Adam Gottlieb Shiatsu provides comprehensive personal care treatments and workshops to people in Greater Victoria and lower Vancouver Island. Shiatsu is a natural way to improve health and prevent illness. It can make everyone feel better and reduce anxiety by having deeper health and knowing how to take care of ourselves and loved ones β the people who depend on us and on whom we depend.
Shiatsu is a total body workout. It has a physical side, with muscle massage, stretches, and joint mobilizations. It has an energetic side, harmonizing organs and body functions via the acupressure paths and points of traditional oriental medicine. About a hundred years ago, so the story goes, it was a healing touch practiced mainly by blind people in Japan.
Master Shizuto Masunaga traced its roots back through China to yoga and ayurveda, from India, refined their map of body-energy channels, articulated the 5-element science of body functions, and added his studies in psychology. He and others brought it to the West, and today there are shiatsu treatment centres and schools throughout the world, each with its own flavour.
I was introduced to massage and other holistic therapies by my father some 20 years ago β watching in fear as his mobility declined and gratitude as he got better. He showed me how to get support and do your homework. Meanwhile my mother had taught us about the importance of nutrition, at a time when there were far fewer stores for healthy food.
At the time, I was studying human and environmental health science. I had grown up with severe allergies and yearned for real answers. It was working with people, especially as a teacher, that I started to find them. A few years later I was hit by a car. From then on I had trouble walking, and no one could pinpoint the problem or the solution. A friend led me to shiatsu and osteopathy. The problem resolved, and my overall health became better than ever.
