We are very pleased to announce the launch of our on-demand learning platform! This project has been many years in the planning and helps us to meet the goal of leveraging available association management technology to provide our members with continuing education and experiential courses that they can access anywhere at anytime!

On the heels of AOBTA^®'s 30th Anniversary, we are thrilled to celebrate the start of a new decade with this amazing feature. Take a moment to check it out!

VISIT THE AOBTA^® ACADEMY

Deborah Valentine Smith, AOBTA^® President, does a wonderful interview with Winter Jade Smith (Lindy Ferrigno) about the history of AOBTA^®. 

2020 is AOBTA's 30th Anniversary and Winter was one of AOBTA's founders. She will be presenting at our next convention in Spring of 2021.

2020 is AOBTA^®'s 30th Anniversary and what a year it has been so far!

Watch this "State of the Association" update which includes highlights of what has been accomplished so far this year and what to look forward to in the second half of our year-long celebration.

by Deborah Valentine Smith, AOBTA^® President

Clearly, the experience is different for each of us, depending on what’s happening with the pandemic and the call for racial justice this week, in whichever part of the world we are. Yet, there’s something incredibly powerful about the very fact that these momentous happenings are global, not regional. We are all impacted and alerted and invested in the outcome. In the midst of the grief, heartbreak, fear and outrage I have been heartened by the creativity, compassion and inventive connections generated from this world-wide confrontation with a teeny tiny physical challenger and a gigantic spiritual one. I watch TV and often find myself in tears. I’m grieving for the lives and livings lost in both these catastrophes, I’m profoundly touched by the courage and kindness that have risen to meet them, and I am very often surprised and cheered by the innovations people are bringing to the challenge.

Virtual Get-Togethers. Recently I read “troubles and tyrants come and go, but the stars shine on.” In company with countless other pathways to healing and compassion, our work has “shone on.” It has helped humanity endure, if not transcend the catastrophes. Our ABT community is inspirational in the ways we have responded, innovated and reached out.

• Let’s get together on the July 16 Member Meeting to give and get the support and stimulation we need to keep shining. We’re planning to include break-out groups in part of the meeting so we can share in smaller groups. “See” you there! Here’s the link to the calendar listing where you can register: Member Meeting.

• Schools and Programs will be getting together at the COSP Meeting on July 9 - Here's the link to the calendar listing where you can register: COSP Meeting.

ABT and COVID. For more inspiration, take a look at Cindy Banker’s final article in her series on ABT and coronavirus in this Pulse. Did you know she is a Chinese language scholar? She has discovered some eye-opening information from her translation of an old medical text that points to manual therapy (that’s us!) as the best way to address certain stages of invasions like coronavirus. The article includes some additional info on how to apply ABT. You can also find her treatment protocol in the first installment of the series here.

Forums. Remember that member forums are available to discuss topics of interest with other colleagues. Cindy’s article would be a great topic. Contact me (president@aobta.org), or our managing director, Wayne Mylin (director@aobta.org) for help setting that up. Visit the AOBTA Forum.

Lunch & Learn. And speaking of inspiration, did you hear about the Lunch & Learn with Grandmother Winter Jade Forest in June? We had the highest enrollment ever and came away wanting more! Michael DeAgro will be presenting in July. And you can watch any of the past presentations in The Lunch & Learn Webinar Collection.

Wellness Resources Page. The page continues to grow with inspiring contributions from members on resources relating to racial justice and the pandemic. Look for sections on self-care, practitioners and educators - AOBTA Wellness Community.

All my best to you.

Deborah Valentine Smith, AOBTA^® President

by Cindy Banker, M.A., AOBTA^®-CI, Dipl. ABT (NCCAOM), AOBTA^® Director of Education, AOBTA^® Peer Review Committee Chair

In this year of reflection, we’re reaching out to those that were engaged in the formation of the AOBTA^®, asking them to share personal recollections of the time. Nothing formal, simply what was happening at the time, from the view of the particular individual. This is the second sharing by Cindy Banker!

We were no longer in an initiation phase by the 1980s. Instead, we were in the initial phase of maturity and we wanted to “professionalize” and “standardize” the things we had to offer. We were able to look around and discover other practices and people who were qualified and serious about other new forms of alternative healing, most of it also having been germinated in the 1970s. By the 1980s many of us were interested in creating a profession.

None of us had any interest or training in Western massage. In those days we felt like we were part of a revolution in health care. Books were being written about self-healing (indeed, one was titled Healing Ourselves), and that pretty much summed up the feeling.

However, doing Shiatsu was not something that seemed practical in terms of earning a living back in the late 1970s. So, although fully trained, I waited years before ever charging anyone for a treatment. Instead, I shifted my administrative skills from working in a hospital to working for Erewhon. Then, in 1981, the Erewhon empire went bankrupt. My job as assistant to the president had morphed over a couple of years and at the time of the formal bankruptcy Michio personally stepped in. No one else was left, as other presidents had quit and the last Chief Financial Officer actually went to prison (for white collar crime at a former job.) It was a very exciting time in a lot of negative ways and the company’s undoing left a lot of collateral damage in its wake.

One of the long term benefits for me was that after a year of unemployment I was able to transition from my full time work in administration to becoming fully employed in practicing and teaching Shiatsu. This was with great support, which I was easily able to find. There were many self-development educational opportunities in Boston, and I was able to thrive along with them.
 
A friend had invited me to an EST workshop and then insisted I check out the work of Robert Fritz. These endeavors all struck me as programs designed to help one create and mold their destiny. In DMA,  I studied and learned to use a whole curriculum. I became a Certified Instructor in their Technologies for Creating and fulfilled my vision of having a full time Shiatsu practice. So after one extremely difficult year for me personally, I was, by 1984, a Shiatsu teacher at the Kushi Institute and enjoyed getting many referrals from the system. Michio had invited me to teach and he also personally asked me to organize the Shiatsu department. That turned out to be an impossible task! Macrobiotics seemed to have a lot of positive attributes, but organization of personnel was not one of them. Perhaps this was not so different than many other places in the 1980s, but maybe a little more extreme due to the influence of Japanese culture. Women could be highly regarded as experts in Shiatsu, but trying to force an organized approach to  “curriculum” was a foreign and uncomfortable prospect for the men who formed the basis of power at critical administrative levels there. 

I gave it my best and then moved on, deciding to create my own school with the two partners I had discovered that were equally zealous about Shiatsu and who were looking for much of the same things that I wanted. Barbara and Kiku and I wanted to create a great Shiatsu school in Boston, and together we did! The New England School of Shiatsu started in 1984, along with the beginning of our first professional association, the American Shiatsu Association (ASA).

We handled both things simultaneously and they seemed to support one another. We enjoyed large class sizes right from the beginning and we discovered lots of other teachers and practitioners, first in New England and then all across the country. Initially, Kiku’s friends in New York were very interested in what we were doing and because of that we were able to grow a fairly substantial membership. Toshiko Phipps found us, and we were thrilled to include her and yet one more kind of Shiatsu. Toshiko may have been the most qualified teacher in terms of credentials. Her studies in Japan pre-dated everyone else’s, and she had studied directly with the most important original teachers! Pauline Sasaki was already such a highly regarded teacher we were quick to recognize that she was able to give us absolute credibility in the burgeoning Zen Shiatsu community. Pauline carefully considered and wrote our original standards for Zen Shiatsu and she was a connection that led the way for the large number of practitioners that were being constantly generated by Waturo Ohashi down in New York. Ohashi himself declined to participate directly, but over the years we maintained a mutually respectful relationship that was very beneficial for us.

We were able to create a Standards Committee comprised of credible experts for what eventually turned out to become five different kinds of Shiatsu. In addition, we created a standardized process to qualify teachers.  I did my own Certified Instructor Interview at our first convention, with Shizuko Yamamoto being the arbiter of whether or not I was qualified. Teachers like Robbee Fian and Reginal Ceaser came and did their own Certified Instructor interviews. The three of us all used the term Five Element Shiatsu in order to stipulate that we used a lot of Traditional Chinese Medicine theory in our work. We had each studied and developed this on our own after our initial Shiatsu training. 

The ASA was very diverse, we were very democratic, and we were able to organize. We seemed to easily recognize and respect each other’s strengths. Barbara Blanchard served as Treasurer and kept meticulous records of everything. Kiku agreed to become editor for our first newsletters. I guess I seemed good at planning and talking, so I became President. I remember there was some initial grumbling over the title. A few people wondered if I should just serve as a “Chairperson.” With so much experience working in “administrative” jobs, I immediately said it was too much work for such a simple title and that was the end of that.

Susan Krieger helped us write the original standards for Macrobiotic Shiatsu, and she generally helped Shizuko with anything like that in the early days. We continued to attract more and more highly qualified and motivated people - it was like watching a snowball that never stopped growing. Many of us were just great teachers - people who had really invested in learning from the best and now committed to teaching the work. Even more of us were practicing and becoming professionals, able to make a living and educate the public on what we could offer. In the ASA we learned to mobilize our members and help them market themselves. Our collective experience made us each so much more than what we had been as individuals.

By 1989 we were done! We had taken the organization to a place where it was clear that we needed more than just “Shiatsu” to describe the work that we were doing. We had discovered and included Amma, Anma and Tuina, because they all used the same principles. We welcomed the senior teachers of these practices into the ASA Standards Committee, and we all shared the same values. At the final convention for the ASA I recommended that we create a new organization, primarily because we needed to use a different name to better reflect the expansion. Using the agreed-upon common educational requirements, we would create a name that could serve as an umbrella term for all of us. Thus was born the American Oriental Bodywork Therapy Association.

To be continued in the next issue of Pulse. Please share your stories! Send them to Brian Skow, AOBTA^® Communications Consultant (media@aobta.org), and Wayne Mylin, AOBTA^® Managing Director (director@aobta.org).

By Cindy Banker, M.A., AOBTA^®-CI, Dipl. ABT (NCCAOM), AOBTA^® Director of Education, AOBTA^® Peer Review Committee Chair

In this year of reflection, we’re reaching out to those that were engaged in the formation of the AOBTA^®, asking them to share personal recollections of the time. Nothing formal, simply what was happening at the time, from the view of the particular individual. First up is Cindy Banker!

Reflecting on the earliest history of the AOBTA^®, I think back to what it was like in Boston in the critical two decades of the 1970s and 1980s. There was so much going in the field of alternative medicine during those years! The New England School of Acupuncture had been around since the 1970s, and there were acupuncturists practicing with patients first seeing an MD for referral. I had lived in a yoga ashram for eleven months as part of my own journey toward better health, and when I moved out in 1975 I was interested in learning more. I heard about both the acupuncture school and Shiatsu as options for learning how to use special points on the body for healing. Shiatsu was being taught at centers which focused on macrobiotics and I started there because that was the most easily accessible.

  
By the 1980s the macrobiotic community was booming and had consolidated for some real longevity. The East West Foundation where I had first studied in the 1970s had matured into the Kushi Institute. The Institute was now located on Station Street in Brookline and macrobiotic businesses were the predominant presence all over Brookline Village. There was a macrobiotic store with books and lots of paraphernalia. The East West Journal was also located there. Bill Gleason had returned from Japan and was running a very active Aikido dojo in the downstairs of the Kushi Institute’s building. You could practice Aikido in the basement and then attend “Order of the Universe” lectures or study Shiatsu and cooking in the classrooms upstairs. In reality these two things tended to attract two different kinds of people. There was a restaurant called Open Sesame around the corner and another macrobiotic restaurant in nearby Jamaica Plain. There were macrobiotic study houses all over the surrounding neighborhood. Major conferences were being held out in western Massachusetts every summer and the promise of macrobiotic healing was attracting people from all over the world.

Shiatsu and Dao-In were an integral part of what you could do in order to stay healthy. In the study houses we all practiced doing Shiatsu and ginger compresses. The community also embraced yoga and martial arts, meditation, and a somewhat regimented idea about what was natural in terms of lifestyle.

The original macrobiotic teachers, Michio and Aveline Kushi, were well known authors that owned a virtual empire that had originated from teaching classes in a church in downtown Boston. They had opened a small health food store, Erewhon, which became an enterprise that included manufacturing, warehousing and distribution with sales of seventeen million dollars per year. Bread and Circus was another seriously large health food store that looked like a real supermarket. With these stores and others, we sat perched on the top of the belief that macrobiotics was a really good alternative to the western medical thinking of the time. Looking back on it, I still believe that was the truth. We seemed early, if not first in line, to be the ones explaining that what you eat really matters.

I say “we” because I felt completely immersed in that community. By the end of the 1970s, I had studied all of the courses for Shiatsu at the East West Foundation. My primary teachers were Ken Burns and, then, Shizuko Yamamoto. Michio Kushi taught the theory of everything which at the time was referred to as the “Order of the Universe.” It included the primary acupuncture theory we used in our hands-on Shiatsu classes and self-administered Do-In. I had made a professionally produced video tape called the Do-In Video and it was popular in the network in which I lived. Michio used to call me the “Jane Fonda of Macrobiotics.” By the very early 1980s, I lived in a macrobiotic study house, all my friends were macrobiotic, and for a couple of years I worked as an assistant to the President of Erewhon. 

Shizuko Yamamoto was the most physically powerful woman I had ever seen, and her Shiatsu classes were considered the master’s level of what was available at the time. She used to come up from New York in order to teach. Barefoot Shiatsu was the first specific name being used for her work. Later, with Michio’s permission, she decided to formally name it Macrobiotic Shiatsu. I didn’t even know at that time, but Dennis Wilmont had already completed acupuncture school and had his own Shiatsu school somewhere else in the building downtown - the same building where I studied through the East West Foundation.

I only learned that when, in the mid 1980s, I met Barbara Blanchard, who had graduated from that program. In 1983 it didn’t seem that unusual to meet someone else who also did Shiatsu and had learned it a totally different way. I was very familiar with The New England School of Acupuncture and it made sense that this was a natural and alternative evolution! Barbara and I decided to do a search and we quickly found another Shiatsu person from a yet another point of origin. Kiko Miyazaki Zutrau was practicing and teaching Zen Shiatsu in the Boston area and Kiko knew a lot of other people from her school in New York.

To be continued in the next issue of Pulse. Please share your stories! Send them to Brian Skow, AOBTA^® Communications Consultant (media@aobta.org), and Wayne Mylin, AOBTA^® Managing Director (director@aobta.org).

By Brian Skow, M.S., AOBTA^®-CP, Dipl. ABT (NCCAOM), AOBTA^® Communications Consultant

With 2020 being the 30th anniversary of the AOBTA^®, I began looking back by reading the American Oriental Bodywork Therapy Association Interim Bulletin, Volume 1, No. 1, Winter 1990. This is considered to be the first newsletter of our organization, though, at the time, the organization was still forming and had a slightly different name. While reading, I felt appreciation, familiarity, and optimism.

Appreciation, because many people, many years ago, put in much effort to come together and create an organization that represents and promotes our profession of Asian Bodywork Therapy. It’s not easy getting over differences and creating a sustainable structure! But, that’s what was done, and here we are. Not many organizations have been as long-lived.

Familiarity, from recognizing some “famous names” and long-standing issues and subjects. With regard to names, for me, Cindy Banker, Iona Marsaa Teeguarden, Lindy Ferrigno, Vernon Smith, Kiiko Matsumoto, Honora Lee Wolfe, DoAnn Kaneko, and James Mitose, You may recognize others, including Nandi Dubitsky, Steven Schenkman, Lorri Rosenthal, Mary Alice McAlister, David Champ, Stevie Converse, Emil Grancognolo, Kenneth Slining, Robbee Fian, Christy Salbego, Ben Tibbetts, and Raymond Castellino. As for issues and subjects: organization structure, positions and processes; educational standards; certification and licensing; relationships with other organizations, including the AMTA; continuing education; forms; putting together a convention. Many of the names, and most of the issues and subjects, are still with us. Some, of course, in different ways!

Optimism, seeing that we’ve weathered many years. We’ve had to work hard in certain areas, suffering losses and enjoying wins. Yet, we continue, and seem to be in an “upswing” with regard to engagement. Looking back has made me look forward, and I hope for even greater participation and success!

So, have a read of the American Oriental Bodywork Therapy Association Interim Bulletin, Volume 1, No. 1, Winter 1990. You may experience some wonders, too.

Please share your recollections and ideas with me (media@aobta.org) and Wayne Mylin (director@aobta.org) so that we all continue learning from the past and move, with strength and wisdom, into the future.

2019 was a busy and productive year for the AOBTA^®, with some great leaps forward and some really challenging struggles to protect and support our ABT practitioners, schools and the ABT image.

The AOBTA^® Board of Directors has been very active this year. You will see that reflected in the projects below. Meet them at https://aobta.org/page/Board

Consultant Staff Expansion

We increased our consultant staff to assist with on-going projects and daily maintenance. The joint efforts of all our consultants has garnered encouraging results and we look forward to continuing and refining their contribution in 2020.

Wayne Mylin – Managing Director, celebrating his sixth year keeping the organization going and thriving on a day to day basis.
Yolanda Asher – Legislative Consultant, celebrating her 2rd year
Brian Skow – Communications Consultant, joined us in 2019.
Jessica Van Antwerp – Secretary to the Board, worked with us for 3 years and did an amazing job with the board records. She resigned this month to give more time to her own work.
Sarah West – Secretary to the Board, joined us in 2019 to replace Jessica and will also be performing some of the tasks of the recently added Member Relations Consultant position while we work on clarifying its role.

Launch of the new Association Membership System through YourMembership

Thanks to Wayne Mylin, our managing director, for mountains of work getting this powerful new system up and running and teaching the rest of us how to navigate it. You can make an acquaintance with it through Wayne’s Lunch & Learn presentation on our AOBTA^® website HERE

Launch of the “Lunch & Learn” Webinars

2nd Wednesday of Each Month | See the recordings on the AOBTA^® Website.

“Bodymind Skills that Assist Clients to Discover Themselves in the Moment: The Wisdom in Patterns of Tension, the Resource in Patterns of Expansion," with Kamala Quale, AOBTA^®-CI, The techniques Kamala shares help clients become more embodied, learning about themselves in order to change. Have a look, see what you might like to bring into your practice of Asian medicine!” Kamala will also be presenting at the AOBTA^® convention in 2021. View video HERE

“Nourishing Yin at its Deepest Level with the Extraordinary Vessels” with Suzanne Yates, AOBTA^® Honorary Member and author of Wellmother: Exploring our Extraordinary Potential with Shiatsu and Massage. Suzanne will also be presenting a special post-convention workshop in 2021. View video HERE

“Navigating the AOBTA Website” at aobta.org with Wayne Mylin, AOBTA^® Managing Director. There's a good chance you'll see things you haven't seen before and find a few treasures along the way. View video HERE

“The Full Practice Formula: Applying the Wisdom of the Three Treasures and Five Elements to Your Practice Success,” with Diane Przymus, AOBTA^®-CP and intuitive business coach. View video HERE

Summer Solstice and Winter Solstice Meditations with Matthew Swiegart, AOBTA^®-CI

Education: Monthly Production of the AOBTA^® Pulse Newsletter.

See the latest issue here: January 2020 Pulse Newsletter
You can access a list past issues in the Newsroom - Pulse Issues

Legislation: Protecting our Members’ Right to Practice

The legislative committee, including the board Treasurer/Secretary, Lauren Paap and our legislative consultant, Yolanda Asher, assisted the members in Illinois, Massachusetts and Minnesota, who have been working tirelessly to protect Asian Bodywork Therapists’ right to practice and, where possible, to develop legislation friendly to ABT. There were also important activities in other states, including California, Texas and Georgia. For details, see Yolanda’s December “Advocacy Update,” now a regular feature in the Pulse Newsletter. See past issues of Advocacy Articles in the Newsroom.

Legislation: Collaboration with other Professions

Lauren Paap, then AOBTA^® President, attended the annual meeting of the Federation-MBS, or the Federation of Therapeutic Massage, Bodywork and Somatic Practice Organizations. The Federation has been a crucial source of strength over many years as a platform to bring together smaller somatic practice organizations like AOBTA^®, Reflexology, Polarity Therapy, to name a few, to form larger coalitions and to be heard in the wider massage and bodywork field.

Education: Developing Competency Standards for Teaching

Several AOBTA^® members represented AOBTA^® at the biannual Alliance for Massage Therapy Education (AFTME) 2019 Educational Conference in Philadelphia. The AOBTA^® has been working with the alliance to develop competency standards for massage and bodywork teachers. Read about the Teacher Education Standards Project in this article from Pulse “Even After 35 Years, There’s more to Learn".

Education: ABT Competencies

Thanks to Cari Johnson Pelava, AOBTA^® COSP Director, our AOBTA^® required curriculum has been translated into educational competencies, which is the emerging educational standard that replaces simple classroom hours and will be useful to us moving forward. This description of competencies is intended to serve as an elaboration and clarification of the AOBTA^®’s long standing 500 hour curriculum. This information should be useful for helping schools and programs refine their existing curriculum or as a reference tool for the evaluation of either students or practitioners of Asian Bodywork Therapy.

2021 Convention

The planning committee for the 2021 convention was launched in October. The theme is the AOBTA^® 30th anniversary and our Three Treasures: Jing, Qi & Shen. We have many exceptional presenters lined up and plans for fun and inspirational events. Details coming in February/March. The committee meets on the 3rd Friday of the month at 11am EST. To participate in this lively group, go to aobta.org, log into the member side, click on “Groups” in the top tool bar, then click “request to join group” under “Convention Committee.” While you’re there, check out other groups you might be interested in.

Two New Certified AOBTA^® Instructors

Congratulations to Margie Pivar and Nini Melvin, our new AOBTA^® Certified Instructors.
Read about them here in the article, “Introducing our New Certified Instructors,” under Education Spotlight in the website newsroom.

AOBTA^® on Social Media

Thanks primarily to the great work of our Communications Consultant, Brian Skow, AOBTA^® has maintained a consistent & effective presence on social media.

Facebook – Followers on the AOBTA^® Facebook page climbed from just above 400 at the beginning of 2019 to 626 today. The statistics on people reached and engaged have increased an amazing 600% in the last year. 

LinkedIn – AOBTA^®’s LinkedIn Page has been updated and revitalized.

Instagram - AOBTA^® has an Instagram account.

Twitter – AOBTA^®’s Twitter Account is re-activated and we are learning how to use it! Stay tuned.

YouTube – AOBTA^® now has its own You Tube channel. Look for the Solstice Meditations and other public postings here. Subscribe!

For the moment, the posts to these social media channels look very similar. We plan to have the posts differentiate, however, as more content becomes available over time. In particular, we hope to receive more photos to share the beauty of Asian Bodywork Therapy with the world!

Council of Schools and Programs

Cindy Banker, Director of Education, and Cari Johnson Pelava, COSP Director, have continued to work with our existing COSP members and aspiring candidates. In 2019, COMTA, (Commission on Massage Therapy Accreditation) which has included standards to accredit ABT schools, has instituted a process to award “Endorsed Curriculum” standing to eligible schools. Full COMTA accreditation is a highly valued, but lengthy and expensive endeavor (upwards of $10,000). At $1,000, the new endorsed standing is a welcome step forward for our ABT Schools. AOBTA^® is encouraging COSP Schools to apply and offering some financial assistance.

Member Marketplace
We’ve added several partners to provide services and products at a discount to AOBTA® Members. Take a look at AOBTA Marketplace.

2020 Meeting Schedule

Board - 2nd Friday of every month, 11:00a-1:00p EST.
Legislative Committee - 1st Friday of the month, every other month, or every 3 months, watch for announcement.
Conference Committee - 3rd Friday of every month, 11:00a - 1:00p EST.
Communications Committee - as needed, watch for announcement.
Membership Committee - as needed, watch for announcement.

Compiled and Presented by

Cindy Banker, MA., AOBTA^®-CI, Dipl. ABT (NCCAOM)

2019 has been an interesting year for me in my own evolution. I attended my 50th high school reunion and now, as Director of Education for AOBTA^®, I need to write an article explaining why this marks the 100th anniversary for the term Shiatsu. "Easy enough," I thought when I volunteered to do this — since I knew I already had the most pertinent information either posted on my own website or in the Long Definitions that the AOBTA^® continues to hold from all of our various Forms. 

Having been the Founding (and only) President of the American Shiatsu Association, I have been privy to countless hours of discussion about the origins, history, and meaning of the word Shiatsu — in fact, most of it being discussed by the foremost experts and teachers of the subject as we pounded out a common identity for what eventually became the American Oriental Bodywork Therapy Association. Since then we have changed the name of our umbrella organization in order to eliminate the word Oriental all together, deeming it to be politically incorrect. I am reminded now, however, that I cannot write very much about the subject of how we came to recognize and know what Shiatsu is without being able to use the word Oriental in order to explain it. 

Originally the word Oriental was considered very politically correct because it embraced all the different practices whose representatives had come together to form one organization describing Oriental Medical Theory as its common base. We agreed that Traditional Chinese Medical Theory was what we were describing in terms of our 100 hours of common theory, and this continues to describe the root for all our work. However, we included work from many different countries who all had their own variations and evolution of how that manual therapy was understood and applied. Of these, many were not happy with referencing the work as “Chinese.” So instead, we all agreed to use the term “Oriental” in order to describe the general theory of our manual applications. These distinct practices had arrived here in the U.S. from several different countries in East Asia. Early on, Japan and Shiatsu were undoubtedly the most well-known and widespread among them.

On the east coast of the U.S., where the American Shiatsu Association had originated, the word Shiatsu was generally used to describe what we now think of as Asian Bodywork Therapy. On the west coast, the word acupressure was similarly used to describe anything that one thinks of as manual therapy using Oriental Medicine’s meridians and points. The problems and arguments which we had about the definition of Shiatsu can be addressed in a future article about the origins of the AOBTA^® (next year as we begin to celebrate our own 30th anniversary). But the ensuing semantics and political evolution of our lexicon are not what I want us to get distracted by here. I just need to explain the vocabulary being used as I describe the birth and significance of Shiatsu to us practitioners, recipients, and fans as we unpack why this past year of 2019 marked its 100th anniversary.   

The following is pulled directly from my own website where I describe a History of Shiatsu and offer a tribute to Toshiko Phipps, one of the AOBTA^®’s founding members and foremost authorities on Shiatsu. This article was written by Toshiko Phipps for the first newsletter of the American Shiatsu Association (originally published in August 1986).

The Development of Oriental Medicine in Japan

by Toshiko Phipps

Chinese Medicine came to Japan in the 6th century A.D. However, it was the physical therapies that prevailed because in the voyage from China most herbal materials would spoil. Over time the Chinese physical methods integrated with ancient Japanese techniques called Amma, Hari and Kyu.

Chinese medicine reached the height of its popularity during the time of the brilliant Emperor Meiji. At the end of this Edo period (1868 – 1911) contact with the West, particularly Holland and Germany, led to the introduction of Western medicine along with Western massage.

By 1925, a combined technique – the association of Anma (a form of kneading manipulation and pressure), Chinese acupressure (using meridian energy lines) and Western-style massage was called Shiatsu.

The following long excerpt is from the book Bodywork Shiatsu (Healing Arts Press 1997), by Carl Dubitsky. Carl was a friend of mine whose early passing was a great loss to our entire field. He was an academic and extremely enthusiastic student of Shiatsu!  Very proud of having studied with both Dr. DoAnn Kaneko and Toshiko Phipps, Carl always did a great job of citing his resources. In reviewing my own resources, I realize that I only need to defer to the work which Carl has already done on this subject. I highly recommend his book for a lot more information and interesting details! Carl explained that:

“There has been a fair amount of bickering over who originated the term Shiatsu therapy.  In 1965 Okura Sadakatsu wrote a series of articles entitled ‘Nippon No Ryo Jutsu’ (Healing Therapies of Japan) for the newspaper Zen Ryo Shinbum. He thoroughly researched the origins of Shiatsu therapy and reported that Tamai Tempaku was clearly the founder of the Shiatsu school of bodywork. (p 7).

In 1919 Tamai Tempaku published a book entitled Shiatsu Ho (Finger-pressure therapy). Tamai had studied and practiced koho anma for many years and had studied the Chinese acupoint system.  He specialized in ampuku, abdominal massage, which had originally come from China but was further developed and extensively practiced in Japan. He studied the textbook Ampuku Zukai (Diagrams of hara treatment) by Ota Heisai, which became the standard text for Oriental abdominal therapy [Carl notes: According to Masunaga Sensei, this work was the prototype for the development of shiatsu]. Tamai practiced and taught do-yin (dao-yin), Oriental breathing practices and physical exercises to circulate vital energy and help to integrate the bodymind. He also thoroughly studied Western anatomy and physiology and European massage.

Although Tamai had previously published a book, Shiatsu Ryoho (Finger pressure way of healing) in 1915, the attention of the therapeutic bodywork community did not focus on his work until Shiatsu Ho was released. This book described a system that integrated koho anma, ampuku, acupoint therapy, do-in, and Western anatomy and physiology. In it Tamai described treatments for a variety of Western ailments using traditional Oriental bodywork techniques, and he integrated traditional spiritual wisdom with his modern medicine. In the preface he wrote:

‘People must have high spiritual development to do shiatsu, because healing disease is not only by finger pressure.  You have to have spiritual power to do healing by hand.’ (p.5) 

In his notes Carl explained that "Toshiko Phipps translated this passage for me from a manuscript in her possession.”

AOBTA^® has launched a major upgrade of our association management system!

The AOBTA^® board of directors and staff are proud to announce the launch of our new association management system (AMS). This significant member service upgrade includes a new website, membership database, mobile social app, career center, and so much more.

In alignment with our long-term strategic plan, we have transitioned to an AMS provided by YourMembership and Community Brands. This new platform includes features and flexibility that we didn't have with our previous AMS system. The transition also enables us to keep up to date with the latest technology and security.

Over the coming months, look for special announcements about the new features available to you. It is a very exciting for us to be offering a long list of new benefits for the AOBTA^® Community!