The Origin of Shiatsu
The Namikoshi
Lineage
Four Generations of Shiatsu
Open daily, 11:00–19:00 (last booking)
Four generations,
from 1925 to today.
Shiatsu began here in 1925, when Tokujiro Namikoshi gave form to a way of working with the body using only the hands and fingers. At the time, the very word "shiatsu" was not yet known in the world. He put what he had discovered into words, shaped it into a system, and over time carried it beyond Japan.
What has been handed down through the Namikoshi family is more than knowledge of where and how to press. It is the disposition that comes before technique: to face another person first as a person, and to lay one's hands on them with care for their body, drawing on the strength they already carry within themselves. Now spanning more than a hundred years, this work has passed through four generations, from hand to hand and finger to finger, and continues today at the Imperial Hotel, Tokyo.
To be the origin is not simply to be old. It means having been the first to open the path, and choosing to keep that spirit clear rather than reshaping it to suit passing trends. These pages follow the four generations of the Namikoshi lineage — Tokujiro, Toru, Takashi, and Tomoya — and the line of shiatsu that runs unbroken from its beginning to the present day.
Tokujiro Namikoshi 浪越徳治郎
The Founder of Shiatsu
Shiatsu began in 1925 with Tokujiro Namikoshi. Born in 1905 in Kagawa Prefecture, the third of five children, he moved with his family of seven to Rusutsu Village in Hokkaido at the age of six, after his father's business failed. The sudden shift from temperate Shikoku to the harsh north took a toll on his mother, Masa, whose joint pain gradually spread throughout her body.
Rusutsu had no doctor and no medicine. The children took turns stroking their mother to ease her discomfort, and she told them that Tokujiro's hands felt best of all. Following her words, he pressed firmly and vertically on the stiff areas of her back and lower back, one point at a time. As her tension eased, his confidence grew that the human body could be met with the hands alone, without medicine or instruments. This was the origin of shiatsu.
After obtaining his anma and massage license, in 1925 he opened the world's first shiatsu practice in Muroran, Hokkaido. He founded the Japan Shiatsu Institute in Tokyo in 1940. Shiatsu was recognized in law in 1955, and in 1964 became independent under the Anma, Massage and Shiatsu Practitioners Act. His clients ranged from prime ministers such as Shigeru Yoshida to figures such as Marilyn Monroe and Muhammad Ali.
Toru Namikoshi 浪越徹
From Japanese Shiatsu to SHIATSU Across the World
The shiatsu born in Japan eventually crossed national borders, and Toru Namikoshi, the second generation of the lineage, carried it to the world. What had once been rendered in English as "fingertip pressure" took on a name of its own: SHIATSU. The Oxford English Dictionary lists "shiatsu" as one of the words that entered English directly from Japanese, a sign of how far the practice had travelled.
Toru devoted his life to introducing and teaching shiatsu around the world. His hands reached the rings of international sport and the leaders of nations alike. Among those he attended to was George Foreman, the world heavyweight boxing champion. Mitsuko, Toru's wife and the mother of the third-generation Takashi, gave shiatsu to President Havel, who led the Czech "Velvet Revolution."
The journey by which "Japanese shiatsu" became "SHIATSU known across the world" cannot be told without Toru. Continuing the path opened by the founder, he spread awareness of shiatsu internationally and helped establish its name in the wider world, carrying the original lineage forward to the next generation.
Takashi Namikoshi 浪越孝
A Century of Hands, Seen Through the Lens of Science
Takashi Namikoshi is the third-generation head of the Namikoshi lineage, carrying forward the legacy of his grandfather Tokujiro and his father Toru. Across four generations of the Namikoshi family, fourteen Japanese prime ministers have received shiatsu from their hands, a tradition passed down across the decades.
Inheriting the will of the first two generations, Takashi has devoted himself to building a scientific foundation for shiatsu, continuing clinical research in collaboration with physicians. In 2019, a joint study conducted with St. Luke's International Hospital was published in the peer-reviewed medical journal Complementary Therapies in Medicine. The randomized controlled study examined shiatsu in the context of chronic lower back pain. Layering the gaze of science onto a century-old manual art, this work continues to move toward the future.
Today, Takashi still stands at the side of those he works with, hands at the ready. Embodying both the techniques refined over a hundred years of Namikoshi shiatsu and the spirit of the "mother's heart" from which it was born, he passes the art on to the next generation. Like every member of the lineage, he holds the Japanese national license of Anma Massage Shiatsu Therapist.
Tomoya Namikoshi 浪越友哉
Carrying a Century of Shiatsu into the Next Generation
Tomoya Namikoshi, born in 1994, is the fourth-generation heir to the Namikoshi lineage of Shiatsu. As a child, he fell asleep almost every night to the warmth of his father Takashi's hands, receiving Shiatsu after Takashi returned home. That warmth remains the origin of his own path.
He trained for years under his father, who recognized in him the highest level of technique he had yet passed on. Tomoya describes their bond as one of parent and child, master and disciple, and rivals all at once. Like every member of the lineage, he holds the Japanese national license of Anma Massage Shiatsu Practitioner.
Today he works to carry correct SHIATSU to the world and to share it with younger generations as a form of preventive care. He is extending the practice into preventive health, wellness, sports, and beauty, seeking to bring the possibilities of Shiatsu to wider fields. At the heart of his path is a simple belief: when the heart of the practitioner is rich, the heart of the guest grows rich as well.
The origin of Shiatsu,
carried by four generations
Namikoshi Shiatsu Salon — Imperial Hotel Tokyo, Main Building, Mezzanine Floor.
The founder's lineage, continuing today.
Open daily, 11:00–19:00 (last booking)