As reported on Tracy’s Shiatsu blog and on the Stone Lantern Shiatsu Blog the BBC has removed complementary therapies from its excellent Health section. This is apparently in response to lobbying by the scientific community - the “QuackBusters”.

OK there is not a lot of scientific validation that backs the benefits of therapies such as shiatsu, which is something organisations such as the Shiatsu Society are trying to rectify with the European Shiatsu Federation Research Project. It is quite right that proponents of any therapy should be able to demonstrate there effectiveness but projects take time and money and organisations such as the Shiatsu Society are not wealthy foundations with the backing of a big industry.

Just a few days after we discovered the BBC’s removal of the alternative health pages they published an article entitled Anti-depressants’ ‘little effect’. Here is a report on a study that seems to suggest one of conventional medicine’s great success stories may not be so effective after all. The pharmaceutical companies naturally disagree with this study and many users report great benefits from taking them. So the jury is out and we wait for the next study.

This story just goes to show that scientific data can be interpreted in different ways. Reports and studies are not always as straightforward as we are led to believe. That many users of the anti-depressants report great benefit from using them is proof enough for many in the medical profession.

So, why does that argument not count when used by users of complementary therapies?

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With some trepidation I attended my final regular weekend with Paul Lundberg at the Brighton College. The nervousness came from the fact that in the previous couple of years I have not quite “got” Paul Lundberg’s approach to shiatsu. Nothing connected and I could not understand what all the fuss was about.

I found myself enjoying the weekend and starting to develop my own small insight into Paul’s view of shiatsu, Ki and energy work. I actually found it a very exciting vista and one that I look forward to exploring in my own practise. Unfortunately, when Paul completed his weekend with a request for feedback what I said was a bit pathetic. What I said was true: I did learn more about using the ground and the use of breath but really I should have been more honest.

A Sceptic would not be too strong a word to describe me on Saturday morning. But by Sunday evening many of Paul’s teachings had really resonated with me. I admit there are still aspects that I find difficult to approach but there is much that I have taken away and started to play with in my own practise. I am not gong to delve into the detail in that post. I would rather expand on these experiments in future posts.

Today I just want to express my disappointment that I had not been more open in my feedback on Sunday. I am sure that Paul Lundberg would have appreciated me being honest in my appraisal since it described a real change. I will try and feedback this information and more via my College.

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Eventually I got to see my Dentist and was prepared for him to do anything to get rid of my pain. Unfortunately, the receptionist had written the appointment out incorrectly and I was booked for a simple examination and no time for the major facial surgery I had convinced myself that I needed!

A prod, a scrape and one X-Ray later my Dentist confessed that he could see no reason for the pain. But since I have a couple of twenty year old fillings in that area he would replace them. No appointments available for another week but at least by this stage I new how to control the pain with temporary fillings, some pain killers and a few acupressure points. Cold seem to work too but since that usually meant drinking water my kidneys were working overtime.

The day after I saw the Dentist I received a shiatsu. I was pain free for most of the day up to the appointment but during the treatment my tooth started to hurt. I also had a return of the agitation and restlessness that I thought I had worked through my system (massaging Kidney 1 on the foot). For the first time ever I wanted a shiatsu treatment to stop and I considered getting up from the futon but in the end just let the feeling “go the distance”. It stopped abruptly once my giver started to work the Gall Bladder meridians in my legs.

I received a lot of shiatsu around the head, neck and upper body. The tooth pain was referring down to my upper chest (Lung 1). I felt OK at the end but I still had toothache. But later that night I REALLY had toothache. I resisted the pharmaceutical quick fix and continued the neck stretches and point work I received earlier. Gradually, the pain subsided and I got to sleep.

But that was it for the tooth pains. The following day and since then I have just had the odd little grumble around the jaw but no pain, restlessness or agitation.

Despite the title this post is not knocking dentistry or conventional medicine. I cannot say that shiatsu cured my tooth ache but I feel it helped. Why? Because this episode of poor health has allowed me to explore connections between my health, work and personal life. The toothache, digestive problems, studying and impending job loss are all connected. Reading about that in text books is all very nice but sometimes you have to actually get ill to learn the lesson.

The dentist was not interested in anything beyond the tooth but my shiatsu practitioner was. We could explore that and I am sure he based his treatment on what I said. I am starting to develop this idea of the composite and treatment aim in my own shiatsu practise.

What next? How should I continue to treat my tooth. The pain was gone and the Dentist could not find a reason for the treatment he wanted to give me. Shouldn’t I cancel that and treat myself holistically?

Summoning all of his learning and experience of Chinese medicine my shiatsu practitioner’s parting advice to me at the end of the session was this: “See a dentist and get your tooth fixed”.

Good shiatsu is also about getting the appropriate care and a painful tooth needs the appropriate expertise. I had the first filling replaced a couple of days ago. It was less painful than the shiatsu and for the first time did not want to run away from a dentist’s chair.

Shiatsu 1 - Dentist 1.

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For the first time in a long while I have been really under the weather. At first I thought it was toothache and then my digestion shut down. I was also very agitated and could not sit around feeling sorry for myself. I had to walk around feeling sorry for myself, often during the early hours of the morning. Eventually my appetite returned but the tooth pain remained.

This was all in the run up to a big weekend at shiatsu college. Our tutor had arranged the Saturday to be an all day clinic. Four appointment times during the day meant that we had to work hard to fill the Twenty Four sessions available. We managed to get Twenty One clients in the end; a real result.

I was disappointed to think that after all the hard work convincing people to attend I would not there myself. But as the weekend approached and I improved disappointment was replaced by a little fear of how I might cope physically with four clients. As I could not get a dental appointment until the following Monday would I manage through the toothache?

Patched up with temporary filling material from the Chemist and a packet of pain killers I started on my first receiver of the day. She was a former college student, newly qualified shiatsu practitioner and last year’s clinic co-ordinator - so no pressure then! But it was a good treatment and we both enjoyed it. Client number two was a first time receiver and again I had no problems during our hour together.

Some more patching up over lunch and on to clients three and four; both fine. I actually ended the day feeling better than I did in the morning.

My fear of not getting through the day was more about not being able to give or project or impress because of the pain. But shiatsu is not about impressing a client. It is promoted as a healing experience for the receiver but the giver benefits too. In fact the less the giver tries to give the more effective it is for both the practitioner and client. This is what I found particularly during this clinic day but also in my private treatments.

This experience was not restricted to me. Our tutor noted that as the day went on all of the class gave better shiatsu simply because we were tiring and started to try less. We all started to rely on our clients to support our technique instead of using technique or skill to impress the client.

Shiatsu is more penetrating and effective if we allow ourselves to work with our client’s energy instead of trying to force it or move it. We act as a catalyst for change and not enforcers and sometimes it takes an illness, injury or fatigue to bring us back to that fact. When we start to trust that the client can support us then physical manipulations stop and shiatsu begins.

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I have not posted to ShiatsuBlogger for such a long time now that I was beginning to feel this blog had reached the end of its natural life. I have not had much impetus to write down my thoughts up until now but the energy is returning and needs to be expressed in words once again.

I have not been very well lately. Toothache and digestive problems. I am also very low emotionally and feel very undervalued. This is all to do with my unresolved work situation. It has been going on for months with still no decisions made on when this office will close. I feel stuck and stagnant and believe my recent health issues relate to this.

But there is a lot of good stuff going on too. Recently my school staged a very successful student clinic and I will write about that soon. My own shiatsu is OK and keeping up to date with the number of treatments needed to graduate in June. The only downside is that my client base has not increased and I feel that developing it has to wait until I am no longer doing this daily commute to the office.

Plenty of issues to explore but I am not returning to a daily blogging schedule for now. I will just start slowly and see what develops.

It feels great to be back.

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I am still trying to work out how and where I want to continue my writing. I have learned that writing a blog is not just a personal exercise. My words reach out and have touched many people around the world. I can also see that blogging is a powerful way to advertise oneself as a shiatsu practitioner.

But do I just transfer all of my work onto my practise website?

In one sense that seems to be a good idea as that means all of my words advertise my practise. On the other hand I like the fact I can run advertising on this site. Small scale earnings but once shiatsu becomes a source of income for me then a more commercial site running alongside my practise site seems attractive.

I rather like this two site option. It allows me to develop an on-line presence that allows me to experiment more. I need to write solely for my practise site but having articles with wider appeal and a small commercial value seems sensible.

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I wrote on Monday that I would take a few days to decide how I wanted to continue with ShiatsuBlogger. I felt I had the following options:

• Keep going posting with a regular schedule
• Keep posting when I had something to say
• Close down the blog and move on

Closing down the site down was an attractive option. There is a voice that is telling me that any articles I write should support my shiatsu practice. Since that practice will have its own website my writing should be used to advertise that. Nevertheless, I still believe that this blog still has a role to play in my development.

I want to keep writing and I want to maintain ShiatsuBlogger. But the trap that I identified on Monday was that a posting schedule was too much of a drain on my overstretched energy. That means from now on I will be posting articles to this site only when I have something to say. That may be only once a week or more often but I will let my creative juices decide. It should mean I can write some more detailed articles that should serve those Googling for shiatsu information.

But I will be building up my practise website and writing there too. For the next few months I will be writing and placing the results on the most applicable site. That may mean the end of ShiatsuBlogger eventually or it will evolve into a different site. ShiatsuBlogger is a restrictive name and come the new year and my impending job loss I will certainly be looking to expand my writing horizons.

Sorry for the change but I really feel the next few months are going to be very exiting for me. Not only as a former corporate cog branching out on his own but as a fledgling writer leaving the comfort of the ShiatsuBlogger nest.

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One of the items that I drew onto my Ki balance diagram represented this blog. I drew it as both a drain and resource of energy.

It is a drain because I have set myself a target of writing an article everyday. When my shiatsu was very new that was achievable. I wanted to share my experiences with everyone and the feedback I have received over the past year has been great. That is where I have drawn much of my energy and that is one reason why shiatsublogger supports my shiatsu training and practise.

I am now spending more time concentrating on the demands of my final year course. But in addition to that I want to improve the articles that appear on this site. Those articles will come as I become more involved in my project work and develop my practise. But for the time being my writing is stagnating and that increases the pressure of my self imposed blogging schedule.

It is now time to change. I am not stopping, just slowing down. I am becoming a more relaxed blogger and not insisting that I produce an article a day. For the immediate future I will be writing only when I have something to say. That will probably be once or twice a week but I will think about the new schedule over the next couple of days and post about it on Wednesday.

I hope that you will understand my reasons and continue to visit or subscribe to ShiatsuBlogger.

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I have been keeping simple logs of the hara diagnoses for each of my clients. So apart from the full treatment write ups I have a simple table in the back of my diary that looks like this:

Jitsu is represented by + and Kyo by -

Recently I had the idea to go through each of these tables and summarise them by element. So counting up each Jitsu and Kyo for this client I ended up with the following:

The question is does this sort of summary tell me anything about this client? Should I see the high number of times that a fire meridian has come up in diagnosis as a indicator of a particular issue?

Please let me know what you think. I would also love to hear from anyone out there who has done any similar analysis on their client data.

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Yesterday I was musing on how important it is to learn when to stop treating a client if they fail to respond to shiatsu. This feeds indirectly into my quest for more balancing in my life as they are about setting boundaries and learning to say no.

I have a lot going on in my life at the moment that this is a skill I am developing fast. What with weekends at college and evenings filled with study and shiatsu treatments there is precious little time for rest. My Wife hardly sees me some weeks and a steady home is the foundation on which my shiatsu work is based.

We are both learning how important it is to refuse those extra demands on our time.

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