Study with us CURRICULUM
Seven days in Tokyo, for one technique
AGO Visceral Manipulation. You come to Japan and learn it over seven days, taught by the practitioner who built it.
In Japan this technique is only sold as part of a six-month programme. We have opened it as a course on its own because practitioners outside Japan keep asking for this part, and not for the rest.
- 7days
In Tokyo, in person
- 6people
A group of six at most
- 660,000yen
Tax included
Who this is for
Practitioners who already work with their hands, and who want a way of reaching the organs that does not rely on force. Men and women alike — the six-month programme in Japan is for women, but this course is not.
You do not need to read Japanese to feel what is being taught, but see the note on language below.
What you will actually learn
In acupuncture there is a sensation called de qi — the moment the needle catches, and the tissue answers. AGO reaches it with the fingers instead of a needle.
Most hands-on work of this kind is taught as feel, and left to talent. We have written it down as four physical steps, with no theory in them — only what the fingertip and the skin are doing. That is the whole of what we teach, and we are showing it here.
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Step 1
Balance the force — the 1:1 zero point
Sink to the depth you are aiming for, then stop dead. Hold your pressure against the pressure the tissue pushes back with, one to one. Press harder and the body guards; press less and you slide across the surface. Only while that balance holds does a small change in the tissue reach your finger.
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Step 2
Build tension — shear, and twist
Keeping the balance, add three vectors at once: pressure straight down, a horizontal slide of a few millimetres (shear), and a tiny rotation around the point of contact (twist). Take out the slack until the fingertip catches — until it feels as though the tissue has taken hold of you. That is the doorway.
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Step 3
Reach the meridian — two fingers, stacked
Lay the middle finger of the left hand on the skin, and stand the middle finger of the right hand vertically on its nail. Drill down along the meridian. The moment you feel tension, hold — and do not move at all. Sustained tension makes the tissue give way; the wall softens, and the finger is drawn deeper on its own.
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Step 4
Cancel the noise — let the arm go
Your arm and hand go completely slack. They are sensors, nothing else. If you push with the muscles of the finger or the arm, your own contraction drowns out what you are trying to feel. Depth and direction are governed by moving your own centre of gravity — the tanden, low in the belly — by a few millimetres.
And how to correct yourself when it goes wrong
The course comes with a matrix that runs the other way: from what you felt, to what you did wrong, to the command that fixes it.
The fingertip slides across the surface → you have not reached the 1:1 zero point, or your horizontal slide is too wide. Sink again, vertically.
The tissue pushes your finger back hard → you are pressing with your arm. Let the arm go, and rebuild the pressure from your centre alone.
There is nothing held back for the room. What we teach is written here, in full.
Taku Yuyama
How AGO reads the body
The technique sits on a way of seeing the torso that we call block theory.
The torso as one cylinder
Take the ribs as the top face and the pelvis as the bottom face, and read what lies between them as a single cylinder. That cylinder is squashed out of shape by how a person stands and sits, and pressed down by gravity. The organs leave the positions they should hold, and descend.
The organs as a factory
Among everything the organs do, one of the most important is making hormones. The brain — the pituitary — decides which hormone, and how much. The organs make it to that order. So the brain and the organs are two ends of one line, and AGO works on both.
What squashes the cylinder, in daily life: how you sit and stand, what you eat, what you carry mentally, how little you sleep, how little you move — and, we would add, how many supplements you take.
The seven days
The days are spent on the contact itself. Reading the body, finding the zero point, holding it, and knowing from your own hand whether you have it or not.
In a group of six at most
Small enough that your hands can be watched and corrected, and that you have someone to work on other than a model. The exact timetable is settled with the people who are coming, so tell us your dates when you ask.
Online lectures with English subtitles — planned
In Japan the practical course sits on top of a large archive of recorded lectures, so that the days in the room are not spent memorising order. We are preparing English subtitles for that archive. They are not ready yet, and we will not pretend otherwise. Ask us where it stands when you write.
Who teaches it
Taku Yuyama, who created the AGO method®. Twenty years in manual therapy, and 70,000 people treated. He still sees clients at the salon in Aoyama, and he teaches this course himself.
Why it is written down at all
Looking at other schools, he kept meeting the same thing: the founder is known, and the students are not — so when the founder goes, the technique goes with him.
What AGO passes on is not a person. It is the technique and the thinking behind it, written so that whoever teaches it and whoever learns it arrive at the same place. The four steps above exist for that reason.
As a doctor, I have felt the effect myself. It is a safe treatment.
Dr. Chika Muto — Director, Moto-Azabu Hills Medical Clinic
I believe this method has the potential to help resolve problems of the jaw.
Dr. Hiroshi Murakami — Director, Murakami Hiroshi Dental Clinic
Things you should know before you come
Language
Taku Yuyama teaches in Japanese and will look after you himself. Much of this work is taught hand on hand rather than in words, but not all of it. Tell us how much Japanese you have, and whether you are happy for us to use a translation app in the room. We would rather know in advance than find out on the first morning.
What this work does to a body
The organs carry a great deal of blood, and this work reaches them directly. During or after a session a person may feel light-headed, or unsteady on standing, or simply unwell — most often the first time. It passes. Breathe slowly, and drink water afterwards.
Because it reaches the brain and the organs at once, the body can react for a day or so while it settles. You will meet this in yourself during the seven days, not only in the people you work on. We would rather you knew now.
This is new for us, too
We have taught this technique in Japan for years, but this is the first time we have opened it on its own to practitioners coming from abroad. Travel, where you stay and anything to do with entering Japan are yours to arrange. Ask us about anything that is not written here, and we will give you a straight answer, including when the answer is that we do not know yet.
Fee
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Seven days in Tokyo
AGO Visceral Manipulation
660,000yen (tax included)- Seven days, in person, in Tokyo
- A group of six people at most
- Taught by Taku Yuyama
- The four steps, and the correction matrix
- A certificate on completion
A certificate is issued when you complete the course. It is ours, and says what you have learned here — it is not a licence, and it is not connected to any other body’s certification.
Travel, accommodation and anything to do with entering Japan are arranged by you. Ask us about anything else.
Why it is half the Japanese fee
In Japan, this technique sits inside a six-month programme that starts at 1,200,000 yen before tax. This course is 600,000 yen before tax — exactly half. Not a lighter version of it. Two things are simply not in it.
You already have hands
Most countries license manual practitioners far more strictly than Japan does. Almost everyone who comes to us from outside Japan already holds a qualification, and has already spent years with their hands on other people. We do not have to teach you that part, so we do not charge you for it.
We teach the technique, and only the technique
The Japanese programme also teaches how to find clients, how to price, and how to build a practice here. You know your own market better than we do. That half of the course is not here, and it is the other reason the fee is what it is.
Paying
Credit card only, through UnivaPay
We take the fee by credit card, handled by UnivaPay, a Japanese payment provider that works with cards issued outside Japan.
Visa, Mastercard, JCB, American Express, Diners Club and Discover.
There is no bank transfer. Nothing to arrange with your bank, no international wire, no correspondent fees taken out along the way.
The rest of what AGO teaches
In Japan, this technique is the second of three. The first is the one AGO is known for here — AGO Golden Face Line, working from the jaw joint to set the lower third of the face. The third, AGO Perfect Alignment, is for taking pain away, and is still being prepared.
Those run as a six-month programme in Japanese, for women, at 1,200,000 to 5,000,000 yen (before tax). If you want to go further than the seven days, say so and we will talk about what that would take.
Write to us
Tell us where you are, what you already practise, and when you could come. Taku Yuyama will read it.
Ask about the seven-day course We will tell you honestly what is possible, and what is not settled yet.
If you would rather feel the work before deciding anything, the salon in Aoyama is here.