Dear Luigi, how are you?
I’m writing to you from Hong Kong, where we have just completed a Level 1 course organized by the Sports Therapist Association in collaboration with Carpenter. The course went very well. Here in Hong Kong, sports therapists focus more on manual therapy than physiotherapists do, and many of them demonstrated strong skills in palpatory anatomy and manual techniques.
Before coming here, I conducted courses in Japan and Thailand. In Japan, as always, we had an excellent group of students and outstanding organization. Private clinics dedicated to fascial therapy are rapidly increasing in Japan, where they primarily focus on fascial manipulation. Currently, there are nearly 90 clinics from which we receive information and updates.
In Thailand, the course was very interesting. It was organized by a Brazilian physiotherapist married to the daughter of the director of one of the major massage and traditional medicine schools in Chiang Mai. This school attracts many students from all over the world year-round, eager to learn traditional Thai manual therapy. The course went well, although some students hadn’t watched the hybrid videos beforehand. I added an extra half-day of training free of charge, and we managed to cover all the material thoroughly. Among the attendees was a geriatrician who was in Thailand to study Thai massage and manual therapy. She was deeply impressed by the course, especially after experiencing firsthand the benefits of fascial manipulation. She had chronic pain and restricted movement in her ankle, resulting from a knee surgery that doctors deemed untreatable. After two sessions, she experienced a complete remission of symptoms and restored range of motion.
During my time in Thailand, I had the opportunity to meet several traditional doctors and manual therapy masters. Many of these practitioners claim to treat the fascia, employing diverse techniques with concepts and key points remarkably similar to fascial manipulation.
One master in particular practices visceral therapy, resembling Chi Nei Tsang. He treated me, and we exchanged insights. He even invited me to study with him. His therapy has been passed down through his family for three generations. I was quite surprised by his approach: after the anamnesis, he decided to focus on the stomach (ADI, according to his evaluation, was the main issue). He performed abdominal work (LU, TH), followed by the upper limbs (CU, CA), shoulder girdle (Pivot), neck, and head (control catenaries), targeting lateral-lateral points and regions (an-lu 1 2, an-la-pv 1, an-lu, an-pv, la-cx, re-la-cu, la-ca, la-sc, re-la-sc, an-la sc 2, la-cl, re-la-cp3 2). Next week, I’ll study with him, and I hope to be able to update you soon.
In Chiang Mai, I also had the chance to visit the anatomy department at the local medical school. The director, who is a friend of the course organizer’s wife, expressed interest in studying fascia in relation to the Thai medicine lines (Sen Pratan Sib).
In Japan, I also met a renowned Seitai master who studied with one of the first direct students of the famous master Noguchi. I gave him a fascial manipulation book as a gift, and we spent an afternoon discussing therapy. We were both moved by how seemingly different paths lead to similar understandings and treatments for patients. We agreed that on my next visit to Japan, we will spend a few days treating each other and exchanging knowledge. The Seitai approach he practices includes an interesting interpretation of psychosomatic components, which reminds me a lot of your own approach.
As always, I thank you for everything — not only for teaching me a technique but for providing a method and a way of reading the patient. This allows me to treat patients even when language barriers limit communication, offering a key to understanding the human body and therapeutic processes that helps me recognize similarities across seemingly different healing systems.
A big hug
Marco Pintucci