Tokujiro Namikoshi

Tokujiro Namikoshi is the founder of Shiatsu therapy. He was born on the Japanese island of Shikoku 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 of 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 died at age 95 in 2000.

Tokujiro Namikoshi 浪越徳治郎