.

Linkage

I explained above that it was in a dream that I was told to add Trager bodywork to Sotai. At the time I did not even know what Trager therapy was, but I went out and found a few tutors who agreed to work with me outside the normal training system. I eventually attended some seminars as well and got DVDs of Milton Trager himself working. I would put the DVD on a big screen and then do with a model exactly what he was doing on the DVD. This was a great way to learn from Milton Trager himself.

Trager style is characterized by a gentle rocking over the entire body after an initial brief phase of meditatively connecting to the patient’s nervous system. Milton Trager encouraged an attitude of playfulness, curiosity, and effortlessness (wu wei) in his work. Once I learned the system and got comfortable in it, I saw how it could serve me in Sotai. Patients need a break here and there in a Sotai session from breathing on command and doing the movements. I choose to use the Trager rocking as a sort of psychic break for the patient (Trager referred to his work as Psychophysical Integration—in his medical training he did a two-year residency in psychiatry and had a strong interest in the “mind-body” connection that was emerging in the culture at that time.) This gentle rocking also serves to link different areas of the body. For instance, I do rocking of the upper leg after work on the knees and before work at the ASIS. In the neck and shoulders the Trager work becomes particularly important.

Basic Principles in Working with the Nervous System in Yin Sotai

  1. Both sides working (explained above)
  2. Different parts of the body moving together, e.g., ASIS and shoulder
  3. Use of linkage between some of the movements (explained above)
  4. Variation – make each movement somehow different from the previous one
  5. Movement with attention -a key principle for creating brain change
  6. Slow movements – going fast you will always produce the habitual and stay stuck in it
  7. Subtlety – opposite of no pain, no gain. (morewithlessing of Buckminster Fuller)
  8. Acture as focus- Structure in action (a Feldenkrais concept)
  9. Assess with a touch that is “just a little more than gravity” (a phrase I learned from Russell Delman)
  10. Global attention/awareness as we work – we should be assessing in an ongoing fashion as we work, i.e., Yin Sotai should not be kata-like in a formulaic sense

Secondary Principles

  1. Soft hands that communicate confidence, ease, compassion, competence
  2. Clear, concise directions to the patient
  3. Smooth flow from one move to the next
  4. Start in lower body and move up to the head
  5. Body positioning for practitioner ease and safety
  6. Pleasant voice that encourages a feeling of safety