Hi, welcome back to our show on shiatsu massage. The word shiatsu itself actually literally means "finger pressure", though it's a massage therapy that not only uses the fingers, but uses the other parts of the hand like the palm and the thumb and the wrist, as well as the elbows, the knees, and even my feet. Even though the word shiatsu dates back to the turn of the twentieth century, the actual practice can go back 4,000 years to the beginnings of acupuncture itself, which originated in China. During the 10th century, when China started a lot of trading with Japan and introduced their own medical theories and practices, massage was incorporated by Japan itself, and then at the turn of the 20th century, shiatsu was established. Shiatsu, like acupuncture, deals with meridians. What are meridians? For the lay person, it's best to think of meridians as energy flow, almost like a pipeline of energy that runs the course of the body up and down, to the digits of your fingers, to your toes, to the scalp. Meridians have what they call "trigger points" in those meridians, which in Japanese they're called subos. But there are places along the meridians which best can be accessed, the energy themselves can be accessed, these various points, these "trigger points". When I come back, I'll talk about the five elements which are also part of the meridians and shiatsu. Stay with us.
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