Shiatsu Society News Autumn 2007 Page 10

Let me ask you something; how, practically, doyou perform a Shiatsu session? I am guessinghere that, plus or minus a few individualvariations, your form is as follows do a Haradiagnosis and, on the basis of Kyo and Jitsu inthe Hara, choose a couple of Meridians to treat;use a Yin, stationary hand (mother hand) tolisten, support and guide while the Yang, activehand works along the Meridian; pay attentionto the empty, weak or deficient areas in orderthat the tense, hard ones can relax. This,broadly speaking, is the form that at least 90%of practitioners in the UK follow, and this formwas developed by Shizuto Masunaga. It isthanks to Masunaga that we use the familiarHara diagnostic areas, the practice of themother hand, the concept of Kyo and Jitsuand their interaction. Most of us, whether wethink we are doing Zen Shiatsu or not, are usingthe practice which Masunaga introduced andwhich is known as Zen Shiatsu, after the title ofhis book published in the West thirty years ago.

Masunagas work is the foundation for thedeveloping practice of Shiatsu in the West, yetthe importance of his work is poorly understoodfor the most part, and he is little credited. Letus look for a moment at the history of Shiatsuteaching in this country to understand why.

Although Shiatsu must have been practised by afew isolated individuals in the UK during thefifties and sixties (I know of only one) it was notuntil the Seventies that the spirit of the timesencouraged its manifestation on a wider scale. Ihave books on my shelves that indicate whatbecame available at that time for exampleThe First Book of Do-In, published inCalifornia in 1971 (by the Happiness Press!).The enthusiasm for Macrobiotics that began tosweep through Europe and the West in the 60sand 70s engendered an equal enthusiasm fortraditional Do-In and Shiatsu, practised as anadjunct to the Macrobiotic diet.

Shiatzu (with a z) by Yukiko Irwin (publ.1976), is a guide to family treatment for the layperson. It shows lines of (unlabelled) points tobe pressed with 20-pound or 15-poundpressure, one thumb on top of the other, withthe pressure coming from the givers shoulders

and back. This is pretty much standardNamikoshi style; the Namikoshi school (whichYukiko Irwin attended before she began topractice in America) is the only one which willget you an official certificate to practise inJapan, so the Namikoshi style predominates.Incidentally, if you check out Shiatsu inWikipedia you will see the control which thisschool still exerts over the definitions of Shiatsupractice.

Massage, the Oriental Method by KatsusukeSerizawa, M.D., (publ.1972), is a more scholarlytome, combining some elements of traditionalJapanese massage (Amma) with some Chinesemedical theory. Along with his descriptions ofrubbing and tapping, Serizawa mentions usingthe weight of the whole body in pressing pointsand he also instructs us to press towards thecentre of the receivers body, showing anawareness of the importance of intention inShiatsu practice.

Serizawa also mentions another avenue throughwhich Shiatsu reached the West, that of themartial arts. Many Judo and Karate teachersincluded Shiatsu techniques for healing injuriessustained during training, but there is nowritten material to record their methods.

Shiatsu did not really take off in the West untilthe arrival of Wataru Ohashi. A fantastic teacherand performer, he made Shiatsu accessible tothe droves of people who attended hisworkshops in Europe, where he arrived in thelate 70s following the publication of his bookDo-it-Yourself Shiatsu. But his book, whichwe all bought, though easy to read, wasnothing like as exciting as the style of Shiatsuwe learned in his workshops. In fact, Ohashiwas teaching the Zen Shiatsu style he hadrecently received from Masunaga while visitingJapan after writing his book. So the Zen Shiatsustyle arrived in Europe well ahead of itsoriginator.

Apart from the heady buzz of learning anancient healing art from the exotic East, theappeal of the Shiatsu we were learning at thattime came from the difference in emphasiswhich the Zen Shiatsu style offered; that ofrelaxation, the mother hand, attention to the

Homage to Masunaga by Carola Beresford-Cooke

Carola Beresford-Cookehas been practising andstudying Shiatsu since1978; she sat next toMichael Rose at thebeginning of her firstShiatsu workshop withWataru Ohashi, andhasnt looked back. Shewas one of thefounding members ofthe Shiatsu Society andof the Shiatsu College,and has written or co-written several books,including ShiatsuTheory and Practice.She practises Shiatsuand Acupuncture inWest Wales.

Shiatsu Society News Autumn 2007 Page 11

Kyo. These are first principles to us now butthen they were utterly ground-breaking. Noprevious method had advocated theseprinciples; we didnt know that, and just divedinto the Zen technique we knew only asShiatsu with gusto. Ohashi was a natural topropagate the style, since he rejoiced in thefluid dance of relaxed bodywork and wassupremely able to communicate the concepts ofHara and crawling which are still usually thebasics of every Shiatsu beginners first lesson.The extent of his reverence for, andindebtedness to, Masunaga were not, however,widely known.

Masunaga had developed the practical aspectof Zen Shiatsu long before he perfected thetheory, which he only finished just before hedied. By that time we had gleaned our theoryelsewhere, where we could. The Macrobioticgroup found their theory within the Macrobioticsystem, others found it in Five Element theory,popularised by a single, some say renegade,Acupuncture school, but instantly attractivebecause of its cosmic connections. In the 80s,as the graduates from the Chinese Acupunctureschools, only recently open to Westerners,began to return and disseminate theirknowledge, TCM was added to the repertoire.The theory of Zen Shiatsu came in fourth,disadvantaged by its simplicity and hampered bythe fact that the Zen Shiatsu technique workedbrilliantly, no matter which theoretical model itwas attached to. To labour a point, let merepeat that we are nearly all of us doing ZenShiatsu, and the fact that we dontacknowledge the originator of the technique isbecause he never publicised or claimed it in thiscountry. He was a modest man, and also quiteill when the moment to seize fame arrived. Butperhaps we were not ready to understand themagnitude of his contribution, being merebeginners in the traditions of the Sons ofHeaven.

The great leap forward in the Zen Shiatsutechnique was the introduction of themother hand to counterbalance the workinghand, and the corresponding theoreticalinnovation is the relationship of Kyo and Jitsu.

For the first time, the active commingling of Yinand Yang was brought out of the textbooks andput into dynamic practice. In Acupuncture thereceivers stores of Yin or Yang can bestimulated individually, by needle or moxa. Inprevious styles of Shiatsu, the healing mixingand blending of Yin and Yang was performedwith the hands, but intuitively, withoutconscious awareness or teaching of how it washappening. Masunaga was the first philosopherof East Asian medicine to define in practice, aswell as in theory, the dynamic connection of Yin(mother hand) and Yang (working hand). Sideby side with this practical innovation came thenew concept of seeking the Kyo, oftenmanifesting on the physical level as empty,weak, hollow, deficient, in counterbalance tothe more obvious, active Jitsu. This, too, hadbeen conceptually familiar to Acupuncturists,who tonify Deficiency or sedate Excess inorgans or Vital Substances as separateprocedures. The innovation came in seeking andexperiencing the Kyo in relation to the Jitsu,both on the Hara and within the Meridian.Once again, the mixing of Yin and Yang cameoff the printed page and into the experience ofthe giver of Shiatsu.

It has proved to be the key to unlocking andunderstanding a new world of experience ofenergy. Through the conscious training of thetwo aspects of ourselves, the receptive and theactive, as well as the seeking out of theseprinciples in our receiver, we become moresensitive to the exchange and resonanceoccurring both within and between thereceivers field and our own. By field is meantthe complex of the various fields already knownto be produced in living tissue by electrical,electronic and magnetic activity, as well as thoseyet to be discovered or investigated (Oschman2000). These three forms of activity depend, tosimplify the case, on reactions between positiveand negative charges; transposing thephenomenon back into the original Chinese, wecould say they are produced by reactionsbetween Yin and Yang. The Chinese philosophyof dual, opposite yet interdependent polaritiesdoes in fact, we now know, underpin the fabricof life. When we connect with the interaction

It has proved

to be the key to

unlocking and

understanding a

new world of

experience of

energy.

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between them in the process of bodywork wegain entry into the many-layered and intricatenetwork of communication within the humansystem. In other words, using our two handsdifferently enables us to experience themovement of Ki with greater sensitivity.

Masunaga was a modern philosopher, apragmatic man whose interest was in systemsthat work. Through Kyo and Jitsu and themother hand he found that the connecting ofYin to Yang does indeed increase theexperience of Ki. His research into Meridiantheory is equally practical in its conclusion.Studying the writings on Chinese medicine fromearliest times through to the present day, andthen linking his conclusions with what iscurrently known about human biologicalfunctions, he evolved a theoretical system of theMeridians and their functioning so simple that itcan be written on a single sheet of paper, yetinfinitely profound in its possible interpretations.

Simply put, his final conclusion in terms ofMeridian location and function is TheMeridians are where they are because they dowhat they do.

Masunagas hypothesis was that if Meridians arereal, they must exist not only in humans but inother forms of life, and they must expressthemselves in the everyday functioning of thoseforms. He took each Meridian pair in the time-honoured order of the Chinese clock andexperimented with positions which activated,stretched or otherwise emphasised thatMeridian pair, noticing how the differentpositions affected consciousness. From thisperspective he could re-define the classicalfunctions of the Meridians, simplifying theminto a basic movement of energy common to alllife-forms, such as which way to turn? orobtaining nourishment. By simplifying thelocations of the Meridians to front or backor edges/borders the movements of energy

Homage to Masunaga

Order of Life CycleMasunagas theorydiagram

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Energy Medicine: The ScientificBasis James L. Oschman PhD.Churchill Livingstone 2000

Science and Civilisation inChina Vol.2 Joseph Needham,Cambridge University Press,1956

The Influence of YangShengVivienne Lo, unpublishedarticle

expressed in the Meridians became clearimpulses which could form themselves in thesimplest of body shapes, such as that of theone-celled amoeba. The Life-Cycle of theAmoeba, at first glance almost too simple tobe interesting, is in fact a sophisticatedexplanation of the relationship betweenconsciousness and form from the single cellupwards. The movements of energy it describescan take place in terms of physical function individual cells within the body must obtainnourishment, adapt to danger etc. throughthe emotions and into the subtlest vibrations ofthe human field, which an amoeba resembles.

Masunagas extended Meridians are the subjectof much debate. Are they versions of the 6Divisions? Substantially, yes. Are they the deeppathways and connecting Meridians? Often,yes. Clearly, he was also familiar with theMeridians of the Han dynasty figurine found ina tomb at MianYang, from an era beforeAcupuncture confined itself to points. But it isnot worth arguing the toss, for the Japaneseapproach to Meridians and points is far moresubjective than that of the Chinese; find it byfeeling seems to be the approach. It is whatthe Meridians express, how they resonate in thehuman field, that is Masunagas focus, and hefollowed that resonance throughout thereceivers body by the pathways that presentedthemselves to his touch.

Masunagas theory is the first to be exclusivelyMeridian-related, the first to apply exclusively toShiatsu. Repetition, over-veneration of traditionand the gradual narrowing of culturalperspective had diluted the original expandedvision of Taoist energy medicine, whosepractitioners described the experience of Ki inMeridians and Tsubos in phrases such as thisfrom the Ling Shu the celestial pivots are inthe cavities; clear, quiet yet subtle, the comingcan not be met with and the goings can not befollowed. Masunaga forged a Shiatsu stylewhose theory, inseparable from its practice, re-animates this tradition and renders itcompatible with Western scientific knowledge.In this thirtieth anniversary year since his namefirst reached the West, he deserves to beremembered and honoured.

Masunagas extended Meridians are the subject of much

debate. Are they versions of the 6 Divisions? Substantially, yes.

Are they the deep pathways and connecting Meridians? Often,

yes. Clearly, he was also familiar with the Meridians of the

Han dynasty figurine found in a tomb at MianYang, from an

era before Acupuncture confined itself to points.