I have seen this before. It is a very effective method that is similar in a way to scrog in that you are trying to control the height and evenness of the canopy. However, there is one flaw in this method(well actually 2 flaws). One is that this method will only work with plants that are not sexually mature yet while doing the training. It is best used on plants from seed. It can't be done with as good of results (if at all) with cloned plants that are already sexually mature as the nodes are already alternating.
This method has to be done on the young plants that are only about 3-5 nodes tall, as the nodes are symmetrical with each other(the leaves grow out in pairs rather than staggered). Then all you do is
top the plant that has 5 nodes, at(just above) the 3rd or 4th node. This will cause a stem "pair" to grow equally up and away. As soon as the node pair grow up a few cm(an inch or 2), you will bend them over in opposite directions and tie them down so that they remain horizontal. Once the growth continues out and turns up enough for the next 2 node pairs to fully emerge, you then
top each stem by snipping away the growth that is above the first set of leaves, after they turn to vertical.
That will result in there being 4 branches that will emerge. 2 branches on each side of the first "T". Once they grow out enough to handle them, you would bend these 4 over to horizontal and tie them to hold them in this position(bending these 4 branches so that each branch pair will be split away from itself as you did with the first top and bend). once these 4 branches grow out some, the stem will have formed an "H" pattern when looking down from above. You can stop at this point if you have an Indica dominant plant and grow a 4 stemmed plant, or you can continue to top and split the node pairs until the plant reaches sexual maturity(when the nodes begin to alternate).
I suspect that you will rarely get more than 16 main branches with this method before the nodes begin to alternate. You will also have to go back and remove any extra growth below the "tops" that are created so that all the energy is directed to the tops of these "main" lines of growth.
While this is an interesting method for those who don't want to scrog, the scrog method will achieve the same results and be a little less complicated to do. In my opinion. However, if you are limited to just 1-2 plants and you have a lot of area to work with, you could do the mainline method and then place a screen over the 8 branches and then allow them to grow out horizontally beneath the screen(by continuously tucking the new growth under the screen) until they are ready to flower and then flip your lighting to 12/12 and allow all of the side branching that comes off the 8 major branches to come up through the screen to be the bud branches.
It sounds complicated but its not really. You just have to remember the steps and then keep tucking the new growth until 2 weeks after you have flipped the lights to 12/12
