How do Meridians Relate to Yin Yoga ?
By Rebecca Andrews
So What Exactly Are Channels?
Unless you're a practitioner of TEAM (Traditional East Asian Medicine) ie Doctors of Chinese Medicine/ Chinese Herbal Medicine / Acupuncturists / Practitioners of Japanese Acupuncture, Shiatsu or Qi Gong Practitioner, you probably haven’t spent that much time contemplating and working with channels, or ‘meridians’.
Yet, one of the distinguishing features of Yin Yoga is its acknowledgment of the channel network. Plus its exploration of how a Yin Yoga practice might engage or unblock these ‘Channels’. So what are they?
It is thought that the channels have their origins in China. Documents discovered in the Ma- Wang Dui tomb in China, which was sealed in 198 BCE and opened in 1972 refer to the meridian system The concepts of channels (meridians or conduits) in which the Qi (vitality or information vital to life) flowed are well established by the time The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine emerges. This canon dates from about 100 BCE. The information is presented in the form of questions by the Emperor and learned replies from his advisor, Chi-Po. The text is likely to be a compilation of traditions handed down over centuries and it is still cited in support of particular therapeutic techniques today.
Rebecca Andrews from The Way of Yin explains channels as
‘There is an innate intelligence that is holistically self-organising us. An interwoven network that unifies the systems of the body into a coherent and responsive whole. The channels are alive and are inherently involved in this process of holistic self- organisation. They are an interconnected web that create both form and communications within a human.’
The name for the Channels in Chinese is the Jīng Luò. These are two separate words.
Jīng
The first character sī is often translated as silk or a thread that is woven into a fabric. The second radical in the character Jīng, represents underground rivers, currents that carry intelligent, mystical or divine fluid like substances. Remembering that the context here is the human body. So what are the structures that are strong, yet flexible, are woven-like and situated underneath the surface of the skin, carrying not only ‘water’ but also potentially chemical and electrical messengers. There is a growing consensus that the classics are talking about the Fascia.
Luò
The first radical in this character is also sī , silk and the second part of the character means net. According to Keown in the Uncharted Body the best translation of this character is ‘collagen net.’ A microscopic structural support network. The way the cells group together to make tissue. He is suggesting that we can think of Jīng as the macroscopic anatomy structure of our body and the Luò as the microscopic histology. Both nets, made of fascia or collagen, that form channels, conduits, spaces for Qi to flow, one macro, one micro.
So are the Channels the Fascia?
Short answer , No. The Channels are the spaces between the walls of fascia. A channel is conduit for something to pass through. The fascia creates the channels, but they are not the channels, just like the banks of the river are not the river.
There are more than the 12 ‘Main Meridians’
The Jīng Luò / Channel network is divided up into :
Cutaneous regions
Tendino-muscular (Sinew) Channels
Luò channels
Divergent Channels
12 primary channels
8 extraordinary vessels
The Tendino-muscular (Sinew) Channels | The Jīng Jìn
Here at The Way Of Yin, we believe the part of the Jīng- Luò that are most affected by a Yin Yoga practice are the Tendino-muscular Channels, often referred to as ‘Sinew Channels’ or in Chinese , Jīng Jìn.
So what are the Jīng Jìn | The Sinews ?
We finally have some concrete modern understanding due to wonderful dissection work by Dr. Poney Chiang PHD. The channel sinew were first detailed in the Han dynasty (206 BC–220 AD) A famous text Ling Shu , chapter 13, entitled ‘Jīng Jìn’ contains the original detailed descriptions of the pathways and diseases of the channel sinew. Publishing their findings in 2017, Chiang and associates dissected the entire channel sinew network confirming the anatomical structures and descriptions referred to in the Ling Shu. These structures include nerve trunks/branches, muscles and fascial connections. They are long fibrous neuro-muscular-fascial chains that are continuous and have a direct connection from one muscle to the next along the chain.
The Jīng Jìn | Channel Sinew | Tendino-Muscular Channels:
• Are neuro-myo-fascial pathways.
• Show pathways of trigger point referral and nerve pathways.
• Involved in neuro-myo-fascial release
• Are involved in resolving inflammation
• Have no internal pathways
• No organ connections
• Cross front and back
• 6 of channel sinew pathways include cranial and cervical nerves
• Are an aspect of the immune system
So what about the Tom Myers Anatomy Trains or Myofascial Meridians?
Tom Myers and associates are responsible for groundbreaking innovative work dissecting out the ‘anatomy trains’ . In Thomas Myers’ book, Anatomy Trains, Myofascial Meridians for Manual and Movement Therapists, he categorizes these muscle and fascia connections as myofascial meridians. Myers is not using the term 'meridian' to denote a classical Chinese channel, but instead is describing interconnected continuous myofascial structures.
Myers myo-fascial meridians and their use are primarily concerned with the biomechanics of structure and functional movement plus identifying optimal areas for myofascial release.
Myers is a structural integration practitioner, not a TEAM practitioner; he originally omitted any comparison to the Jīng Luò, basing his work solely on western anatomical findings. In the appendices of his book’s recent addition he talks about the close relationship between the two meridian systems being inescapable and has consulted with .. and they draw some conclusions. Wonderfully for us, Dr. Chiang has specifically compared the CS , not just the primary channels (as Myers consultants have) to Tom Myer’s MM. What is also really exciting is that Dr Chiang compares the anatomical dissections, rather than diagrams or descriptions.
He found in the lab, that there are indeed times where both the MM and the CS share the same trajectory, yet the CS extend further and in the case of 6 channels they include cranial nerve pathways. In the Chinese classical canons of Medicine, CS pathways are described as specific neuro-myo-fascial anatomy that is utilised with Acupuncture and manual or movement therapies to resolve specific acute and chronic pathology such as jaw pain, toothache, headache, neck and back pain, facial palsies, cranial nerve pathologies etc.
To summarize, the Channel Sinew were known about and have been used in Traditional East Asian orthopedics , therapeutics and martial arts at least since the Han dynasty. It is only recently however, that they have been dissected in their entirety in a modern anatomy lab.
Both the Anatomy Trains and the Channel Sinew are involved in the biomechanics of structure and functional movement and in identifying optimal areas for myofascial release. What’s important is to know their roots, their differences, that they belong to two different medical paradigms, West and East. To remember that we don’t look to the West to validate the existence of channels. They exist and have been in functional use for a long time. It's interesting to look at them through a bioscience lens, through the lens of Yin Yoga, but we must respect their origins and history of evolution.
It is our view at The Way Of Yin that one could explore the relationship with either the Anatomy Trains or the Channel Sinew and Yin Yoga. We also believe, out of the whole net of the human channel network, the Jīng Luò, it is the Channel Sinew, these neuro-myo-fascial chains that are the most relevant in a Yin Yoga practice. Although It is possible in teaching and practice to get specific about engaging different channels through posture, breathing, movement and therapeutics. We must always always remember they are embedded in the whole net of the human channel network, the Jīng Luò.