Homage to Masunaga
Authors Note:
Carola Beresford-Cooke
has been practising and
studying Shiatsu since
1978; she sat next to
Michael Rose at the
beginning of her first
Shiatsu workshop with
Wataru Ohashi, and
hasn’t looked back. She
was one of the
founding members of
the Shiatsu Society and
of the Shiatsu College,
and has written or cowritten
several books,
including “Shiatsu
Theory and Practice”.
She practises Shiatsu
and Acupuncture in
West Wales.
by Carola Beresford-Cooke, MRSS(T)
Let me ask you something; how, practically, do
you perform a Shiatsu session? I am guessing
here that, plus or minus a few individual
variations, your form is as follows – do a Hara
diagnosis and, on the basis of Kyo and Jitsu in
the Hara, choose a couple of Meridians to treat;
use a Yin, stationary hand (“mother” hand) to
listen, support and guide while the Yang, active
hand works along the Meridian; pay attention
to the empty, weak or deficient areas in order
that the tense, hard ones can relax. This,
broadly speaking, is the form that at least 90%
of practitioners in the UK follow, and this form
was developed by Shizuto Masunaga. It is
thanks to Masunaga that we use the familiar
Hara diagnostic areas, the practice of the
“mother” hand, the concept of Kyo and Jitsu
and their interaction. Most of us, whether we
think we are doing Zen Shiatsu or not, are using
the practice which Masunaga introduced and
which is known as Zen Shiatsu, after the title of
his book published in the West thirty years ago.
Masunaga’s work is the foundation for the
developing practice of Shiatsu in the West, yet
the importance of his work is poorly understood
for the most part, and he is little credited. Let
us look for a moment at the history of Shiatsu
teaching in this country to understand why.
Although Shiatsu must have been practised by a
few isolated individuals in the UK during the
fifties and sixties (I know of only one) it was not
until the Seventies that the spirit of the times
encouraged its manifestation on a wider scale. I
have books on my shelves that indicate what
became available at that time – for example
“The First Book of Do-In”, published in
California in 1971 (by the Happiness Press!).
The enthusiasm for Macrobiotics that began to
sweep through Europe and the West in the 60’s
and 70’s engendered an equal enthusiasm for
traditional Do-In and Shiatsu, practised as an
adjunct to the Macrobiotic diet.
“Shiatzu” (with a z) by Yukiko Irwin (publ.
1976), is a guide to family treatment for the lay
person. It shows lines of (unlabelled) points to
be pressed with 20-pound or 15-pound
pressure, one thumb on top of the other, with
the pressure coming from the giver’s shoulders
and back. This is pretty much standard
Namikoshi style; the Namikoshi school (which
Yukiko Irwin attended before she began to
practice in America) is the only one which will
get you an official certificate to practise in
Japan, so the Namikoshi style predominates.
Incidentally, if you check out Shiatsu in
Wikipedia you will see the control which this
school still exerts over the definitions of Shiatsu
practice.
“Massage, the Oriental Method” by Katsusuke
Serizawa, M.D., (publ.1972), is a more scholarly
tome, combining some elements of traditional
Japanese massage (Amma) with some Chinese
medical theory. Along with his descriptions of
rubbing and tapping, Serizawa mentions using
the weight of the whole body in pressing points
and he also instructs us to press towards the
centre of the receiver’s body, showing an
awareness of the importance of intention in
Shiatsu practice.
Serizawa also mentions another avenue through
which Shiatsu reached the West, that of the
martial arts. Many Judo and Karate teachers
included Shiatsu techniques for healing injuries
sustained during training, but there is no
written material to record their methods.
Shiatsu did not really take off in the West until
the arrival of Wataru Ohashi. A fantastic teacher
and performer, he made Shiatsu accessible to
the droves of people who attended his
workshops in Europe, where he arrived in the
late 70’s following the publication of his book
“Do-it-Yourself Shiatsu”. But his book, which
we all bought, though easy to read, was
nothing like as exciting as the style of Shiatsu
we learned in his workshops. In fact, Ohashi
was teaching the Zen Shiatsu style he had
recently received from Masunaga while visiting
Japan after writing his book. So the Zen Shiatsu
style arrived in Europe well ahead of its
originator.
Apart from the heady buzz of learning an “ancient healing art” from the exotic East, the
appeal of the Shiatsu we were learning at that
time came from the difference in emphasis
which the Zen Shiatsu style offered; that of
relaxation, the “mother” hand, attention to Kyo. These are first principles to us now but
then they were utterly ground-breaking. No
previous method had advocated these
principles; we didn’t know that, and just dived
into the Zen technique we knew only as “Shiatsu” with gusto. Ohashi was a natural to
propagate the style, since he rejoiced in the
fluid dance of relaxed bodywork and was
supremely able to communicate the concepts of
Hara and “crawling” which are still usually the
basics of every Shiatsu beginner’s first lesson.
The extent of his reverence for, and
indebtedness to, Masunaga were not, however,
widely known.
Masunaga had developed the practical aspect
of Zen Shiatsu long before he perfected the
theory, which he only finished just before he
died. By that time we had gleaned our theory
elsewhere, where we could. The Macrobiotic
group found their theory within the Macrobiotic
system, others found it in Five Element theory,
popularised by a single, some say renegade,
Acupuncture school, but instantly attractive
because of its cosmic connections. In the 80’s,
as the graduates from the Chinese Acupuncture
schools, only recently open to Westerners,
began to return and disseminate their
knowledge, TCM was added to the repertoire.
The theory of Zen Shiatsu came in fourth,
disadvantaged by its simplicity and hampered by
the fact that the Zen Shiatsu technique worked
brilliantly, no matter which theoretical model it
was attached to. To labour a point, let me
repeat that we are nearly all of us doing Zen
Shiatsu, and the fact that we don’t
acknowledge the originator of the technique is
because he never publicised or claimed it in this
country. He was a modest man, and also quite
ill when the moment to seize fame arrived. But
perhaps we were not ready to understand the
magnitude of his contribution, being mere
beginners in the traditions of the ‘Sons of
Heaven’.
The great leap forward in the Zen Shiatsu
technique was the introduction of the
“mother” hand to counterbalance the working
hand, and the corresponding theoretical
innovation is the relationship of Kyo and Jitsu.
For the first time, the active commingling of Yin
and Yang was brought out of the textbooks and
put into dynamic practice. In Acupuncture the
receiver’s stores of Yin or Yang can be
stimulated individually, by needle or moxa. In
previous styles of Shiatsu, the healing mixing
and blending of Yin and Yang was performed
with the hands, but intuitively, without
conscious awareness or teaching of how it was
happening. Masunaga was the first philosopher
of East Asian medicine to define in practice, as
well as in theory, the dynamic connection of Yin
(mother hand) and Yang (working hand). Side
by side with this practical innovation came the
new concept of seeking the “Kyo”, often
manifesting on the physical level as empty,
weak, hollow, deficient, in counterbalance to
the more obvious, active “Jitsu”. This, too, had
been conceptually familiar to Acupuncturists,
who tonify Deficiency or sedate Excess in
organs or Vital Substances as separate
procedures. The innovation came in seeking and
experiencing the Kyo in relation to the Jitsu,
both on the Hara and within the Meridian.
Once again, the mixing of Yin and Yang came
off the printed page and into the experience of
the giver of Shiatsu.
It has proved to be the key to unlocking and
understanding a new world of experience of “energy”. Through the conscious training of the
two aspects of ourselves, the receptive and the
active, as well as the seeking out of these
principles in our receiver, we become more
sensitive to the exchange and resonance
occurring both within and between the
receiver’s field and our own. By “field” is meant
the complex of the various fields already known
to be produced in living tissue by electrical,
electronic and magnetic activity, as well as those
yet to be discovered or investigated (Oschman
2000). These three forms of activity depend, to
simplify the case, on reactions between positive
and negative charges; transposing the
phenomenon back into the original Chinese, we
could say they are produced by reactions
between Yin and Yang. The Chinese philosophy
of dual, opposite yet interdependent polarities
does in fact, we now know, underpin the fabric
of life. When we connect with the interaction
between them in the process of bodywork we
gain entry into the many-layered and intricate
network of communication within the human
system. In other words, using our two hands
differently enables us to experience the
movement of Ki with greater sensitivity.
Masunaga was a modern philosopher, a
pragmatic man whose interest was in systems
that work. Through Kyo and Jitsu and the
‘mother’ hand he found that the connecting of
Yin to Yang does indeed increase the
experience of Ki. His research into Meridian
theory is equally practical in its conclusion.
Studying the writings on Chinese medicine from
earliest times through to the present day, and
then linking his conclusions with what is
currently known about human biological
functions, he evolved a theoretical system of the
Meridians and their functioning so simple that it
can be written on a single sheet of paper, yet
infinitely profound in its possible interpretations.
Simply put, his final conclusion in terms of
Meridian location and function is “The
Meridians are where they are because they do
what they do”.
Masunaga’s hypothesis was that if Meridians are
real, they must exist not only in humans but in
other forms of life, and they must express
themselves in the everyday functioning of those
forms. He took each Meridian pair in the timehonoured
order of the Chinese clock and
experimented with positions which activated,
stretched or otherwise emphasised that
Meridian pair, noticing how the different
positions affected consciousness. From this
perspective he could re-define the classical
functions of the Meridians, simplifying them
into a basic movement of energy common to all
life-forms, such as “which way to turn?” or
“obtaining nourishment”. By simplifying the
locations of the Meridians to “front” or “back”
or “edges/borders” the movements of energy
expressed in the Meridians became clear
impulses which could form themselves in the
simplest of body shapes, such as that of the
one-celled amoeba. “The Life-Cycle of the
Amoeba”, at first glance almost too simple to
be interesting, is in fact a sophisticated
explanation of the relationship between
consciousness and form from the single cell
upwards. The movements of energy it describes
can take place in terms of physical function –
individual cells within the body must obtain
nourishment, adapt to danger etc. – through
the emotions and into the subtlest vibrations of
the human field, which an amoeba resembles.
Masunaga’s 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. But it is
not worth arguing the toss, for the Japanese
approach to Meridians and points is far more
subjective than that of the Chinese; “find it by
feeling” seems to be the approach. It is what
the Meridians express, how they resonate in the
human field, that is Masunaga’s focus, and he
followed that resonance throughout the
receiver’s body by the pathways that presented
themselves to his touch.
Masunaga’s theory is the first to be exclusively Meridian-related, the first to apply exclusively to Shiatsu. Repetition, over-veneration of tradition and the gradual narrowing of cultural perspective had diluted the original expanded vision of Taoist energy medicine, whose practitioners described the experience of Ki in Meridians and Tsubos in phrases such as this from the Ling Shu “the celestial pivots are in the cavities; clear, quiet yet subtle, the coming can not be met with and the goings can not be followed.” Masunaga forged a Shiatsu style whose theory, inseparable from its practice, reanimates this tradition and renders it compatible with Western scientific knowledge. In this thirtieth anniversary year since his name first reached the West, he deserves to be remembered and honoured.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Energy Medicine: The Scientific
Basis James L. Oschman PhD.
Churchill Livingstone 2000
Science and Civilisation in
China Vol.2 Joseph Needham,
Cambridge University Press,
1956
The Influence of YangSheng
Vivienne Lo, unpublished
article
Shiatsu
Society (UK). PO Box 4580,
Rugby,
Warwickshire. CV21 9EL tel: 0845 130 4560 fax: 01788 555052