Anma, massage and shiatsu all sit inside a single Japanese national licence, yet each of the three words was born in a different country and a different century. Anma came from China, massage came from Europe, and shiatsu began in Japan in 1925 with Tokujiro Namikoshi.
At Namikoshi Shiatsu Salon, on the mezzanine floor of the Imperial Hotel Tokyo Main Building, guests ask us about this often. Here is where each of the three words comes from.
One licence carries three names
The Japanese national qualification is called anma-massage-shiatsu practitioner. It is a long name for one licence, and the reason is that three separate techniques are written into it, one after another.
The law behind it is Act No. 217 of 1947, the act covering anma-massage-shiatsu practitioners, acupuncturists and moxibustion practitioners. Its first article requires anyone practising anma, massage or shiatsu to hold that same single licence. The three names stand side by side because three traditions from three places were gathered under one roof.
Anma — the technique that came from China
Anma was born in China. Alongside the fingers and thumbs it uses the elbows and the knees, and its core movements are kneading and tapping. If you picture a pair of hands that keep moving from beginning to end, you have the shape of it.
Some of our Japanese guests still say anma when they mean massage of any kind, and in parts of the country the word survives in ordinary daily speech. It has been part of life here for a very long time.
Massage — the technique that came from Europe
Massage was born in Europe. Its core movements are stroking and rubbing, light and firm by turns, carried out with the palms and the fingers.
The direction of the hands follows a rule of its own. They travel from the ends of the arms and legs towards the centre of the body. If anma is the hand that kneads, massage is the hand that strokes, and the two are further apart than they look.
Shiatsu — Japan, 1925, and a single word for pressure
Shiatsu was born in Japan. In 1925 Tokujiro Namikoshi opened a practice in Muroran, Hokkaido, under the name shiatsu.
The shape of the hand had been settled some years before that. As a boy of six, Tokujiro placed his hands each day on the back of his mother, who had begun to suffer pain after the family moved north to Hokkaido. It was his mother who told him that pressing one hard spot straight down felt better to her than stroking or rubbing.
Not the hand that strokes, not the hand that kneads, but the hand that presses straight down at a single point — that is what remained. The word shiatsu joins the two characters for finger and pressure, and it comes from that one point. At Namikoshi Shiatsu Salon we still work the same way, over clothing or a gown, with the fingers and thumbs alone and no oil or tools.
1955 and 1964 — how the names came apart in law
A word can exist for a long time before the law makes room for it. Shiatsu first entered Japanese law in 1955.
The title of the act carried no mention of shiatsu at that point. It arrived folded inside anma, counted as part of the first technique rather than as a third one standing on its own.
The title changed in 1964, through Act No. 120 of 1964, and the word shiatsu took its own place in it. Thirty-nine years after it began, shiatsu had a name of its own in Japanese law.
All three sit inside one national licence
Three beginnings, three countries, and today one licence. The anma-massage-shiatsu practitioner licence is granted by the Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare to those who have studied for three years or more at an approved school or training facility and then passed the national examination. Every practitioner at Namikoshi Shiatsu Salon holds it.
You will sometimes read that shiatsu is a kind of Japanese massage, and the story is a little more tangled than that. The three share a licence and a country of practice, but they do not share a birthplace. Once you know which of the three a pair of hands is doing, what you are receiving comes into focus.
If you would like the differences in more detail, we have two pages on them: the anma-massage-shiatsu national licence and how shiatsu and massage differ. Both of those pages are written in Japanese.
Our salon is on the mezzanine floor of the Imperial Hotel Tokyo Main Building. We are open from 11:00 to 19:00, every day of the year, with the last session starting at 19:00. Rooms include fully private rooms, a private room with a high open ceiling, and a twin room.
Sessions are 16,500 yen for 60 minutes, 22,600 yen for 90 minutes and 28,600 yen for 120 minutes, tax included. Reservations are taken by telephone on 03-3581-7354 or by email at reservation@
Shiatsu here is practised under the national licence of anma-massage-shiatsu practitioner. It is not a substitute for diagnosis or treatment by a physician.
Namikoshi Shiatsu Salon