“In Tao Shiatsu, what makes the difference with Zen Shiatsu is “Tao Heart”. A lot of the study in class is spent exploring this heart, through paired practice, and through tsubo location and treatment exercises. In Tao Shiatsu, maintaining this receptive state is paramount – without it, Master Endo states, one cannot contact meridians at all.

I will say that the exercises were very powerful in revealing how one’s attention so easily slips back to the self, and how this very definitely affects the Ki of both the giver and receiver.”

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“In one exercise, I was the receiver. I was to lie still, while my partner focused his attention on his Tao Heart. I felt a very subtle but definite lightness in my whole body after a few moments, and I indicated so with a gesture. In the next step, my partner was to look at an area on the dorsal aspect of my forearm, continuing to deepen his Tao Heart, while asking inwardly, “Where does the receiver most want to be pressed?”

After a few moments, I felt something very curious in my arm. I felt a line of sensation – seemingly a length of meridian – rising towards the surface of my skin. Along that length there was a particular point, which drew extra attention, which felt like it reached deep inside me. After a few more moments, my partner leaned forward and applied pressure to precisely that point. I could feel his pressure penetrate in a deeply satisfying way.

I was convinced. Tao Shiatsu was like nothing I expected. It has challenged me in ways that I wasn’t prepared for, while inspiring me very deeply.”

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“As a therapist, perhaps you’ve experienced moments in your treatments when the division between patient and therapist blurs. Difficult to describe, these moments bring with them the sense that one is part of some larger, profound process. If your curiosity is at all piqued, I heartily encourage you to study Tao Shiatsu. It may blow your mind – it may open your heart.”

“One of the participants in the class was not a shiatsu therapist at all, and had only ever received treatments. Amazingly, before the end of the first weekend of study, she could find and work with tsubos as well as any other of the participants, some of whom were practitioners!”