Choosing the right position for you both

It is a good idea to begin your treatment routine in the position your receiver finds herself in already for the diagnosis. If she is in supine you will have performed a Hara diagnosis, if she is in the prone or sitting positions you will have diagnosed from her back. She is unlikely to be starting off in the side position as it is hard to perform a complete Hara or back diagnosis on a receiver in side-lying. On these rare occasions meridian diagnosis (see p. 326) is more appropriate.

After our preliminary contact and diagnosis, followed by a moment for recentering ourselves and checking once more that the receiver is comfortable, it is time to begin the session. It is best to use one of the treatment frameworks with which you are so familiar that you can move into it without having to think about what you are doing or anything outside your contact with the receiver’s Ki. These first few minutes of the Shiatsu session are vital for establishing a relationship with the receiver’s Ki, so you should make sure that you are comfortable as well and able to relax into your own Ki-field. Any position that causes you to feel less than grounded, comfortable and confident is to be avoided. You should omit any such position from your Shiatsu framework, even if it was part of the routine you learned as a student. (If there is a technique you are still determined to master, it should be practiced in a different setting with a Shiatsu friend until you are familiar and comfortable with it.)

Meridian direction

In some Shiatsu traditions the meridians are treated according to the direction of Ki flow within each Yin or Yang meridian, so that the Spleen would be treated from the foot up to the torso, whereas the Stomach would be worked down the leg to the foot. This technique was designed for use with the classical meridians, whose direction of Ki flow has been established by tradition; in the Zen Shiatsu meridian extensions, however, the direction of Ki flow is not formally indicated, so that the meridian flow cannot be followed in the same way.

There is no right or wrong direction to treat the meridians, in my opinion; only the direction which is most comfortable and least limiting. If your framework is built around a particular direction in which to treat the meridians, it is the one which will enable you to relax the most, and that is the best way to connect with Ki.

Making connections

Zen Shiatsu training in the two-hand technique enables us to make connections in the Shiatsu session (along the length of meridians, between meridians, between full and empty places, between points) which help the receiver to rebalance and harmonize his Ki-field. If we follow the analogy between Ki flow and electric current this would be akin to rewiring a circuit so that Ki can flow freely.

Because the nature of the connective tissue – the all-encompassing ‘living matrix’ which connects all the systems of the body – is that of a semi-conductor, storing and transmitting information via changes in electrical charge (see p. 17), the body is predisposed to make connections between all its different parts. The value of using the two-hand technique and the awareness of Kyo and Jitsu is that we are able to work fluidly and consciously with different polarities of charge via the Yin or Yang properties in our hands (see p. 63) to amplify connections that are weak or free up connections which are blocked.

Making connections is something we do automatically – it is built into our own Ki system as well as our receiver’s. When we make a connection between the mother hand and the working hand it is a similar experience to the one of the Kyo–Jitsu reaction on the Hara – it is a shift in our whole field (which is a complex of many other fields, see p. 18). The purpose of all the self-development techniques discussed in Chapter 6 is to encourage our awareness of our own field so that we can notice when we make these connections. When we feel a connection it is not sensed by narrowly focusing on the area under our hands or even our hands themselves – we feel it in our whole body and consciousness. This is not to say that it is always an overwhelming sensation, just that it is non-local and that it takes place in ourselves and our own Ki-field as well as that of the receiver.

As a general rule in the tradition of ‘selfish Shiatsu’, a connection which feels good means that it is a disharmony which corrects itself within the same moment that we sense the connection. By means of the alternative by-pass circuit of your hands, the receiver has released a blockage or brought awareness to a neglected area. It has already happened, and the pleasurable sensation you feel is the indication of harmony in his field via your resonance with it.

If a connection makes a change in your field that does not feel good (and this is a much rarer occurrence), it is likely to be a sign that a disharmony exists into which you have connected, and that it still exists despite the by-pass connection you are making. Insisting on forcing a connection is absolutely not the way to proceed. It contracts your field and may do damage or cause pain to the receiver; a different approach is required.

The even touch

The even touch is simple penetration to the level where we can sense the Ki in the meridian, with awareness but no intention; a readiness to respond, but not a response. It is essentially a ‘listening’ and open quality of touch. The use of the mother hand and the listening function is fundamental to the even touch.

In a sense, the even touch is the beginner’s ‘crawling’ technique taken to a higher level of Ki interaction; in the same way that when we begin Shiatsu we will ‘crawl’ over the receiver’s body in an exploratory way until we find a spot where we feel comfortable resting our weight, so with more experience we will use the even touch until we find something that attracts our attention.