Pauline Sasaki and Quantum Shiatsu

The following are my experiences learning about Shiatsu.

I began studying Shiatsu with Ohashi around 1977. Traditionally, Shiatsu was and is  practiced with strong, deep pressure—a very yang approach that everyone followed.  Ohashi was a master of this style, and Shiatsu was booming in popularity. This was a  

time when people were expressing an interest in alternative treatments. I took intensive  courses at his school while working as a professional ballet dancer, often practicing Shiatsu on fellow dancers during tours. This hands-on practice was how I truly learned. 

Between tours, I’d return to New York for another intensive, then leave again to apply what I’d learned. After more than a year of this, I moved to Germany as a dancer and lived there for seven years. I studied  with both Japanese and German teachers, including Ohashi, who occasionally taught advanced classes there, such as “Oriental Diagnosis.” 

While in Hamburg, I learned of Akinobu Kishi, a former senior student of Masunaga in Tokyo, who would demonstrate  Masunaga techniques. I attended some of his workshops. Kishi had mastered Zen  Shiatsu and was now creating his own approach, Seiki. His style was intuitive, subtle,  and experiential. He encouraged students not to try too hard—just observe and feel.  There was little verbal instruction; it was about energy transmission and presence. Kishi  believed you learn when you're ready. He was deeply focused on sensing energetic  imbalances off the body and responding to subtle cues.

When I treated him, he recognized the influence of Masunaga’s Zen Shiatsu in my  touch. But Kishi had moved beyond that, developing Seiki Soho through inner  exploration, meditation, and feeling. Like Zen Shiatsu, Seiki emphasized deep  perception and subjective experience.

Years later, in 2015, I was fortunate to attend a workshop with a wonderful teacher, Paul  Lundberg, co-founder of the Shiatsu College in London and an early student of Kishi,  and in 2019, with Alice Whieldon, who co-wrote Kishi's book "Seiki". Alice is probably  the authority on Kishi's work. They both shared practices like katsugen (spontaneous  movement) and gyoki (breathing through the hands). These led to a deeper awareness of Kyo and Jitsu—not just through physical touch but through intuitive perception of a  person’s life energy. This was in line with Masunaga’s concept of “touch with love,” a  way of seeing imbalance with compassion, which Ohashi embraced.

Paul also spoke about the connection between quantum physics and Shiatsu—the idea  that the practitioner, like an observer in a quantum experiment, becomes part of the  treatment itself. This aligned with Pauline Sasaki’s vision, known as Quantum Shiatsu. 

I began attending Pauline’s workshops in the late '80's and continued until her passing  in 2010. Her teaching was transformative. While translating Masunaga’s work into  English, she developed deep insights that led her to evolve Shiatsu into something  more expansive—Quantum Shiatsu. This was directed at extending and completing  Masunaga’s work.

Pauline taught that to work with Qi, we had to understand vibration—starting with the  slower vibrations in the denser physical body, moving into the faster-vibrating  “Lightbody”, and eventually into multidimensional awareness. In her view, the meridians  were not just physical pathways but energetic ones that appear when needed. She  believed in working with the Etheric body—the energy field beyond the physical—where  healing and change begins. 

Pauline considered the meridians as outer aspects of the chakras. She worked with the  idea of merging the chakra system into one unified field, with the heart chakra  expanding to encompass the others. During treatment, the Etheric body became the  main focus. By working here, shifts would ripple into the physical body.

At a 2007 AOBTA Convention, Pauline taught that we’d evolved beyond older notions of  cause-and-effect patterns and karmic thinking. Instead of seeing ourselves as separate,  we are really part of a connected energetic matrix—what we now call a fifth-dimensional  reality. Through the heart chakra, we could access intuitive knowing, universal memory,  and healing energy. 

Quantum Shiatsu, at its core, is about expanding the meridians and shifting from  physical balance to energetic alignment. It asks us to engage our whole selves—body,  mind, energy, and intention. We direct the Qi with our thoughts, posture, and open  awareness. This allows us to perceive the symbolic layers of the meridians and work  with what’s most meaningful for the client.

In Quantum Shiatsu, we may work in two ways simultaneously: 

• In the three-dimensional field, with Kyo/Jitsu, direction, balance, and  measurable energy. 

• In the multidimensional field, beyond time and space, where we focus on  alignment and the quality of energy itself. 

Pauline taught that we now live at a level where our thoughts shape our reality. She  taught that the meridians are everywhere—and only appear when they are needed.

Cliff Andrews is an wonderful teacher who taught at the Shiatsu Symposium in 2014 in  Evanston, Il. He stated that historically, Shiatsu evolved from Namikoshi’s single point pressure method, to Masunaga’s two-hand system (with the mother hand), and then further with Pauline’s energetic expansion beyond the body. Cliff worked with  

Pauline extensively in the '80's and '90's and is the authority on Zen Shiatsu and Pauline's early work.

Pauline taught that our spine and alignment play key roles, and that we must cultivate our own energetic expansion to fully perceive and affect the client’s energy field. This was a prerequisite for doing Quantum Shiatsu. In this expanded state, we can better sense energetic distortions—in the body or in the field—making Hara diagnosis clearer and more intuitive. A prerequisite for doing Quantum Shiatsu is to work on  

your own personal sense of energetic expansion. All the areas of the Hara feel the same when you are in a contractive phase.

Pauline left us far too early, and her work was just beginning. I look forward to teaching  and continuing sharing more insights about Quantum Shiatsu based on her teachings  and my experience.

Tom Banasiak is a Certified Shiatsu Instructor (AOBTA) and a former Diplomat of Asian Bodywork Therapy (NCCAOM). He has studied the energetic and physical properties of Shiatsu, CranioSacral Therapy, Reiki, QiGong, Zero Balancing, the Chakras and energetic layers of the body since 1977. Tom is licensed by the NYS Board of Massage Therapy and has also studied Clinical Nutrition at NYU, and the martial art Aikido.  

He has taught Shiatsu at the Swedish Institute- College of Health Sciences since 1994 where he also was the Chair of the Eastern Department .  He teaches privately and gives treatments in New York City, and can be reached at alchemicalshiatsu@gmail.com