Tokujiro Namikoshi

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Tokujiro Namikoshi is the founder of Shiatsu Therapy. He was born on the Japanese island of Shikoku Island in 1905. As a young boy of seven, he discovered his hands-on therapy pressure method while treating his mother’s rheumatoid arthritis. He named this method “Shiatsu”. In 1940 he established the Japan Shiatsu College in Tokyo. Many his graduates now practice in Japan and overseas. Some of these graduates have popularized their own styles, called Derivative Shiatsu, such as Tadashi Izawa of Meridian Shiatsu and Shizuto Masunaga of Zen Shiatsu. Namikoshi also established the Japan Shiatsu Association in 1947. He passed away at the age of 95 in the year 2000.