How To Give An Asian Massage

I am going to show you how to perform a basic relaxing treatment based on the principles of shiatsu. The basic shiatsu position is a kneeling position where you put your body weight onto the person who is receiving the treatment. As you can imagine, it's very important to make sure that as you do this, we take care of the spine of the person you're working with.

So, there are two points on the spine where we can actually apply a lot of pressure without damaging the person. In shiatsu, we mainly use our body weight to apply pressure. The first point is here, in the coccyx, and the second point is at the place where, on most people, is the highest point between the shoulder blades.

One of the basic principles of shiatsu is applying perpendicular pressure which means that the hands, my arms, should be at 90 degrees to the body of the person who I'm working with. So, as I lean forward, I'm not actually applying very much pressure at the moment. So, what I'm doing is establishing a general layer of pressure that the person feels comfortable with and I'm going to try to sustain that throughout the treatment.

So, I'm applying equal pressure here now with my right hand, and my left hand. I'm going to put my left hand here and equalize the pressure. And that's pushing down on either side of the spine, slowly, gently and quite firmly but not hard.

I'm waiting till I feel her chest rising as it falls and I push down on either side of the spine. Be very careful that you're not touching the spine and that your palms are definitely either side. Each time, look, I'm just checking where the vertebrae is.

You do not want to get hard there. I'm not going to apply so much pressure to that now. It feels very nice to have a stretch here.

You can take the person's leg and apply a nice stretch. Remember to put a really good strong mother hand here on the base of the spine and that helps to open up the pelvis at the front. It feels really nice.

Fail safe point that you can use for general relaxation, releasing anxiety, promoting sleep, restlessness, calming the mind. And that's right in the centre of the foot. So, what we've covered today is some of the basic principles of how to give a relaxing massage using the basic techniques of shiatsu. .