Lineage and Legacy: Honoring Our Teachers (Those That Have “Gone Before”) Part Two

My very first class at IIOM was with Edward Bailey, a Californian who had already spent some years living in Tokyo, having studied at the Iokai Institute, founded by his teacher Masunaga Shizuto, creator of the Zen Shiatsu style. Ed was eccentric and quite a zealot for his craft as perhaps only those who assimilate a discipline foreign to their own culture can sometimes be. It always impressed me that he ran a very busy and successful full-time Shiatsu practice with his Japanese wife – the only foreigner in Tokyo I knew at the time to be doing that. I initially resisted the study of Shiatsu believing it not to be my path – after all I was in Japan to study acupuncture! But I quickly settled into the realization that the immediacy and intimacy of the tactile experience offered by doing and receiving this gentle practice was not only significant in itself but also enhanced sensitivity in meridian and point palpation as well as providing a firm grounding in the use of Hara and body mechanics. I had found a new and parallel path to my acupuncture studies and one that has evolved and still greatly informs my practice to this day.

With a couple of fellow students and on Ed’s recommendation, we decided to attend Shiatsu classes at Iokai in parallel with our classes at IIOM. Masunaga had since died (in 1981) and Iokai was being run by Suzuki Takeo, a very different personality from his teacher. Where Masunaga had been highly educated studying psychology at Kyoto university and later a professor at Tokyo university, Suzuki sensei was by his own definition straightforward and down-to-earth, having done a number of manual jobs including Tokyo taxi driver and working at Tsukiji (the Tokyo fish market) before encountering Masunaga and finding his Shiatsu path. I ended up becoming one of Suzuki’s many foreign students and followed him throughout my 5 years in Japan both as a student and as a patient of his.

Suzuki Takeo (center) and family with some students, Nigel Reid at the back (me taking the photo). Tokyo 1983

This apprenticeship-style of learning greatly influenced me and complimented my more formal institutional learning in acupuncture. Suzuki sensei was infinitely inventive and his eagerness to experiment eventually rubbed shoulders with Masunaga’s surviving wife who ran Iokai and so he broke away to teach on his own, followed of course by his faithful students of which I had now become one. Luckily for us, in our group we had Nigel Reid, an Australian who spoke fluent Japanese and became the unofficial translator in class. He remained with Suzuki sensei for over 10 years and his insight and deep understanding of his teacher’s methods was a huge contribution to my own development in Shiatsu. In class he was always referred to as the Australian Nigel and I the English Nigel. Also a good friend of Peter Yates’, he and I remain close friends to this day. 

Though there were other Shiatsu teachers I spent time with during those years, including Kimura Susumu (also from Iokai) and Endo Ryokyu (who later developed the Tao Shiatsu style), Suzuki sensei was my main influence and to him I owe a great debt in terms not only of my Shiatsu abilities (such as they are) but perhaps more so the sense of inquiry and experimentation that he so consistently encouraged in us and clearly demonstrated in himself. He had for example not hesitated to expand further on Masunaga’s meridian system (itself an “extended” version of the traditional pathways which included branches of the arm meridians in the legs and vise versa) by incorporating the Hirata Tai or Hirata Zones of which there were 12, each corresponding to those of the 12 meridians, though distributed transversely on the body, 12 in the arms, the legs, the torso and head, creating a kind of meridian matrix or grid system. During the latter part of my time with him he was also doing “off the body” work in addition to regular pressure work using both the meridians and zones, though this he never taught in class and I only experienced it in treatment. Thanks to his influence Shiatsu has remained a mainstay of my professional life.

Endo Ryokyu, photo by me in class Tokyo 1986.

But yet more serendipity was to manifest. Not long after my departure from Japan to China and then back to the UK in 1987 where I began practice and set up a Shiatsu school, I was greeted with the most surprising and exciting news – Gretchen De Soriano, a friend, colleague and teacher from Japan days had moved to London with her English husband! It was Gretchen who had helped prepare me for my trip to China the year before by offering a “conversion” class in TCM-style acupuncture for us meridian therapy folks who were keen to study in Beijing. It was also Gretchen who was the “other” Gaijin studying at the Kitasato Institute with Dr. Otsuka Yasuo. At last I had found a way to continue my Kampo studies! It was 1989 and by then in practice and teaching myself, as well as studying biomedicine classes at night school at Regent’ College, I didn’t hesitate for a moment in joining Gretchen’s apprenticeship Kampo training in London. At last, I was able finally to compliment my earlier studies in Japan with the excellent practical clinical teaching that Gretchen offered. I studied closely with her for 2 years and learned especially from her eclectic and individual style in clinic. Every time me and my fellow students would arrive at a formula decision, Gretchen would offer a different and often unpredictable suggestion that usually turned out to be on the mark. She really taught me to think outside the box with patients and opened up my understanding of classical formulas to a whole new level. We remain close friends, she practising and teaching still in London, myself in New York, and have collaborated on a number of projects including publishing a translation of Dr. Otsuka’s 1956 classic: Kampo Igaku (Kampo: A Clinical Guide to Theory and Practice, Churchill Livingstone, 2010, 1^st ed., Singing Dragon, 2016, 2^nd ed.). 

At the 5^th International Symposium for Japanese Kampo Medicine, Germany 2019. From left: Me, Dr. Kenji Watanabe, Gretchen De Soriano, Eric Buckley, Dr. Greg Plotnikoff

So, amongst the examples of the individual teachers I have given who have profoundly influenced my development in East Asian Medicine, I am most often in contact with Gretchen, my Kampo sensei, in London. Sadly, I have lost touch with Suzuki Todo my main acupuncture teacher; last I heard he went to study and live in China after the death of his mother in Tokyo. As for Suzuki Takeo, my main Shiatsu teacher, I have recently learned from Australian Nigel that he is alive and well and still in practice in the Tokyo area. During a recent trip to Australia this summer when I visited Nigel in his beautiful Japanese-style home in Nimbin, NSW, we made two pledges to one another: one is that we will travel together to Japan soon to track down and reunite with Suzuki sensei, the other is that within 2 years we will go to the UK together and visit our dear friend Peter Yates’ grave site located in Darwen, Lancashire – the town of his birth. These will be highly symbolic events for me, on the one hand paying respect to one of the several teachers to whom I am eternally grateful, on the other, celebrating a dear friend without whom I never would have begun on this path in the first place. 

Nigel Dawes M.A. (Cantab.), B.Ac.C., R.C.H.M., Dipl. N.C.C.A.O.M., L.Ac.

Nigel is an internationally renowned teacher and author who has been practicing East Asian Medicine for over 40 years. Now based in New York City, he runs a private practice in Acupuncture, Shiatsu and Kampo (Sino-Japanese Herbal Medicine).

Nigel is well-known nationally and internationally for his work on Fukushin - abdominal diagnosis and application in clinical practice – and has recently published a book on the subject: Fukushin and Kampo, Singing Dragon, 2020. He has multiple peer-reviewed journal publications in the field and is author of 3 other books, including a translation of the modern Japanese classic: Kampo: A Clinical Guide to Theory and Practice, Churchill Livingstone, 2010 and a bodywork text: Shiatsu for Beginners: A Step by Step Guide, Prima Lifestyles, 1995.

He is founder and director of the NYC Kampo Institute and Kampo Fellowship offering seminars and programs in Traditional Japanese Medicine at the post graduate level, including in acupuncture, Shiatsu and Kampo herbal medicine. He teaches both nationally and internationally and has been on faculty with several accredited colleges of East Asian Medicine in New York, Santa Fe, San Francisco, Montreal, Lisbon, London, Brisbane and Tel Aviv. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.