News

Ohashi on Ohashiatsu Massage

January 1st, 2008

Monthly column for www.rasaspa.com written by Anne Marie Cummings.

"My philosophy is that I don't do anything I don't like to do." Ohashi

Part of the English word "massage" is derived from the Arabic word, massa, "to touch." When it comes to massage, everyone needs to be touched in precisely the right way. But, precisely the right way is different for everyone; each of us seeks the right touch, especially when paying for a massage. But who would have thought that in order to receive the best massage, the one massaging you must be happy, and most important, comfortable. There are very few clients who ask their massage therapist before entering their hour-long state of bliss, "Oh, and by the way, are you comfortable?" This is the furthest thing from most clients' minds, but perhaps a conversation with Ohashi, originator of Ohashiatsu and founder of the Ohashi Institute, will help receivers of massage understand that the right touch comes from someone at peace with themselves. This is the way it is with Ohashi. He studied traditional Shiatsu massage in Japan, but realized that the receiver shouldn't be the only one benefiting from massage. Ohashi trains his students to use their bodies in such a way so that they don't have to work. Imagine that! His style of massage is nurturing for both giver and receiver, it is effortless, graceful, an energizing dance. I'll never forget the response I got from Ohashi when I asked him, "What do you do physically, and mentally to prepare for each massage that you give?" "Well," he responded, "I am always happy. I enjoy what I do - that's how I prepare." So, the next time you get a massage ask your massage therapist, "By the way, are you happy? Do you enjoy what you do?" If he or she says "Yes," then you may be about to receive the right touch.
Ohashi is a Japanese word. What does it mean? Big Bridge; it's my family name.
What made you call your method Ohashiatsu? Because I wanted to differentiate it from Shiatsu.
As a child, you had a weak constitution that made you vulnerable to illness. What did your family do to help you then? I was born in 1944, near Hiroshima, Japan during the war. My parents did whatever they could do. It was a very difficult time.
Where did you study massage? I learned this technique in Japan, before I came to this country. But mainly I taught myself, I was self taught. I was very curious, so I created my own style, and that's the reason I called it Ohashiatsu.
Why didn't you just study Shiatsu? What made you create the Ohashiatsu method? I learned Shiatsu, but through my practice I studied more on my own, and this is when I created my own style to suite the needs of my clients. They were the ones who influenced my technique. Here in America I worked on such different people that I had to adapt, study, and train more.
Some of your own clients when you first moved to the United States were George Balanchine, Martha Graham, Michael York, Dr. Henry Kissinger, and Ralph Lauren for example. How did you get them as clients?  Word-of-mouth. I didn't do any particular advertisement.
What's the difference between Shiatsu and Ohashiatsu? The first big difference is that Ohashiatsu is better for the therapist. We teach this technique so that the therapists receive benefits for themselves. This is very unique.
The giver, or therapist receives what kind of benefits?  We don't use our muscles. We don't work. In the movement we are touching people. When we are giving to others we are exercising ourselves.
What's an Ohashiatsu session like? How is it different from most forms of massage? Our work is bodywork. It's a wonderful movement the therapist is offering to himself, therefore the receiver enjoys it more because the giver is so comfortable.
What's wrong with other types of massage? I have read that the average survival for a licensed massage therapist is three and a half years. This means that they are damaging their own bodies to give wonderful massages to their clients. Ohashiatsu is, first of all, very comfortable and very natural. The giver can be very successful. They can heal more people without damaging themselves.
Why do you suggest your clients keep their clothing on during an Ohashiatsu session? We don't use oil and lotion, and it's more comfortable for the clients that we work through their clothes. And of course the clothing they wear has to be loose and stretch a bit.
What are the benefits of having your clients lie down on the floor as opposed to resting on a massage table? Number one, the floor is always there no matter where you go. Number two, you save four hundred dollars and you don't need to carry a heavy massage table. Number three, if you use the floor, the massage therapist can use gravity without damaging his or her body. When a massage therapist uses a massage table, it's more the fingers and shoulders doing all the work, and that's not deep enough.
Can you tell me a little bit about how you train your students to become Ohashiatsu therapists? What are the focuses of their studies? Body movement. We are teaching how to let their bodies move, how to let the giver's body work. That's what we emphasize.
Do your students practice meditation? The practice of Ohashiatsu is itself a meditation, but of course we have a special program in the monastery that is Zen meditation.
When do you think people should receive an Ohashiatsu session? It's up to them. I don't have any guidelines. If someone wants it every day, then that's entirely up to them. Sometimes it depends if an individual wants to be healed for medical reasons. Once they are healed they may not need to receive my sessions often, maybe once a month, or once a year. Again it all depends on what the need is.
Is there something specific that the receiver needs to do to benefit fully from an Ohashiatsu session? Everyone has a different need. They want to be healed, they want psychological relief, or they have spiritual reasons. Clients should look for the right therapist according to their own goals in receiving this kind of service. Clients need to find out for themselves who the right massage therapist is for them.
Is an Ohashiatsu session done in silence? Do you talk to your clients while working on them? I don't encourage either way. If the receiver wants to talk, that's fine. The client dictates. The therapist doesn't dictate because the receiver is paying.
Eastern medicine concentrates on maintaining Ki (pronounced Ch-ee) - in your own words, what is Ki?  Life happiness.
What does it feel like to you when someone's Ki moves where it was once blocked?  I don't know. I ask them.
Can you talk to me more about the importance of understanding Ki in our own bodies?  Happiness deeply depends on the person's mind, their physical age, and their spiritual stage. It's about the commitments in their life. I always ask my clients if they're happy or not, if they are enjoying their life or not.
So if someone is unhappy do you consider that to be a block of Ki in the body? People are either too happy, or too unhappy. We must be happy, and sometimes we must be sad. There's nothing wrong with being sad. My job is to balance the two, but before I try to do that, I must be happy myself, otherwise I cannot make another person happy. And this is the point in Ohashiatsu: the first benefit is happiness, joy, and excitement to the giver.
How can the therapist generate the movement of Ki in their own bodies when giving an Ohashiastu session? The therapist must pick the right clients to make him or herself happy. I don't make any appointments with people I don't like. These people are wasting my time and money. I make appointments with people who make me happy first, especially people who make me excited.
I believe that your role is to smooth out the Ki or energies within the body that are blocked. How do you do this?  I use my gravity. I don't use muscle pressure, only my own gravity that touches an area to move my client's energy.
Do you ever walk on people's backs?  No, I don't do that, my body is one-hundred-twenty-one pounds. This is too heavy. Some massage practitioners do walk on backs, and this is fine; I don't' deny that.
According to Eastern medicine, a headache is not just a headache, it's an obstruction of Ki - is this the same if someone has cancer - it's an obstruction of Ki in their body? There are sixty-five different reasons why someone has a headache so we don't know what is causing a headache. If the energy is stagnated then it can cause discomfort. Cancer is stagnated energy, either too much, or too little. I work with so many people recovering from cancer, but I've never cured them from it. I help them to cure cancer when they are curing themselves.
When does illness manifest?  Is it only when there is disharmony in the body or mind? First illness manifests physically in the body, and then the physical manifestation can become deeper by affecting a persons psychological makeup. After this it can get much worse, a cycle is created: emotional distress affecting the physical body, the physical body affecting the emotions, and so on. Massage breaks this pattern.
How can our society make changes so that instead of grabbing aspirin, we meditate, get a massage, go for a walk, or do yoga instead?  There's nothing wrong with taking aspirin, this is human nature. The issue is education, and how we educate, teach ourselves through our own experiences. This is the point.
Can people learn Ohashiatsu on their own - say from one of your books? Sure.
And can partners learn to give an Ohashiatsu session to one another? Absolutely.
What would be the best book for a beginner? My latest book, Beyond Shiatsu: Ohashi's Bodywork.
If I want to start giving my partner an Ohashiatsu session, what do I need to do? How do I set the space?  Follow my books. I give exercises for the giver to do before the treatment. Page by page I explain very carefully. I just finished an instructional DVD that I suggest you buy: Ohashi Touch: Ultimate Relaxation. You don't need to take a course at my school to learn how to do it.
What is your opinion of Western medicine?  Western medicine tends to ignore the person who has the symptoms. In order to cure the symptom, the medicine may destroy the person. That is much worse than the medicine.
One traditional Oriental diagnosis of a patient's well-being is facial diagnosis. Do you do this when meeting with your clients?  If so, what do you look for?  I see everything, not only their faces, but their bodies, their smells, especially their movements. And most important is the state of being happy.
What is your definition of happiness?  Excitement in the life. Excitement to the future.
What makes the Ohashiatsu therapist have sensitive hands?  Every body needs a different touch. In other words, this is a strange business, like a love affair, like a chemical click. Without any particular reason, you come across the right combination between giver and receiver. Say I give a terrible treatment, but if the receiver loves what I've done, this terrible treatment is fantastic for him or her. Because I've given thousands of people treatment, half of them have hated my treatment, and they never came back, but the other half, no matter how terrible the treatment is, keep coming back. Clients should look for the best therapist to suite their vibrations, and a therapist should shop around for the right clients.
I'm sure you've worked on people with depression - how does your technique help those individuals? There's nothing wrong with being depressed, sad, or angry. So for example, when you're sad, or depressed, this is when you should receive the Ohashiatsu treatment. This is encouraging your own happiness, this is turning around your anger. It's very difficult to do this for ourselves; we need the external stimulation of others.
How does internalizing emotions affect our muscles? Humans are very complicated animals. We are so smart, so sensitive, so advanced, and so strong - so the emotions do change the physical body, and the simple physical changes in the body change our emotions. We need to educate ourselves. This is difficult to do, so this is why education is needed from books, from teachers, from our families, and from our own studies.
If you could tell the public anything about Ohashiatsu treatment and its benefits, what would you say to them?  For thirty-three years I have used the logo "Touch for Peace." This means peace for your body, and peace for your mind.
What do you believe are the keys to staying healthy?  Be happy.
As the originator of Ohashiatsu®, a special method of touch derived from traditional Shiatsu, exercise and Zen philosophy, and as the founder of the Ohashi Institute, a nonprofit educational institution dedicated to teaching his methods, Ohashi bridges the cultural gap between East and West, and between past and present, by demonstrating the relevance of traditional healing therapies to contemporary society. Ohashi came to the United States in 1970 after completing his studies at Chuo University, and studying with different teachers of Eastern healing theory and therapies. In Washington, D.C., he became the first Shiatsu therapist at the Watergate Health Club, where some of the nation's leaders became his clients, but his interest in education motivated him to start teaching. After being invited to teach in New York City, he decided that it offered him more opportunities to seek a career in practicing and teaching Eastern healing arts. In 1974, he founded the Ohashi Institute which today serves some 2,000 students annually through its New York location and international affiliates. He has lectured and taught at the Omega Institute, the Esalen Institute, and numerous colleges, medical and chiropractic schools, retreat centers, and aesthetic conferences in the U.S, Europe and Latin America, for L'Oreal Paris, and for the International Dermal Institute. Ohashi is the author of six books which have been translated into eight languages, and eight videos on his technique, performed on a mat on the floor and on a massage table or chair, as used by spa professionals. Ohashi has been featured in many prominent cultural and trade publications, including The New York Times, Daily News, Mademoiselle, New York Magazine, Yoga Journal, Forma Italy, Olis Italy, Asahi Shinbun Japan, Yomiuri America, New York Japion, New York Shyukan Seikatsu, Self, Hoje Em Dia Brazil, Forum Germany, Top Salute Italy, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Yediot Achronot Israel, Massage, and Dermascope. He was honored with a Cultural Bridge Award in recognition of his role in popularizing the Japanese therapy of Shiatsu in the United States and Europe in 2007. A master teacher who brings humor and joy to his classes, Ohashi enriches the lives of everyone he meets with his positive view of the human condition. For Ohashi's books, videos, or his new DVD, go to: www.ohashi.com or www.ohashiatsu.org. The OHASHI INSTITUTE in New York City is located at 147 West 25th Street on the 6th Floor. The phone number is 646.486.1187.

 

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