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Shiatsu: Treatment (..and not massage)
Search engines on the Internet are something strange… Always there, all day looking at what people write and making connections between the words they find… The background: within our blog, there is a section dedicated to statistics (which can’t see). This section contains, among other things, the search keys that web travelers type to access here. Until recently, they were very innocent and relevant to the topics we discuss. Then we published an article about saunas and the like, which introduced a term that had never been used before: “total nudity.” Since that moment, the search keys that lead to the blog have multiplied in unexpected directions, especially oriented towards performances and situations not exactly similar to what Shiatsu is and the professionalism of those who practice it. There are very disturbed people around here… To better understand how much evidence there is on Google in this sick direction, I tried to write one of the most frequent search keys (which I will not report so as not to aggravate the situation). Result: third parties on the front page. Extremely annoying. However, my attention is focused on the first link. A website that offers “The ABCs of Shiatsu: everything you would like to know about this type of massage.” I write, I visit and I get nervous. I read these 5 points and discover a concentration of ignorance and vulgar clichés. The author of the article collects the “authoritative” opinion of the director of a hotel-wellness center: undoubtedly a luminary of our discipline… I go into details and focus on the individual nonsense read.
First of all, we always and everywhere read “Shiatsu massage”: “this type of massage”, “it is not a massage suitable for everyone”, “it is a dry massage” (?!?), “a good massage”. I can understand that those who do not know Shiatsu or have received few treatments call it that. But no one who knows Shiatsu can ever call it “massage.” Shiatsu is not a massage. And that’s that. Massages involve manipulation, kneading, rubbing, etc. Shiatsu is “treatment”, it is “acupressure”: it is not “massage”.
Second point: “Shiatsu is not recommended for children and older people, unless they have a particular culture oriented to oriental disciplines” and, again, “Shiatsu only gives real benefits to those who choose it, knowing what blockages it is going to intervene.” Oh, my gosh! That means? Does that Shiatsu only work if you believe in it? Are you “culturally inclined”? And what about all the seniors at the Institute to whom we have offered it, even free of charge, for years? Are they all Taoists, Sinologists, or scholars of Eastern arts? And the primary school children or adolescents to whom we have offered Shiatsu workshops? Are they aware of their blocks? But let’s not joke…! Shiatsu works. Nonetheless. About anyone. Third point: “generally total nudity is avoided and at least a thong is worn […] in general, the contact of the therapist’s hands (?!?) directly with the client’s skin has its own reason, since it allows perceive first, what the blocks may be and the points on which to work more”. Another atrocity of pachydermal dimensions. Shiatsu is practiced exclusively with the body clothed. We try to avoid contact with the skin as the pressure could “slide” and cause discomfort. The perception of blocks and points on which to work, more does not occur through touch as we usually understand it, but through deep pressure. The work on the clothed body is essential and greatly facilitates the operator (and not the “therapist”, please!). So, if an operator (not a “therapist,” please) says, “Miss, undress,” and you perhaps see a certain glint cross his or her gaze, turn on your heel and leave.
Fourth point: “Shiatsu acts mainly at the nervous level…(?!?), The therapist (?!?) focuses on the chakras (?!?), the joints (?!?), the articular points ( ?!?), it does not work in the whole body.” For the director it is, obviously, natural… Mainly on a nervous level… In reality we talk about “energy”, “ki”, “vitality”, “balance” … which is not exactly something nervous, but an action at an energetic, muscular or joint level.
Since Shiatsu is a Japanese practice, the operator (not the “therapist”, please) obviously does not focus on the chakras, which have absolutely nothing to do with this context. And then, always, always, in seminars, courses, both as a student and as an attendee, I have heard highly esteemed international speakers say that obviously certain areas are treated in a specific and particular way, but that the treatment still has to take place. All over the body! Otherwise, what holistic discipline would it be?
Fifth point: the continuous use of the word “therapist”, a gigantic nonsense for us, who for years have tirelessly preached that Shiatsu is not a curative or medical practice, that it does not “cure”, that it does not imply diagnoses or therapies. and much less therapists.
Meanwhile, we continue dreaming of a world in which people talk about what they know, in which hoteliers talk about hotel issues and beauty center owners talk about waxing, nail reconstruction and anti-cellulite massages, without going around there causing damage by regurgitating nonsense about what they don’t know. And a retro thought makes me shudder to imagine, how many think that Shiatsu could be the exclusive prerogative of aestheticians: which, given these pearls of wisdom, would mean the death of our discipline.
Thanks to Guido Bagni *
#shiatsu #treatment #massage #operator #internet #fakenews
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*(modified)