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207 of 225 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A work of true genius, and lots of sweat, October 5, 2001
I am a Board Certified MD Neurologist, with osteopathic training, a Yoga Practitioner of 25 years, and have been teaching Yoga in the Ashtanga and Iyengar styles for 10 of those years. I was familiar with Tom Myers' work for some time. Needless to say I was awaiting this book's release with an anticipation that was not disappointed.Myers is that rare bird who can convey his insights in a way that is not only accessible but also enjoyable. As is often the case, the revelations in his book (and all of his previous articles) will, I predict, have a profound effect in the Medicine of the XXI century, and have come from "outside" the mainstream of the profession. The style is agile and yet precise (I particularly enjoy his command of Latin) The book's design is ideal both for straight-through reading and for focusing on particular interests the reader (manual therapist, yoga instructor or practitioner, etc) may have. The illustrations are awesome (to use that tired adjective, for once, in its true etymological sense) although my edition lacked the one facing page 93 (Superficial Front Line) due no doubt to a printing snafu. The basic idea, that tensegrity ()tension integrity) patterns and structures undergird function at a macroscopic level, while not new, is presented here with clarity, scientific and anatomical rigor, and esthetic sense. It is, above all a practical book, a veritable "Instruction Manual for the Human Body" whether our own or that of the fortunate human that is a reader's cliant. The few errata (Myers should have specified that piezoelectricity is a property of some materials, having to do with their molecular conformation and disposition; specific glial cells are called "oligodendrocytes" not "oligodendrytes"; the mesoderm, rather that the endoderm, gives origin to endothelial cells in page 36) are minor, and do not detract at all from the overall quality of this work. I imagine that Myers is already hard at work, perhaps taking this to the next level of visceral manipulation, all the way (who knows) to the manipulation of cytoskeletal and trans-cellular elements. There again, yogis and yoginis have been manipulating microtubules and integrins for millennia... Make no mistake, there is nothing "New-Agey" or "woo-woo" about this book, though. It is as concrete, flesh, blood and sinew as they come. I could not recommend it more heartily.
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by Ida P. Rolf Ph.D.
by Blandine Calais-Germain
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