Aug. 15, 2025
Touch Therapy in a Digital World with Kumiko Kanayama
Kumiko Sanayama, Shiatsu grandmaster and founder of Five Lives Center of Shiatsu, shares her expertise on managing stress and anxiety through self-shiatsu techniques. Drawing from her family's tradition and years of practice with clients like Giselle Bundchen and Nicole Kidman, Kumiko explains how this powerful healing art can transform wellbeing through mindful touch.
• Shiatsu follows the same pressure points as acupuncture but uses hands, elbows, and knees instead of needles
• Kumiko developed "intuitive Shiatsu" by adapting traditional techniques to individual needs
• The Japanese characters for Shiatsu represent connecting people through hands, sun, moon, and earth
• Each session is customized as practitioners assess clients through stretches and careful observation
• Entrepreneurs commonly experience stress in the back, shoulders, neck and wrists from computer work
• The pandemic increased interest in touch-based therapies as people sought alternative wellness approaches
• Digital communication creates "metal energy" that needs to be melted with "fire energy" through touch
• Self-care techniques are available on Kumiko's YouTube channel for those unable to visit practitioners
If you love what you heard today, please subscribe for more self-care tips as the weeks go forward. And if you love what Kumiko said today, please leave a review and have a blessed and abundant week.
Connect with Wendy Manganaro:
Connect with Wendy Manganaro:
Chapters
00:00 - Introduction to Shiatsu with Kumiko
01:29 - Origins and Evolution of Shiatsu
03:49 - The Intuitive Approach to Healing
06:33 - Body Stress Patterns in Entrepreneurs
09:03 - Finding Shiatsu Resources and Practitioners
11:38 - Final Thoughts and YouTube Resources
Transcript
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Hi everyone, it's Wendy Manganera from Wellness and Wealth.
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Welcome back to another episode.
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Today's topic is managing stress and anxiety through self-shihatsu.
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Today we have special guest Kumiko Sanayama.
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She is a shihatsu grandmaster, educator and the founder of Five Lives Center of Shiatsu, the oldest and longest running Shiatsu Foundation of America.
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A versatile practitioner, kumiko's many years of practice led her to develop her own style, known as intuitive Shiatsu, and has built a thriving practice with clients such as supermodel and UN Goodwill Ambassador Giselle Luchen and Nicole Kidman.
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Her insights have been featured in Insider.
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Welcome to the show, kumiko.
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Thanks for being here.
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Thank you, wendy.
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Thank you for having me.
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I'm so excited to meet you and to have your audience here.
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But Shiatsu is such a powerful technique and easy, simple and helps so many people.
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I'm sure everybody will love it.
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Yeah.
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So can you break down for our listeners who don't know what exactly is Shiatsu, because a lot of people may not be accustomed to what this is.
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So I'd love for you to explain it so that our audience understands how this helps with self-care.
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Yes, I'm sure many people know about acupuncture.
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Acupuncture, they use the needles Shiatsu.
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We follow the same pressure points, same energy pathways, but we don't use needles.
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It's all hands and elbows, knees and entire body to release and increase energy flow.
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Thank you for explaining that.
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From my understanding, usually people do these things because they're already in some sort of pain or trauma and they're searching for something to make them feel better.
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Pain or trauma and they're searching for something to make them feel better.
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So I'd love to know from you, because you've developed your own techniques, was based on hearing people's complaints and that you needed to go further or was it because of your own journey that you needed to go further?
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Great question.
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It's like a combination.
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So I learned shiatsu from my grandmother when I was living in Japan.
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My grandmother told me how to work on the shoulders like this, and the head and the feet something like that, but I was not trained.
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And then my uncle came to the United States 1970s and he started to give Shiatsu treatment to the people in America and then he found some Shiatsu techniques in Japan was not too strenuous to his body because he was small and he was so skinny and he has to develop techniques to adapt the atmosphere in the United States at the time and he used thumbs, elbows, knees and entire body to release and increase energy.
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His client's ballet dancers had strong muscles so he needed to cooperate.
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He needs to modify traditional Japanese techniques which was focusing more pressure points using thumbs.
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I want to ask you, just as you're explaining this too, so for people who don't know, shiatsu is because a lot of people think that acupuncture only happens in the back, but this is a shared body Agree.
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We focus on the from head to toes it's closed arm and we work on the clothes and a few of the acupressure points, using the thumbs to fine-tune the flow.
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And my understanding of Shiatsu is I go back and look at the Japanese character of Shiatsu.
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Everybody thinks Shiatsu is like a finger pressure, but I'm small, I don't have any muscles so I cannot just push, push, push.
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I've been doing this for many years and I visualized the character of Shiatsu Shi.
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There's three components hands, people and son Atsu.
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There's two components earth cover.
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I always remember what Shiatsu means to me and, yes, I feel like Shiatsu is a combination of meeting sun and moon and earth, heaven and earth together, and meeting people through the hands, connecting people through touch.
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So that's my understanding of Shiatsu.
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And the intuitive is more, so that you really, as you're talking about this, it's so that it's the energy, is it more like the energy, so you know where to apply those pressure points so that it works better for each person?
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Exactly my clients.
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Every time they come, the session is different because we eat differently, we think differently.
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Every day is a new beginning, every day is different.
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So every time they come I need to find what they need.
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At the time I use stretches as assessment techniques and we have a para in the front and back assessment and so I make some analysis to see what they need.
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And then we see and we hear, we listen and we ask questions.
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They use the five senses to understand what they need.
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So that's fascinating, and I love that you've worked with some of the stars to do this, because you're based in New York City, correct?
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So when you're working with somebody, when you're working with somebody and learning them, what's a little bit of the process that you go through?
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I'm curious about that too, as you say that everybody is so different, even what they eat, and so what is that process that you go?
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Ok, this is going to be the best session for them.
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What's your beginning process?
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Yeah, usually we ask questions how are you feeling today, any pains?
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And they say, oh yeah, my shoulder is a little bit bothering me, but I'm good.
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And then I slowly start to work with Shiatsu and then started to understand well, shoulder pain is not only from shoulders, maybe from the back of the neck.
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So I asked the questions what's happening in your back?
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Are you walking so hard, pushing yourself up?
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And my class said, yes, yes, I've been just working so hard, taking care of my family, taking care of myself, I've been so busy.
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And then slowly do the big stretches to connect from the center to the extremities and they feel so good.
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I was going to ask you one question, but I'm going to slightly change it, because I always ask what's the warning signs when a female entrepreneur should come to self-care in this way?
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But I would like to know, as you're talking about, you're like, oh, it's shoulder pain, but it's really something else.
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When you're working on people, especially people who are busy entrepreneurs, or corporate, especially for women, is there a place in the body where you find that the stress lays more.
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Oh yeah, definitely Pain in the back and the shoulders and neck and the wrist, because many people are sitting in front of the computer and we used to be isolated, so physically, mentally, this fuck around us is putting us in the corner.
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So doing the stretches really helps them to feel their own bodies, feel more connection between their body and the mind see that because so many people sit in front of screens.
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And the sun is for us is the metal energy.
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Metal energy is communication through the computer, but it's not people to people in person contact.
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There's some rock in the between, so that needs to be released and melts.
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We need to melt metal with beautiful fire energy.
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Leads me to one other question which I'm just curious, because now that you brought it up to the whole touch thing, did you find that after the pandemic that people had to get used to touch again?
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Yes, the younger people come in searching because in the pandemic they couldn't go out, they couldn't go to see the doctors easily.
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So they are trying to figure out what they need, what's the best for them and for the families and the friends, and they are exploring different, alternative way of lifestyle.
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And then Shiatsu is kind of part of that movement and I see more and more people are coming and more and more people appreciate what we offer.
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Yeah, and people didn't get touched for three years.
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But it's different when you're out in a crowd, especially in New York, where it's usually bustling, and then this physical touch creates the relaxation of the mind and emotional clarifications, and helps so many people.
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So if somebody is listening to this and go, this could be something that's good for me.
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How do they start to learn about shiatsu or get involved in finding out so that they can go and see if this is really something that's good for them?
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Yeah, it's so hard to understand shiatsu without experiencing.
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When you feel it, it's there, it's become reality.
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But it's hard to identify the beauty of shiatsu without experiencing.
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So I want people to come, go out, come get shiatsu with us, and then there's many practitioners all over the world.
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I hope they can reach out.
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I have all of your information to contact you.
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But if they can't come to you because they're not physically near you, there's other places that you could help them get to.
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And so you're in New York, so for my New York or there's even New Jersey people that's not far to go.
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If you're in New York, so for my New York or even New Jersey people, that's not far to go.
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If you're somewhere else, then it's something to look into, especially if you're feeling that body stress.
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The other thing about entrepreneurs most of us work by ourselves and once we're at a networking event we don't really get out.
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So we really can be sitting in a chair for way longer than we should be and we're isolating.
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So shiatsu seems like something that would be a good marriage to physically have some physical touch and undo what we do sitting in a chair for hours.
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Yes, relax your mind, feel good and open your heart.
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You can do so many good things to help so many people.
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I'm hoping all the people can experience.
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So I want to thank you so much for sharing this self-care method, because a lot of people do not know about it.
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It's important to share all ways that we can self-care.
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As you commented, more people are looking for healthier and naturopathic ways to feel good, that would be great.
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And then we have a YouTube channel.
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There's some self-care techniques on our YouTube channel.
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They can use the tapping techniques to tap the head, clear your eyes and TMJ All kinds of good stuff there.
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I will make sure I have all of your links and I want to thank you so much for coming on the show today and sharing with our audience.
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Thank you, Wendy.
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Thank you so much for having me.
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It's my pleasure.
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If you love what you heard today.
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Please subscribe for more self-care tips as the weeks go forward.
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And if you love what Kimiko said today, please leave a review and have a blessed and abundant week.
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