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Shin So Shiatsu: Healing the Deeper Meridian Systems and Practitioner's Reference Manual

by Tetsuro Saito

350 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); 2 volumes: text and coil bound workbook with b&w images; catalogue #06-1931; ISBN 1-4251-0174-7; US$69.57, C$80.00, EUR57.14, £40.00

"Tetsuro Saito has written a tremendously significant book, one that has the potential to overturn centuries of 'common sense' in Eastern Medicine."
- Dr. Hideo Yoshimoto

About the Book

For the first time in decades, a major figure in Oriental medicine is offering a book redefining the meridian system upon which the field is based. Author Tetsuro Saito is one of few international figures in shiatsu therapy with schools in Europe and North America.

Highly regarded as the "father of shiatsu" in Canada, where he is now based, Saito introduced Bay Street Toronto to the Japanese art of "finger pressure" in 1971, just as the West was discovering acupuncture.

For the past 35 years, Saito has treated thousands of patients, trained hundreds of therapists worldwide, and pursued his own research on energy-based healing with a rare diligence. Shin So Shiatsu: Healing the Deeper Meridian Systems represents this lifetime of work.

Saito picked up where his mentor, renowned meridian-therapy pioneer Shizuto Masunaga left off when he died in 1981. Until now, Masunaga's Zen Shiatsu (Japan Publications Inc, 1977) has been unsurpassed as the primary guide for beginning students and experienced practitioners alike. Shin So ("deeper level") Shiatsu is a long-awaited step forward, and promises to reach a far broader audience of healing artists.

Saito links the most ancient and forgotten tendrils of Chinese meridian theory with Masunaga's insights, his own remarkable findings, and the invaluable research being undertaken by other contemporary Oriental medical pioneers. Born in Japan and trained there — first as an engineer and then a shiatsu therapist — Saito merges the frontiers of science and healing arts to take our view of the human energy matrix far beyond the familiar Traditional Chinese Medicine meridian chart. His alternative is a far more complex, yet comprehensible view of the human body at work.

A natural teacher, he illustrates with striking clarity how our road map of the Regular Meridian system has been abridged over time for simplicity's sake. He presents in painstaking detail the complete view of the Regular Meridians as they manifest at three levels of imbalance. He then fully details each of the lesser known, but equally important, Extra, Divergent, Ocean, and Cosmic energy systems, and explains how they interrelate with each other.

He grounds us in this theory, then tells us exactly what to do with it. This is the crux of his work: Shin So Shiatsu enables any ordinary practitioner to "sense" and precisely trace the multitude of meridian pathways in the human body, to identify the levels at which energy imbalances occur, and to treat those imbalances — with astonishing results.

Practitioners of meridian-based therapies will instantly recognize the veracity and sincerity of this master's approach. Shin So Shiatsu is not a beginner's guide: Saito asks his readers to have a basic working knowledge of shiatsu or other meridian-based modalities. But with even a minimum of experience, practitioners from a diversity of backgrounds will quickly be able to integrate the key elements of Shin So Shiatsu into their own work.

Shin So Shiatsu — a rich compendium of 40,000 words, 300 figures and charts, and 130 black-and-white photographs — is presented in two parts. The first details the history, theory, principles, and techniques of Shin So Shiatsu. The second is a separate spiral-bound Practitioner's Reference Manual intended for use in the treatment room.

Shin So Shiatsu is for shiatsu therapists, acupuncturists, acupressurists, and practitioners of other energy-based approaches. Anyone who engages with Traditional Chinese Medicine or is interested in the human energy system will want to read this major revision to a centuries-old approach. Its theoretical and practical uses will make it an essential textbook for schools and workshops.

About the Author

Tetsuro Saito
The Father of Shiatsu in Canada

Ted Saito is one of the world's few shiatsu masters — one of only a handful of practitioners who has spent a lifetime fully dedicated to developing shiatsu and its healing potential.

He was born in the small Japanese city of Noda in 1941, just four months before the outbreak of World War Two. As a small child, he found joy in playing along the banks of the Edo River, and grew up with a deep love for nature and people. In university, he nurtured a passion for mountaineering, excelled in sciences, and became an electrical engineer. Soon however, he was drawn to another field, one with ancient roots and seemingly endless possibilities. Oriental medicine was experiencing a rebirth in Japan, particularly in the area of shiatsu. Saito entered the Japan Shiatsu School under masters Tokujiro Namikoshi and Shizuto Masunaga in 1966 and graduated in 1968.

In 1971, he travelled to North America and chose Toronto as the base for his new life. He established the Shiatsu Centre, treated patients who came in such numbers they were lined up at the door, trained students to become therapists, and invited others from Japan who would eventually open their own shiatsu centres and schools in Canada.

Saito is affectionately known as the "father of shiatsu in Canada," but his influence on shiatsu and energy work has rippled worldwide. He is founding director of Shin So Shiatsu International and supports hundreds of dedicated post-graduate students in North America, Europe, and Australia. He continues to research, maintains a busy shiatsu practice in Toronto, and lives with his wife Kathi in nearby Scarborough, not far from their daughters, Monika and Olivia.

Excerpts