Masunaga Shizuto

Masunaga Shizuto ( Japanese 増 永 静 人 ; born June 1925 in Kure , Hiroshima Prefecture , Japan ; † July 7, 1981 ) was a Japanese psychologist, university teacher and Shiatsu therapist. His concern was to combine western and eastern approaches to the art of healing in a meaningful way. Inspired by in-depth studies of Chinese medicine, he developed his own Shiatsu style, Zen Shiatsu . At the Iōkai Shiatsu Center he founded, not only Japanese but also many Western students learned Zen Shiatsu, which has found widespread use not only in Europe and the USA, but worldwide.

Family and education

Shizuto Masunaga was born in Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan in 1925 and was familiar with the traditions of Far Eastern medicine from childhood through the work of his mother. She herself had learned from Tempaku Tamai, a therapist and teacher who played an important role in the early 20th century in the renaissance and further development of Anma, a form of Japanese massage or bodywork based on the principles of Chinese medicine. It was Tempaku Tamai who introduced the term Shiatsu in his book Shiatsu Ryoho (Shiatsu Therapy) , published in 1915, and was instrumental in founding the "Society for Shiatsu Therapists" in 1925.

In continuation of the family tradition, Masunaga began his studies with Tokujiro Namikoshi , former student of Tempaku Tamai, then founder of the "Clinic for Pressure Therapy" (1925) and finally head of the only one approved by the American occupation administration in Japan immediately after the war and later officially licensed Shiatsu Teaching Institute.

Masunaga acquired his qualification in 1959 at Namikoshi's "Japanese Shiatsu Technical School" ( 日本 指 圧 専 門 学校 , Nihon shiatsu senmon gakkō ). For the next 10 years he also worked as a teacher at this institute. Like Namikoshi, Masunaga was interested in finding a scientifically justifiable approach to the principles of Chinese medicine, that is, within the framework of Western parameters, and, based on this, developing a theory for the empirically experiential clinical effectiveness of Shiatsu. In his research he relied on the specialist knowledge imparted in his training in bodywork, his practical clinical experience, but also on his own research in the field of classical Chinese medicine and on his academic training as a psychologist.

Masunaga studied at the Institute of Psychology at the University of Kyoto, where he held a chair in psychology after graduating. He was a member of the Japanese Psychological Society and the Japanese Society for Oriental Medicine. His later attempts to develop a theoretical approach with the help of which Shiatsu could be better integrated into the system of Western medicine must be understood against the background of his predominantly psychologically informed approach to anamnesis. It must be noted, however, that the approach of Chinese medicine is holistic and therefore linked to psychosomatics per se .

Masunaga died of rectal cancer in 1981 at the age of 57.

Masunaga's innovation - Zen Shiatsu

In 1968 Masunaga founded his own Shiatsu Institute, the Iōkai Shiatsu Center (医 王 会), where he further developed his approaches and passed them on to his students. During the late 1970s, he visited the United States with Wataru Ōhashi , one of his Iokai students. There he taught in New York and San Francisco. In 1977 his book Zen Shiatsu: How to Harmonize Yin and Yang for Better Health was published in the USA, Central America and Europe. The addition "Zen", it is said, was missing in the title of the original and may owe its addition to the zeitgeist of the 1970s and perhaps also to a publisher intent on marketing. The book itself offers only a brief introduction to the philosophy, history and therapeutic approach of Shiatsu, without going into the philosophy of Zen. It is not an academic treatise, but rather an attempt to combine a new theoretical approach with illustrated instructions for diagnosis and concrete bodywork in order to serve as a study aid for its English-speaking student group. Masunaga himself demonstrates his therapeutic work here, followed by instructions for self-help, also illustrated. At the same time, however, it is also a simple introduction to the theoretical principles of core elements of Chinese medicine as well as an explanation of the method for diagnosis and treatment developed by the author and his students.

"Zen Shiatsu" is the only publication by Masunaga that appeared in translation during his lifetime. Out of the number of his Japanese publications, only his book "Imaginary Exercises" (English translation of the Japanese original title) has so far appeared in English. This translation was undertaken by Stephen J. Brown, who intended to study with Masunaga, after his unexpected death in 1981 and published under the title "Meridian Exercises. The Oriental Way to Health and Vitality" in 1987. Brown writes in the foreword that it was his studies of the Chinese classics, in particular traditional treatises on physical exercises, that led Masunaga to the realization that it is necessary for patients to experience the meridians and their effects not only during a Shiatsu treatment, but to work with your body and its sensations and energy flows through certain physical exercises. "Based in his knowledge and experience of these exercises as a means of working with the meridians, he formulated a new system of meridian exercises to complement shiatsu as the ideal method for health and well-being. Imagery Exercises were the logical next step to Zen Shiatsu, which had elevated shiatsu to a "way", or spiritual path. "

In Meridian Exercises we find the approaches that Masunaga only summarized in Zen Shiatsu theoretically better thought out, more detailed and more convincing, both in terms of the importance of the Hara for diagnosis and body work, the meridians and their supplements, and the interplay of Kyo and Jitsu, as well as in relation to the complexity of the relationships between soma and psyche. The book is also much more clearly related to the teachings of Daoism and Buddhism . From today's point of view, one can say that both Masunaga through the further development of his approach and his students and successors through practice and teaching have given content to the formerly fashionable name "Zen Shiatsu" and successfully made it a trademark for Masunaga's method have also promoted Shiatsu in general.

The Masunaga method and its special features

A major achievement of his work was the expansion of the classic meridian system . While in TCM and forms derived from it, the 12 main meridians are divided into

• 6 meridians, which begin or end in the fingers (lungs, large intestine, heart, small intestine, pericardium, triple heater), or
• 6 meridians, which start or end in the feet (kidney, bladder, stomach, spleen, gall bladder, liver),

Masunaga has expanded this system so that all meridians can be found in legs and hands.

While Namikoshi Tokujirō and Serizawa Katsusuke treated and researched the acupuncture points ( つ ぼ , tsubo ) in Shiatsu therapy, Masunaga developed a kind of Shiatsu to treat the meridians. The focus is not so much on individual points as in TCM, but on the entire meridian as such. Due to his work as a psychotherapist, he also saw the effects of his Shiatsu increasingly in the psychological area.

This treatment of the meridians was passed on by his students. Some of Masunaga's students later went abroad and developed different types of Shiatsu, which differ significantly from the original Shiatsu as practiced by Masunaga. The best known in Europe are Ōhashi Wataru, Sasaki Pauline, Saitō Tetsurō, Endō Ryokio and Kishi Akinobu.

Publications

• Shizuto Masunaga, Wataru Ohashi: Zen Shiatsu. Japan Publications, Tokyo / New York 1977, ISBN 0-87040-394-X .
• Shizuto Masunaga: Zen Imagery Exercises. Japan Publications, Tokyo / New York 1987, ISBN 0-87040-669-8 .
• Shitsuto Masunaga, Wataru Ohashi: Shiatsu - Theory and practice of Japanese therapeutic massage. Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, Reinbek near Hamburg 1989, ISBN 3-499-18416-8 .
• Shizuto Masunaga: Meridian Exercises. Japan Publications, Tokyo / New York 1997, ISBN 0-87040-897-6 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Masunaga Shizuto in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.oomicure.com/masunaga.html  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved December 5, 2014.  
2. ↑ Iōkai Shiatsu School (Japanese
3. ↑ http://www.australianshiatsucollege.com.au/ http://zenshiatsuchile.blogspot.co.uk/ Zen Shiatsu Society of Canada. ( Memento of July 14, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) http://www.escueladeshiatsu.com.ar/ http://www.zenshiatsu.co.nz/ all accessed on February 12, 2014.
4. ↑ Zen Shiatsu, How to Harmonize Yin and Yang for Better Health , in collaboration with Wataru Ohashi. Japan Publications, Tokyo / New York 1977, ISBN 0-87040-394-X , authors' information on the back of the cover.
5. ^ Suzanne Yates, Tricia Anderson: Shiatsu for Midwives. BfM Books for Midwives, Elsevier Science, London 2003, p. 29f.
6. ↑ Carola Beresford-Cooke: Shiatsu Theory and Practice. A comprehensive text for the student and professional. Churchill Livingstone, London / New York / Tokyo 1996, ISBN 0-443-04941-6 , p. 2, col. 2.
7. ↑ Carola Beresford-Cooke: Shiatsu Theory and Practice. A comprehensive text for the student and professional. Churchill Livingstone, London / New York / Tokyo 1996, ISBN 0-443-04941-6 , p. 3, col. 1.
8. ↑ Carola Beresford-Cooke: Shiatsu Theory and Practice. A comprehensive text for the student and professional. Churchill Livingstone, London / New York / Tokyo 1996, ISBN 0-443-04941-6 , p. 3, col. 1
9. ↑ Carola Beresford-Cooke: Shiatsu Theory and Practice. A comprehensive text for the student and professional. Churchill Livingstone, London / New York / Tokyo 1996, ISBN 0-443-04941-6 , pp. 2f.
10. ↑ Zen Shiatsu. How to Harmonize Yin and Yang for Better Health. in collaboration with Wataru Ohashi. Japan Publications, Tokyo / New York 1977, ISBN 0-87040-394-X , authors' information on the back of the cover.
11. ↑ Ted J. Kaptchuk: Chinese Medicine. The web has no weaver. Rider Books, London / Sydney / Johannisburg 1983, ISBN 0-7126-1172-X .
12. ↑ Zen Shiatsu. How to Harmonize Yin and Yang for Better Health. in collaboration with Wataru Ohashi. Japan Publications, Tokyo / New York 1977, ISBN 0-87040-394-X , authors' information on the back of the cover.
13. ↑ Zen Shiatsu. How to Harmonize Yin and Yang for Better Health. in collaboration with Wataru Ohashi. Japan Publications, Tokyo / New York 1977, ISBN 0-87040-394-X , authors' information on the back of the cover.
14. ↑ Zen Shiatsu. How to Harmonize Yin and Yang for Better Health. in collaboration with Wataru Ohashi. Japan Publications, Tokyo / New York 1977, ISBN 0-87040-394-X . Chapter 1: “Zen Shiatsu Philosophy,” pp. 9-16.
15. ^ Meridian Exercises. The Oriental Way to Health and Vitality . Translated by Stephen J. Brown. Japan Publications, Tokyo / New York 1987, ISBN 0-87040-669-8 .
16. ↑ One can probably assume that the Chinese sources mentioned are treatises on QiGong , which has appeared alongside TaijiChuan in the West since the opening of China in the last two decades and has grown in popularity as a meditative and healing movement practice.
17. ↑ introduced in italics for emphasis in the quotation
18. ^ Meridian Exercises. The Oriental Way to Health and Vitality . Translated by Stephen J. Brown. Japan Publications, Tokyo / New York 1987, ISBN 0-87040-669-8 , Introduction, p. 7.

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Masunaga is the family name, Shizuto the first name.