Shiatsu is a form of Complementary Therapy that takes a holistic approach to supporting individuals in moving towards greater health and wellbeing.

Shiatsu is a relaxing treatment and can be beneficial for back pain, stress, headaches, whiplash injuries, neck stiffness, joint pain and reduced mobility and many sports injuries amongst other ailments.

Shiatsu is a Japanese word meaning “finger pressure”. It’s a new name for the oldest form of medicine – healing with hands. Everybody has the healing power of touch and responds to touch. It is a form of holistic health care that people are now beginning to recognize again. It’s a powerful complementary therapy that uses hand pressure and manipulative techniques to adjust the body’s physical structure and its natural inner energies, to help prevent illness, and maintain good health and promote a feeling of rejuvenation.

Shiatsu is characterized by its great simplicity. It grew from earlier forms of massage, called Anma in Japan (Anmo or Tuina in China) which use rubbing, stroking, squeezing, tapping, pushing, and pulling to influence the muscles and circulatory systems of the body.

Shiatsu, by contrast, uses few techniques and to an observer it would appear that little is happening – merely a still, relaxed pressure at various points on the body with the hand or thumb, an easy leaning of the elbows or a simple rotation of a limb. It almost seems a lazy activity and, to the extent that it conserves one’s energy, it is. But underneath the uncomplicated movements much is happening internally to the body’s energy on a subtle level.

Subtle Energy in the Body
Chinese medicine, one of the oldest traditions of natural healing, describes the world in terms of energy. All things are considered to be manifestations of a vital universal force, called ‘Ki’ by the Japanese, ”Chi”, or ‘Qi’, in China. Because of the Japanese origins of Shiatsu Therapy, the Japanese word Ki is used in preference to the Chinese word, Chi. Ki is the primary substance and motive force of life. It is most often described as “energy”, but Ki is also synonymous with breath in the Japanese and Chinese languages. In traditional Chinese medicine, harmony of Ki within the human body is conceived as being essential to health. All its endeavours are addressed to this end.

A brief history of Shiatsu

The Development of Shiatsu in Japan
Shiatsu was developed in the early part of the 20th century by a Japanese practitioner, Tamai Tempaku, who incorporated the newer Western medical knowledge of anatomy and physiology into several older meth­ods of treatment. Originally he called it “Shiatsu Ryoho”, or “finger pressure way of healing”, then “Shiatsu Ho “, “finger pressure method”.

Now known simply as “Shiatsu”, it was officially recognized as a therapy by the Japanese Government in 1964, so distinguishing it from the older form of traditional massage, Anma. The role of shiatsu therapists is to diagnose and treat according to the principles of tradition Chinese medicine.

Chinese origins of Shiatsu
The earliest known book of Chinese medicine is called The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine. In it the legendary Emperor questions his physician, Ch-I Po, about problems of medicine and health among his people. In one well known passage Ch’i Po explains that different forms of medicine were developed in different re­gions according to the prevailing climate and the resulting constitutional problems from which people suffered. Treatment using herbs, needles and heat were attributed to Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Western re­gions, but development of physical therapy including massage and breathing exercise was accorded to the people of China’s central region.

Thus began the long association of massage and manipulative therapy with special physical exercise, breathing techniques, and healing med­itations which represented the highest level of Chinese medicine. These came to be known collectively as “Tao Yin”, methods for guiding the subtle energies within the body to flow smoothly. Shiatsu is the modern inheritor of this tradition.

Chinese medicine was introduced to Japan by a Buddhist monk in the 6th century. The Japanese developed and refined many of its methods to suit their own physiology, temperament, and cli­mate. In particular they developed the manual healing and diagnostic arts, evolving special techniques of abdominal diagnosis, treatment, and ab­dominal massage.

Styles of Shiatsu
Many early Shiatsu practitioners developed their own style and some, including Tokojiro Namikoshi and Shizuto Masunaga, founded schools that helped establish Shiatsu as a therapy. There are many different styles of Shiatsu today. Some concentrate on “acupressure (acupuncture) points”. Some emphasise more general work on the body or along the pathways of energy to influence the Ki that flows in them. Others high­light diagnostic systems, such as the “Five Element” system or the macrobiotic approach. But all of them are based on traditional Chinese medicine.

Author: Liz Knox