“Is shiatsu the same as pressing acupressure points?” We are asked this often, and the answer is no: at Namikoshi Shiatsu Salon our hands work on roughly 660 pressure points whose positions were set from anatomy and physiology, not on acupoints lying along meridians.
Since Tokujiro Namikoshi began shiatsu in 1925, the way those places are decided has never changed. We follow the same points today, in our rooms on the Main Building Mezzanine of the Imperial Hotel Tokyo.
A question we hear all the time
After a session, some guests tell us they have had their “tsubo” pressed. The word shiatsu brings acupressure points to mind for many people, and guests from overseas often open our door expecting acupressure by another name. The two are also grouped together as one Japanese hand technique.
We have always given a short answer in the room. This time we wanted to write it down properly, because the story of where shiatsu presses is worth more than a sentence.
The points were located from anatomy
In Namikoshi Shiatsu there are about 660 pressure points, or vital points, across the whole body. They sit at positions that correspond to the work of the muscles and nerves, the blood vessels and lymph glands, the endocrine glands and the internal organs. The ground they were laid on is the anatomy and physiology of modern medicine.
So a pressure point is a place found by following the structure of the body, layer by layer. It was not located by tracing a flow of energy.
The only tools that travel across those points are the fingers and palms. No instruments and no oil are used, and the work is done over clothing or a gown, one point at a time.
Acupoints come from a different origin
Acupoints sit along the meridians, and they were mapped in China over a very long span of years. The Namikoshi points were placed by looking at the structure of the human body itself. Both sets of points lie on the same body, yet the road that decided their positions was a different road.
This is not a question of which one is correct. We would simply rather not fold two things of separate origin into a single word. How shiatsu differs from anma and from massage is set out on our page on what shiatsu is.
Perpendicular to the surface, one point at a time
Once the point is decided, the next matter is how it is pressed. In shiatsu the pressure goes straight down, perpendicular to the plane of the body surface, one point at a time. Nothing is slid on a diagonal, and nothing is kneaded.
That single word, perpendicular, was found by a six-year-old boy on his mother’s back. More than stroking and more than rubbing, she told Tokujiro that pressing the hardened places straight down on one point felt best of all. We wrote about how that came to pass in Vol. 2, A Single Word: “Pressure”.
The order is fixed, and the hand reads the day
The order in which the points are pressed is fixed as a system, and every practitioner follows the same route through the body. Within that route, which point to press and how firmly is judged while checking the state of the muscle. A set form and a hand that reads the body of the day come together to make one session.
The palm carries small sensors that receive whatever it touches, so it takes in firmness and warmth and shifts its strength and angle little by little. Even with the same guest, the way the hand travels is not the same as it was last time. That is why the reading begins the moment the door opens.
Stronger is not better, either. The harder a place has become, the more slowly the pressure is laid on it, waiting for the body to loosen in its own time.
On the Main Building Mezzanine of the Imperial Hotel Tokyo
We walk across these 660 points every day. You will find us on the Main Building Mezzanine of the Imperial Hotel Tokyo, open 11:00 to 19:00 JST, every day of the year. The last session of the day begins at 19:00.
Reservations are taken by telephone on 03-3581-7354 and 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