Toshiko Phipps and the Evolution of Shiatsu in America Part I From the 2009 Summer Issue of Pulse [The second and final part of this article will appear in the winter issue of Pulse.]
By Cindy Banker, AOBTA®-CI Toshiko Tsurumi Phipps was a true pioneer. Born January 16, 1920 in Takada Japan, Toshiko enjoyed many diverse interests. In 1937 she became the first woman to join Japan’s Olympic Ski Team and there is some evidence she may have been the innovator of using metal for a ski. She lived through the turmoil of World War II and recalls American planes flying overhead and warning “civilians” to leave because they were going to drop bombs. Amazingly, this experience left Toshiko with a very favorable impression of Americans and with out a doubt she was very eager to come here. This was made possible in 1950, when at the age of 30 she was not only a champion skier, but she is also considered to be the first fully qualified Japanese shiatsu therapist to begin teaching in America. I can’t really remember the first time I met Toshiko. As the founding president of the American Shiatsu Association I was working pretty hard at trying to find and engage every qualified shiatsu teacher in the country. I know we connected with Toshiko very early on and she was a great help to us right from the beginning. It was Toshiko who helped us to find the incredibly beautiful settings we enjoyed for our first conventions in Vermont. The settings, facilities and organizing of these events can be largely attributed to Toshiko. We had started the A.S.A. in about 1984 and in those days the majority of our members were more familiar with Zen or Macrobiotic Shiatsu than Nippon. Nippon, which is of course the Japanese word for Japanese was how Toshiko referred to her “Form” of shiatsu. Much later, Toshiko came to call her work “Integrative Eclectic Shiatsu”. In the networking frame of mind we were in at the time we were thrilled to find any highly qualified shiatsu teachers and Toshiko’s training and lineage brought a new degree of authenticity to the A.S.A. Many of us were also surprised to find a kind of shiatsu that was not done on the floor on a traditional futon and which treated clients who were not fully clothed. For her part, Toshiko was just thrilled to connect with this young and extremely dynamic group of people who were all wildly enthusiastic about shiatsu and “Oriental Medicine”! In those days it was considered extremely politically incorrect to use the term “Chinese Medicine” because it seemed insulting to our Japanese teachers. The term Oriental included all of East Asia and continued to be the word of choice well into the formation of the AOBTA. Toshiko’s professional life covers such a long time, that even now I am still struggling to grasp these time frames. For one thing, when I first met Toshiko, she was 7
years older than I am now and she had already been teaching shiatsu in the United States for about 33 years. While most of us were coming from pretty well established communities in cities like Boston or New York, Toshiko lived deep in the woods in rural Vermont. By the mid 1980’s the A.S.A. was engaged in actively demanding a separate identity and independence from the “western massage” professional opportunities. The aspect of this that I think Toshiko really resonated with was finding a new and budding community that so appreciated the fact that we used Oriental Medicine in our approach. I can only imagine the isolation which Toshiko had experienced for so many years trying to explain herself as a Japanese woman who knew the value and potential of a “shiatsu”: Oriental Medicine’s approach to “massage”. I can’t imagine it had ever occurred to Toshiko that the word “massage” would become a political issue. “Shiatsu” was a word that by and large Americans had never heard before and “bodywork” was yet to be rolled out as any kind of an alternative. As Americans we were all quite infatuated with “Oriental medicine” and this perspective was an integral part of both Zen and Macrobiotic shiatsu. While not the only one in the group, Toshiko was probably the most acutely aware of the intensity of former and potentially ongoing political battles about whether or not “Oriental medicine” or western science was the authentic basis for appreciating “shiatsu”. In telling this story, I can rely on very long quotes from things she wrote and told her students so Toshiko can explain these things in her own words. In them you will see her argue this case for us in a way which no one else could. I am also including some things written by a good friend of hers named Carl Dubitsky, the AOBTA’s first Director of Education, who passed away at much too early an age. Carl was proud to say that Toshiko was one of his teachers and he spent a lot of time consulting with her while he did the research for his book: Bodywork Shiatsu published in1997. Carl also helped Toshiko write the formal definition for Integrative Eclectic Shiatsu, adopted by the AOBTA’s Advisory Council as a distinct AOBTA Form. I think that Toshiko chose to create this definition and declare a new Form in the AOBTA so that she would not feel limited by what had or might continue to be defined as shiatsu in Japan. ,As a student of Dr. DoAnn T. Kaneko, Carl truly appreciated and understood all these Forms of Shiatsu now in the AOBTA, including Nippon, Shiatsu/anma and then Integrative Eclectic Shiatsu. In his book Carl goes into great detail chronicling the earliest debates in Japan about whether Oriental Medicine or western science should be considered the basis of shiatsu. This left Carl with a deep appreciation for what he called the “American” perspective on such matters. It was what Carl emphasized when he fought extremely hard for us to use the name “American Oriental” for the AOBTA. He cautioned that we really had to assert the fact that we represented an “American” perspective on the work and in our new organization. As Carl describes: “American students, concerned about rediscovering the basic life
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force that Western medicine had long ago discarded, proceeded to integrate, under the name shiatsu, all of the various hand techniques and energetic theories originally derived from koho anma, thus creating an American shiatsu/anma integration that I believe would be acceptable to Tamai Tempaku as well as to the ancient Chinese adepts. This re-integration was first introduced in America by Dr. DoAnn T. Kaneko (Dubitsky p. 7).” Carl also states that “In 1950 Toshiko Phipps was the first qualified Japanese shiatsu therapist to begin teaching in America ( p.6).” The following long excerpt is from an article that Toshiko wrote for the first newsletter we did in the American Shiatsu Association. It was published in August 1986 and in it Toshiko reaches all the way back to the Nei Jing as she describes just how and why Oriental Medical theory provides the cornerstone of shiatsu. This was something that no one else in the A.S.A. could do and over time it became more and more important to us as we continued to define the educational requirements for virtually every kind of shiatsu. ________________________________________________________
TOSHIKO PHIPPS AND THE EVOLUTION OF SHIATSU IN AMERICA, PART II By Cindy Banker, AOBTA® AOBTA® CI, Dipl. ABT (NCCAOM) The Development of Oriental Medicine in Japan by Toshiko Phipps 3000 years ago the people of Northern China used methods of acupressure, acupuncture and moxibustion for healing. The people in the south developed herbal medicines derived from their plentiful trees, weeds and herbal plants. Under the Han Dynasty (200 B.C. – 220 A.D) north and south united, bringing together these systems of herbal and physical therapies. 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.
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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.
Carl explains the details 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…. His book described a system that integrated koho anma, ampuku, acupoint therapy, do-in and Western anatomy and physiology. … In the preface he wrote:‘People must have high spiritual development to do shiatsu, because healing disease is not only by fingertip pressure. You have to have spiritual power to do healing by hand.’ Tamai Tempaku’s application of Western anatomical and physiological information to his treatment system was revolutionary ( p.5). Toshiko studied directly with Tamai Tempaku in 1940. I know that now because Marilyn Blough, one of Toshiko’s students since 1988, carefully chronicalled “My Memories of Toshiko” and was kind enough to give out some copies of this at the Happy Gathering we attended at Toshiko’s home Now that we know that Tamai Tempaku was the originator of the word shiatsu, the fact that Toshiko was able to study directly with him is pretty exciting stuff! Toshiko also completed studies at the Meiji Shin-Kyu College in Kyoto, where she studied Oriental Medical Theory, Acupuncture, Moxibustion and Herbs. She studied Shiatsu, Reflexology, Anma and Anpuku at the Meiji Shin-Kyu College in Osaka. In her article Toshiko describes that: A person could study Shiatsu at the Shiatsu Institute in Hokkaido. In 1940, the Japan Shiatsu Institute was established. Lectures given at this school gained wide recognition for the preventive and curative powers of Shiatsu treatment. At the time Western medicine had equal influence in Japan. Since the late 19th, its popular use had increased so greatly, that by the onset of World War II as many chose Western medical treatment as the traditional Oriental. However, the failings of Western medicine were becoming evident.
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During the war, accusations of mistreatment of American prisoners, said to be “subjected to” acupuncture and moxibustion (as medical treatment), led General MacArthur in September of 1945 to ban completely the practice and teaching of Oriental medicine. … Oriental medical professionals all over Japan responded to MacArthur by publicizing in newspapers and magazines, by petitioning the GHQ (General Headquarters for the U.S.A.) and by writing to influential Americans. Practitioners and patients alike suffered losses in education, in occupation and in medical care. Due to a letter from Helen Keller, President Truman (who was not aware of the situation) in December of 1945 [after the US won the war and occupied Japan] ordered an immediate rescinding of the ban by the GHQ. With the rescinding, the GHQ ordered there to be a nationalized system of education and practice for Oriental medicine. This new requirement created significant changes which have proved to be advantageous to the cause of Oriental medicine. Especially, a new level of acceptance for all Oriental therapies as equal in position with Western medicine took place. Colleges and universities were established, as well as licensing and certification procedures. Over the years the AOBTA has certified many Instructors in Integrative Eclectic Shiatsu. The Form has appealed to many of our most accomplished and innovative leaders in the field. I would argue that Integrative Eclectic Shiatsu has provided the option of a diverse and flexible approach to what may be simply called shiatsu as it is understood here in the United States. Some of our Integrative Eclectic Shiatsu C.I.’s have chosen to simply use the titles Shiatsu or Asian Bodywork Therapy. The AOBTA uses the following Five Specific Criteria for the purpose of having written established requirements for Certified Instructors.
Five Criteria for Integrative Eclectic Shiatsu 1. Knowledge of and demonstrated skill in teaching the 500-hour curriculum of the AOBTA. This includes Yin/Yang Theory, Five Transformations, Eight Principles and Six Divisions with applied knowledge of the associations connected with the above concepts. 2. Demonstrated knowledge and application of the Four Examinations. 3. Integrate western anatomy, physiology and, in some measure, bodywork principles and techniques into the specific technique. This may include but is not limited to
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craniosacral therapy, lymphatic drainage and neuromuscular therapy. 4. Demonstrate the ability to organize assessment information, including physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects, in creating a wholistic profile that provides the basis for active participation of the client in the treatment strategy. 5. There is a treatment strategy and demonstrable technique incorporating the above. The fundamental tool of our technique are our hands, although feet, etc. are equally viable, on the table or mat. The intent of our technique is to effect the vital substances through application of our technique to the meridian system.
The following description was sent to me by Toshiko. It describes in detail her version of Integrative Eclectic Shiatsu as it was specifically taught at her school. Toshiko’s Five Criteria for Integrative Eclectic Shiatsu 1. History and Philosophy of T.C.M. – Nei Ching Theory and Principles. Knowledge of and demonstrated skill in teaching the 500 hour curriculum of AOBTA. This includes T.C.M. Yin/Yang Theory, location and function of the 12 meridian lines, 365 acupoints, 12 source points (theory and clinical). 2. Demonstrated knowledge and application of the T.C.M. Four Examinations using the assessment method of looking, listening, asking and touching. Patients are evaluated according to the Eight Principles. Appropriate treatments, using Eastern and Western combined techniques are employed, working both internally and externally. Breathing, diet, herbs, exercise and lineament are used as appropriate. Treatment is intended primarily as preventive health care. 3. Demonstrated knowledge and application of: • • • • • • • • • •
The Science and Theory of Manual Lymph Drainage T.C.M. Four Hara Alarm Points AMPAKU 5 element Hara Diagnosis Five Traditional Japanese ATSU (pressure) techniques. Shiatsu/Tuina for Infants and Elders Positional Release Therapy (on cranial sacral) Advanced Japanese Diagnosis Eye and Face Tension Release (T.C.M.) Methods for Improving Memorization (T.C.M.) Brain balancing – the cranial-sacra; rhythm (IES) meditation
Integrated with the specific technique are Western anatomy, physiology and in some measure, bodywork principles and techniques. 6
4. Demonstrated ability to organize assessment information, including physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects in creating a holistic profile that provides the basis for active participation of the client in the treatment strategy. 5. Demonstrated treatment strategy and technique incorporating the above. The fundamental tool of our technique is our hands, forearm, joints, etc. which must be equally viable on the adjustable table. The intent of our technique is to effect its vital application to the TCM meridian system. Further Requirements * Knowledge of contraindications * Record keeping (client’s record; profile of body, mind and health history) * 100 Treatment reports * Written Exam * Practical Exam
Today Toshiko Phipp’s contributions to the field of ABT continue to live on, both in the memories of so many of us who feel truly indebted to her long career and service and even in the minds of those who are new to our field and read about her work in this and future publications. THANK YOU, TOSHIKO! FROM THE BOTTOM OF OUR HEARTS! Editor’s Note: Yes, that’s a shout. Cindy says that in Ancient China when a loved one departed, a family member would go up on the roof and shout out to their Hun (Spirit) from each of the four directions.
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