You are never out of practice in shiatsu
What our teachers learned during the international teacher training.
There are places that have an effect on you even before the lesson starts.
A reservoir in the hills of Luxembourg. Early in the morning, barely moving water, air that is still cool. You stand there with a group of shiatsu teachers from all over Europe and do Do-In exercises by the water. You push your hands forward with sound, which echoes across the water against the hill on the other side. An echo returns.
Nervous.
This is how Mirjam described it. She and Tjerk, two of our teachers, were there last week for an international shiatsu teacher training. Five days immersed in the subject intensively. Not as a teacher, but this time as a student.
Shiatsu as a way of life
That might be the best thing about shiatsu: learning never stops. Not after the basic year, not after ten years of practice, not even when you’re teaching yourself. Shiatsu is not a skill that you learn in a classroom; it’s a way of life.
The training was given by Thierry. He has worked alongside Sensei Sasaki for 40 years; Sensei Sasaki knows the teachings from the founder of shiatsu (Shizuto Masunaga) from within and regularly teaches at Iokai as a teacher.
Thierry was his closest student and assistant, almost like a son to him. What Thierry developed over all those years is rare: the art of translating that deep Eastern knowledge into Western students. Not only what You do, but Why. What a hand does in a certain place. What space in the body means. What Ki really is, not as a concept, but as something you feel. He makes it understandable, and then lets you experience it through exercises as well.
The body as a three-dimensional landscape
One of the insights that Tjerk took away:
The body is not a sum of muscles and structures. It is a three-dimensional landscape. That landscape is disturbed by, for example, trauma, emotion, stress, injuries, or organ energy that is out of balance… Through the right touch, Ki (your life energy) that is stuck can begin to flow again. The body is made to heal. With shiatsu, you support that process.
You’re touching life.
For Westerners, that is sometimes the most difficult part. We want to understand things from a book, a documentary, a step-by-step plan. But Ki feels it. And the moment you are ready, it opens up.
That is also exactly why shiatsu is more than just a technical procedure. It is working with life energy. Every movement, every hand placement, every moment of silence in it has meaning.
What passion does in a group
Mirjam brought something else: the power of people who share the same drive.
The group consisted of teachers from all over Europe. Not the same language, not the same background, but the same passion for the subject. In the beginning there was caution, as is normal when you don’t know each other yet. But that quickly melted away. People who barely spoke English still tried to connect. And it worked.
She calls it the Iokai family spirit.
And that is exactly what we hear from our own students as well. That the group soon becomes more than just a class. That you meet people from different backgrounds who are seeking the same thing; more connection, more depth, more meaning. That you lie down together, receive and give shiatsu, do joint exercises, and that something emerges from that that is hard to put into words.
I Shin – Den Shin from heart to heart
Mirjam and Tjerk came back with new insights, new exercises, new ways of explaining things. Things in which they said to each other: We need to take this into account in the lesson. Exactly from the principle on which Iokai Shiatsu is built: I Shin Den Shin, From heart to heart. Passing on knowledge from love and essence. Not as a transfer of information, but as something that touches you.
Because what our teachers teach, they bring with them. This way, the shiatsu philosophy lives on, from Masunaga to Sasaki, from Sasaki to Thierry, from Thierry to our teachers, and from our teachers to you.
That's how shiatsu works. Not just from books. From person to person. From heart to heart.
Curious?
Our trial module one-month course is a good first step to get a feel for what it’s like to learn in this way. In weekend or evening classes, you’ll work with shiatsu in 2 months and experience what it does for you and others. Then you’ll decide if it suits you.
Starting at the end of September in Amsterdam, Amersfoort, Delft
Quick decision-maker? Then join us in Amersfoort, starting July 3 (last spots)
Sign up via https://www.iokai.nl/shiatsu-intensive/