How does a zen shiatsu session take place?

The Zen Shiatsu practitioner begins by preparing a comfortable environment for the treatment. The recipient, dressed comfortably, lies supine on the futon. 

The operator sits next to the recipient's right hip. The right contact between therapist and recipient is very important from the beginning: the operator must lightly touch the patient's stretched pelvis with the right side of his legs, a contact which, as they say in Japan, must be like that of a breath of spring wind, not too strong, not too hot, nor too cold or detached, like an autumn wind.

Through contact with the recipient's wrist, the operator tunes into his internal rhythm. Subsequently, place your hand on the recipient's abdomen, under the navel, harmonizing with his breathing rhythm and making contact with the heartbeat that accompanies us from the fetal state until the last moment of life.

This marks the beginning of the Zen Shiatsu journey, using spiraling circular movements to explore the energetic conditions of the Hara.

The treatment continues with the Kata, a predetermined sequence that balances the energetic body through the meridians.

Shiatsu follows the principles of Oriental Medicine, which sees the close relationship between Mind, Body and Spirit united in the vital energy that pervades everything - called Ki in Japan - which flows through the meridians.

Through manual pressure on specific meridians with thumbs, palms, elbows and knees, the operator restores psychophysical and energetic balance without the use of external tools.

At the end of the treatment, the operator closes the Hara with an anti-clockwise rotation.
It is a very delicate moment because the recipient, from that moment on, will have to proceed alone.

Zen Master Tetsugen Serra, graduated “Zen Master Shiatsu” from the Shitsuto Masunaga Institute at the Iokai Shiatsu Center in Tokyo, has strongly characterized his Shiatsu practice precisely through the realization of the Way of Zen.

In particular, in direct contact with Master Kimura, teacher of the Masunaga school, Master Tetsugen completed a path of in-depth study through which he received an initiation which more specifically determines his meditative and energetic practice: Zen Therapy “Ten Shin Heart of Pure Sky”.

And it is precisely this condition of Ten Shin that is the main source that the energy operator must draw on in order to get to the heart of it
of Zen therapy.

The word Ten, which can be translated as "sky" or "celestial", is attributed the meaning of clear, pure. The word Shin translates as “heart” or “spirit” and, therefore, the expression Ten Shin, usually translated “Heart of Pure Sky”, means to be in the state of luminous serenity of being.

During the state of Ten Shin, the body is relaxed, the mind is serene and the face is luminous, allowing the practitioner to lead the patient on a journey to rediscover the inner self.
This condition promotes a therapeutic relationship of union, where the therapist does not override the bodily and emotional ego of the recipient, but enters into internal harmony with it, becoming the means through which the patient learns to come into contact with himself.