Spirit of Shiatsu

Born in 1971, Ivan Bel grew up on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, giving him a lifelong love of sailing and distant horizons. At the age of 13, he took up the martial arts with aikido and karate, and never stopped, moving on to numerous Japanese and Chinese disciplines. After studying journalism and Chinese language and civilisation in Paris, he travelled extensively in Asia, even taking the Silk Road from Paris to Beijing by car. As he travelled along the martial arts path, he came across the one of Shiatsu, which became his passion and he studied it for 12 years. Today he is the editor-in-chief of the biggest blog on the subject with more than 10.000 readers per month, he is also a practitioner, international teacher and founder of an NGO promoting Shiatsu in Africa.

This is a fascinating book. I am impressed by how Ivan Bel draws on his rich experience in martial arts, Shiatsu, meditation, Asian language and culture to describe in detail and with great enthusiasm the basics, concepts and philosophy of Shiatsu from the perspective of its traditional Japanese roots. As with the martial arts, he calls for humility and technical mastery in Shiatsu as a lifelong training that challenges and slowly realigns the whole person. No matter where you come from in Shiatsu and whether you agree with Ivan or not: read this book! Your view on Shiatsu will be different afterwards.