Shiatsu, the art of not thinking

How wonderful it is to be happy about something that doesn’t require you to think about it. Huh? I hear you thinking. How come you don’t have to think about it?? Now here’s the thing:

As a Shiatsu therapist, you help someone become better by pressing on certain connecting lines (meridians) and (acupressure) points of our body. Of course, it is important to know what you are doing and to have an understanding of what makes someone sick. For this, you need both theoretical knowledge and the necessary practical experience. But this knowledge and experience ‘sink in’ or, in other words, is internalized. You make it your own so that when you need it, you don’t have to think about it. A kind of ‘knowing’ that takes place in the primitive part of our brain. It is a state of being in which we ‘know’ what we are doing, but don’t think about it. For us as therapists, this is the flow in which we provide our treatments. Being happy from not thinking!

Although this may not always be the case in our society ;-), it is difficult to think non-thinkingly. For yourself, try to think about the times when you don’t think at all. The moments when you are not thinking are often particularly special. On the one hand, it is a form of concentration, being present, and on the other hand, it is a state of relaxation. Shizuto Masunaga (the founder of meridiaanshiatsu) described it as alertness, the state of being, when you are waiting for the start of a running race. You are alert, focused, completely present in your body, and you are not thinking about other things.

In our training, we pay a lot of attention to this form of non-thinking. You learn to be present in your body and to touch from here. A form of communication that is pure because there are no thoughts or judgments involved. You are purely present for the person you are touching. Additionally, you learn shiatsu by practicing a lot, a lot. Through the many repetitions, you make the skills your own to a level where you no longer have to think about them.

How wonderful it is not to think!