Shiatsu: Japan's Healing Hands-on Art - Massage Magazine

.May/June 2002, Issue 97

On the Cover
Shiatsu: Japan’s Healing Hands-on Art
by Chris Cunningham
With knees positioned on the floor, the shiatsu practitioner leans over his clothed client, who is resting prone on a mat. The practitioner slowly applies pressure with the balls of his thumbs along the length of the client’s spine. Fingers, palms and thumbs continue to walk or dance along other body pathways, called meridians. The practitioner gently presses his fingers into the client’s scalp while she remains motionless, serene.

Shiatsu is a type of Japanese bodywork; the term shiatsu translates as "finger pressure." It is a healing art steeped in Asian medical principles and techniques, and its popularity as a healing therapy is growing in the United States. A shiatsu session consists of pressure applied with the balls of the thumbs, fingers and palms – and depending on the form of shiatsu practiced, elbows, hands, forearms, knees and feet are also used – to specific points on the body, in order to stimulate the flow of energy and improve circulation throughout the body.

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In This Issue

Myoskeletal Alignment Techniques
Part Three: Working Through the Dura Mater
by Erik Dalton, Ph.D.

Famous for their amazing ability to precisely define complex anatomical structures, the early Greeks hit the nail on its proverbial head when they labeled dura mater, the "tough mother." Centuries later, massage therapists have come to understand the important role dura mater plays in protecting the brain and spinal cord. Interestingly enough many therapists are surprised to learn that a variety of common neck, head and low-back complaints actually originate from distortion of this sensitive membrane.

Dural torsioning, compression and impingement often result in mysterious pain patterns that can mimic muscle spasm. If the dural tube is both overstretched and twisted from myofascial contractures, bony misalignment or spinal pathology, complex conditions such as migraines, sciatica, thoracic outlet syndrome and scoliosis can manifest. Sadly, these pain generators offer a major therapeutic challenge to today’s bodyworker who relies exclusively on conventional myofascial modalities to help clients who present with these conditions.

E X P E R T   A D V I C E
by Charlotte Michael Versagi

Charlotte explain how to get started in geriatric massage, and how to use paraffin.

Pages from History: The Massage Chair
by Robert Noah Calvert

David Palmer is the San Francisco practitioner who created the world’s first massage-specific chair, the High-Touch Massage Chair, in 1986. I remember visiting the factory in Santa Rosa, California, with David just a few months before its debut to see the prototype. David was excited about how the chair would revolutionize touch therapies, allowing anyone to get worked on without taking off their clothes, and to receive a full-body massage at nearly any location. His dreams have come true. Today we find the massage chair being used wherever one’s imagination may take them.
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R E S E A R C H
Perineal Massage May Reduce Third-Degree Tears, Labor Time

A Mission of Love
Earthwalk Takes Healing Touch to Children Around the Globe
by Lana Lensman
The volunteers of Earthwalk travel thousands of miles to areas stricken with violence, crime and poverty, performing their work amidst threats of terrorists and gunfire. Joining other missionaries, they offer healing therapies to children living on the streets, who come to food kitchens to eat. They travel to children’s hospitals helping the sick and to orphanages aiding the abandoned. In the past nine years Earthwalk volunteers have reached out to more than 4,000 children throughout villages in Peru, Haiti and Russia.

They call their work a "mission of love." Their objective is to love one child at a time, to bring love to children throughout the world. It is not only about the bodywork they perform; it is about touching children with compassion and love.

Research Matters
by Janet Kahn, Ph.D.

Janet Kahn, Ph.D., shares what’s happening in the area of massage research and what the massage field can do for its advancement. She discusses what might happen when connective tissue is stretched, and research in this area that is pertinent to massage therapy.

Practice Building: Solving the C.E.U. Puzzle, Part One
by Sue Painter

How to Personalize Your Continuing Education Plan

Body & Spa: Color!
by Melinda Minton

Color is such a simple thing. We almost take for granted the green of Spring, the orange glow of a sunset or the magnificence of a rainbow – but color is much more than a treat for our senses. In fact, many color therapists, and others who incorporate color into healing, say that colors are actually varying energetic frequencies that affect us on mental, emotional and physical levels. Accordingly, the color of your sheets, the color of your essential oils and the color modalities that you integrate into your hands-on techniques or massage therapy sessions can all have a profound effect upon clients.
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