Shiatsu?
By Pauline Sasaki, Director of Quantum Shiatsu
Shiatsu is a system for healing and health maintenance that evolved in the early 1900's in Japan and is closely related to the ancient healing art of acupuncture. Indeed, the main distinction between shiatsu and acupuncture is shiatsu's use of finger pressure in place of needles.
Because giving and receiving shiatsu are pleasurable experiences, many people mistakenly believe that shiatsu is merely another form of massage. To appreciate the much broader role shiatsu can play in helping you achieve and maintain physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing, you need to have at least a fundamental understanding of the way Eastern philosophy conceptuatizes health and its relationship to the human body.
Since ancient religions forbade any type of surgical intrusion that would reveal the anatomy and physiology of the human body, early healers relied exclusively on external observations and touch. Based on these observations, especially those made by people endowed with exceptional sensitivity and insight, the concept evolved that health is directly related to the condition of a life-force called Ki. Although Ki roughly translates into English as "energy", the term refers not to "energy" in the Western sense, but to a force that affects and even controls a person's entire life structure, including his or her physical health.
In the Eastern concept, Ki travels within the body along energy channels called meridians, fourteen of which traverse the body vertically and eight horizontally. The unobstructed, balanced flow of Ki along the meridians is both the cause and the effect of good health.
Unfortunately, Ki is not always able to flow freely. Blockages can and do occur along the meridians at points called tsubos, throwing Ki out of balance. These blockages can stem from physical, mental or spiritual stress. When blockages are present, one or more meridians may become underactive. In the early stages of imbalance a person senses these blockages as discomfort, and in the most advanced stages as illness and disease.
Skill in both acupuncture and shiatsu is reflected in a practitioner's ability to identify the affected tsubos and then insert needles or apply pressure to remove the blockage. With practice, some people develop great sensitivity to the flow of Ki within the body and are able to effect substantial changes in Ki balance relatively quickly.
If acupuncture and shiatsu are so nearly alike, why rely on shiatsu at all, considering that acupuncture has been practiced for thousands of years and has even achieved respectability in Western medicine? The answer lies in the fundamental nature of the human hand.
Since man's beginnings, hands have been used instinctively to express inner feelings and emotions. (Obvious examples are the use of the hand to make such gestures as handshaking and praying.) Moreover, the hands are exquisitely sensitive, containing as they do vast quantities of nerve endings. To practitioners of shiatsu, the unique role hands play in expression and communication make them the ideal instrument for evaluating the state of the meridians within a person's body and then manipulating them. Consequently, hands, imbued as they are with important qualities and abilities that needles lack, are the focus of the modern refinement of acupuncture known as shiatsu.
Although shiatsu on one level is a skill, in a larger sense it constitutes a comprehensive approach to health and well-being. Eastern medicine believes that the body contains natural powers of self-healing that Ki imbalances hinder. By identifying and rectifying imbalances when they first occur, before they become chronic or severe, a regular program of shiatsu permits the body to exploit to the fullest possible extent its own resources for self-healing and for maintaining a state of optimal health.
Trained shiatsu practitioners spend years developing the ability to diagnose and deal with the energy imbalances associated with severe illness, disease and pain. However, if you are fundamentally healthy, you can learn with relative ease many shiatsu techniques useful for routine health maintenance. Incorporated into a general strategy for health, these skills enable you and your family to take advantage of a modern, highly acclaimed system for maintaining a state of physical and mental well-being that is based upon techniques that have been successfully used in Eastern cultures for thousands of years.