Rome 2026 – European Shiatsu Congress

Closing Ceremony

pcab_adm_tb — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 03:28:11 +0000

Closing Remarks

pcab_adm_tb — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 03:27:26 +0000

Shiatsu clinic

pcab_adm_tb — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 03:25:56 +0000

A Shiatsu clinic involves a demonstration of a shiatsu treatment being performed on someone who is not attending the congress. Each clinic involves two practitioners, who deliver their treatments one after the other.

Before starting the treatment, each practitioner will give a brief description of their approach. During the session, they may comment on their work, provided it does not interfere with the treatment itself.

At the end of the session, the practitioner may explain their approach further if they feel it is necessary. Attendees will then have the opportunity to ask questions, share comments and express any doubts.

Supporting a person’s strengths and true essence

pcab_adm_tb — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 03:23:19 +0000

What immediately comes to mind when I think of the topic ‘Shiatsu supports life’ are a person’s strengths and beauty, their true essence and our sources of strength, the resources, that nourish us.
We are usually confronted with a concern in the form of a complaint or a problem: often the reason for a treatment enquiry. Looking behind this is very rewarding. Focussing too much on the ‘problem’ often makes a person shrink, keeps them trapped in this identification with what is ‚not working’. How do we find a way together to get in touch with power and beauty?
What interests me first and foremost: what is this person’s path? Where does he or she want to go? Does this person experience this as a life task? Or rather as a longing, a wish, or to be able to leave something behind? And what is the purpose of these apparent obstacles, such as discomfort or pain? Exploring this path together leads directly to a person’s true nature. And this is different for everyone. How do we get in touch with the actual core of a person’s being?
First of all, I am interested in this as a facilitator on the process path. This is not interesting or worth pursuing for every client. However, as a therapist, it guides me inwardly and gives me inspiration for the process support. And this requires trust in intuitive guidance and a keen ear for the client’s descriptions and words, as well as training one’s own perception-tools.
The individual strengths of each person support them on their path through life. Also the inner and outer sources of strength – our resources. How can they be sensed, recognised, touched and supported with Shiatsu? The Five Elements and the Functions of the energetic organs are a constant companion. They explain a lot about a person’s strengths.
I would like to explore these questions in a workshop and/or in an interactive exchange with the other speakers and participants. Especially in a practical way.

Information about the speaker

JÜRGEN WESTHOFF

Born in 1964 in Sigmaringen on the Danube. Artstudies and work as a costume, and stage-designer in Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg, Athens etc. until 1997.
Training as a healing practitioner, and as Shiatsu therapist (GSD) at the Schule für Shiatsu Hamburg from 1998. Teaching at the Schule für Shiatsu Hamburg from 2006.
Training in Visionary Craniosacral Therapy at the Milne Institute Inc. (MII). Training in osteopathy at College Sutherland in Hamburg.
Head of ISS Kiental /Switzerland since 2016.
As head of school and teacher at ISS Kiental and teacher at the Schule für Shiatsu Hamburg: training-teacher and further education seminars, weekend courses and supervisions in Germany, Switzerland and abroad.
Moved to Constance on Lake Constance in 2014 with own body-therapy studio.
Many years of meditation practice and intensive Buddhist studies form the background of experience.

westhoff@zen-shiatsu.info
juergen.westhoff@kientalerhof.ch
www.zen-shiatsu.info

Order, disorder, and chaos govern life. Can shiatsu be of help?

pcab_adm_tb — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 02:03:31 +0000

The mother of all our questions surely concerns the mystery that still surrounds life and death and involves the Universe and, within it, the living beings of our planet.
My presentation will focus on certain aspects related to the nature of the human organism, some of its modes of functioning through the amazing journey that will attempt to describe the wondrous combination by which the infinitely large is contained within infinitely small structures.
We will try to understand the mechanisms by which our organism operates, which is not only a “complex system” but an incredible set of “complex systems.”
Through the analysis of the main components of the human organism and their mechanisms of action, I will try to explain why, beyond the coordinated and balanced functioning that corresponds to a state of health and well-being stimulated by Shiatsu of every style, and beyond imbalance, which gives rise to discomfort or illness counteracted by Shiatsu of every style, there is a third state that we can call chaotic. This is by no means an illness, but rather one of the normal physiological mechanisms of functioning.
Through this perspective, we can consider the need to revise certain aspects of mechanistic medicine, also taking advantage of what quantum physics has provided us.
In this certainly exceptional and extraordinary reality, we must find the role and space that Shiatsu can have with great dignity and effectiveness.

Information about the speaker

ROBERTO TAVERNA

Graduated in 1986 with Master Rudy Palombini, he perfected his training in Baarn, Netherlands, with Master Denis Binks and later in Tokyo at the JSC. He began teaching in 1987 at EFOA and subsequently at APIS, now the Italo-Japanese Shiatsu Namikoshi School. In 1995, together with Annemarie Frey, he founded the Swiss Shiatsu Namikoshi Institute, which he directed until 2005. In 1998, he took over the direction of the Dutch School and the European Shiatsu Academy, which he also led until 2005. In 2000, he participated in the public funeral ceremony in honor of Master Tokujiro Namikoshi, invited by the JSC President Matsuko Namikoshi Sensei. He has participated in numerous international Shiatsu seminars and congresses, often as a speaker.

Why correct stagnant Ki when you can touch life itself?

pcab_adm_tb — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 01:57:54 +0000

Coming back to self is intrinsic to finding your way in the labyrinth of health, beit physical or mental. It is only when we can inhabit our true nature that things come together and make sense enough to make the life that is meant for us. Xing and Ming, as it were.
How and where we touch in Shiatsu transmits an immense range of subtleties. There is technique and Hara of course. A central issue is when your Ki resonates with others´, how it is so heavily influenced by your belief system. When we truly have faith in the other person´s innate capacity to self regulate and to come back to their embodied self, the dialogue in our Shiatsu touch will transmit support to do just that.
Coming to our practice with a sound level of acceptance and a detachment from specific outcomes can offer an opportunity for the people we accompany to feel seen and connect to life from the safe place that is a fully embodied self, a self that is part of a complex matrix of life experiences and in turn with all other embodied selves.
In this workshop I will invite you all to explore how you approach a session with a proposal to replace any intentions you might have with awareness and attention. Through the use of some basic embodied mindfulness exercises and simple Clean Language, we will practice a very specific consciousness in the quality of touch. And this should give us a springboard to do some Sei-Ki together, undoubtably with a fair bit of Katsugen, which might be considered to be the very manifestation of our innate ability to self regulate.

Information about the speaker

GILL HALL

Gill is passionate about most things she gets involved with, yet somehow Shiatsu and Sei-Ki took the top spot. She has been practicing for over 25 years now, teaching as well as accompanying individuals in her practice. She began her Shiatsu studies in Madrid, going onto study with the Shiatsu College and from there to working with Akinobu Kishi Sensei. Currently she is director of Ameba Shiatsu School in Madrid as well as leading workshops around Spain and in more recent years, in Germany.
She has used her formal translation skills to support her local Shiatsu community by translating a whole host of trainers in Spain. So many Shiatsu ideas have passed through her head and resonance through her whole self, creating a rich prism through which she has gained a determination to be herself and find her own way, and this is what most informs her work.

Shiatsu Supports Life

pcab_adm_tb — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 01:54:24 +0000

Shiatsu supported my own life for forty-five years. This workshop will follow the learning, mistakes, experiences and realisations of a Shiatsu practitioner and teacher throughout that time.
This will be a practical workshop, with as much hands-on time as possible. I’ll offer practices based on my various teachers’ work as well as ones that I hope will illustrate the experiences which led me further and deeper into Shiatsu.
There will be some theory involved in this story of a life in Shiatsu but it will absolutely not be didactic. Instead I hope, by my own questioning of the nature of theory in Shiatsu, to encourage people to explore more confidently. Inevitably my biases will show and I welcome comments and free exchange of views.
In order further to discourage an intellectual approach, I will deliver the workshop in Italian. My Italian is a little rusty, but I hope that will make it an informal and humorous occasion.

Information about the speaker

CAROLA BERESFORD-COOKE

I grew up in the Far East, which was a formative period and when my interest in East Asian culture and healing began. When my family returned to England I went through an intensive formal education but abandoned it all to study beauty therapy, where I discovered massage. Shiatsu followed almost at once and I did my first workshop in 1978 with Ohashi.
I then studied acupuncture but Shiatsu remained my first love and principal practice. Pauline Sasaki became my “root guru”. I joined with Cliff Andrews, Paul Lundberg and Nicola Ley to found the Shiatsu College in 1986, and our collaboration brought friendship and so much learning. I wrote “Shiatsu Theory and Practice” in 1996, now in its 3rd edition. Later I taught internationally for many years but have now retired to live quietly with my husband in beautiful West Wales

Movement Shiatsu & the Six Forms of Touch

pcab_adm_tb — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 01:44:34 +0000

This workshop will show how the Qi is influenced by the WAY in which you communicate, the quality of touch you use and how to involve the client more actively in the therapy through guided movement. The quality of touch is as important, or even more important, than the meridians with which you choose to work.

Each Form of Touch is related to one of the combined meridians, often called the Six Divisions, which traditionally connect the physical and mental aspects of energy. Bill has shown how these combinations of meridians are related to developmental movement and thus how to work with meridians through movement exploration as well as through touch. This transforms the therapy into an interactive voyage of discovery, where the client is the leader and the therapist is assisting their self-exploration.

This approach is particularly relevant and effective for people with early trauma and chronic conditions that resist treatment. This is because the client is in charge of their process, so feels safe to enter more challenging areas of themselves. The techniques and processes of Movement Shiatsu can be easily used within other forms of Shiatsu when working with this type of issue.

Bill and Teresa always teach together because this allows them to demonstrate the techniques from both the point of view of the practitioner and of the client.

Information about the speaker

Bill Palmer e Teresa Hadland
Bill è direttore della School for Experiential Education (SEED) ed è stato uno dei pionieri dello Shiatsu in Europa negli anni ’70.
È co-fondatore della UK Shiatsu Society e del Journal of Shiatsu and Oriental Body Therapy.
Teresa ha insegnato Shiatsu a livello universitario presso la Derby University ed è attualmente tutor senior alla SEED.
Insegnare insieme offre la possibilità di trasmettere sia il punto di vista dell’operatore, sia quello del cliente attivamente coinvolto.

Le ricerche di Bill con i neonati hanno mostrato come i meridiani guidino lo sviluppo del movimento e come le funzioni energetiche abbiano origine nel movimento fisico.
Da ciò ha sviluppato il Movement Shiatsu e l’Inner Qigong, che aiutano le persone a essere più attive e sperimentali nel loro ruolo di clienti, utilizzando sia il movimento che l’esplorazione guidata, oltre al tocco.
Lui e Teresa insegnano queste discipline in dieci paesi nel mondo.

Shiatsu clinic

pcab_adm_tb — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 01:40:05 +0000

Shiatsu clinic

pcab_adm_tb — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 01:39:04 +0000