What Are Asian Bodywork Therapies?

Asian Bodywork Therapies (ABTs) are various types of bodyworks that originated in Asia, many of them have been practiced by for thousands of years. Asian Bodywork Therapy is a holistic type of healing technique that addresses problems affecting the spirit, mind, and body of a person as well their energetic and electromagnetic fields that brings, infuses, and surrounds the body to life by manipulation and/or pressure.

According to the American Organization for Bodywork Therapies of Asia (AOBTA), ABT is different from Western bodywork therapies in that the principles of ABT are based on traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) system for evaluating and assessing the energetic system of a person. From the viewpoint of TCM, these evaluations focus on the harmony and movement (or lack of them) of the Five Essential Substances: Body Fuilds (jin ye), Blood (hsue or xue), Spirit (shen), Essence (jing), and Energy (chi or qi). The intention of treatment is to maintain, boost, and bring back harmony. The AOBTA states that ABT “utilizes age-old Asian treatment strategies and techniques to mainly balance and influence a person’s energetic system in order to treat the spirit, energetic field, mind, emotions and body of a person to restore, maintain, or enhance health.”

ABT Techniques

The AOBTA recommends that therapy should include “holding, pressing, or touching the body on acupoints and/or energy channels (meridians) mainly with the use of hands, proper exercise, dietary therapy, heat or cold therapy, external application of medicinal herbs, and stretching exercises. TCM modalities such as moxibustion, gua sha, and cupping can also be utilized by adequately trained practitioners.” All these make ABT essentially different to Western massage therapies. Unlike Western massage therapy, ABT not only involves structured touch techniques and palpation skills, it also takes into account any disharmony in the body that impacts the whole person, inclusive of their lifestyle. ABT, Chinese herbal medicine, and acupuncture comprise the three foundations of TCM, evaluation and healing, and perhaps the application of non-touch healing techniques such as cupping and heat therapy. These modalities are all part of the knowledge and scope of an ABT practitioner.

Amma Therapy

One of the most commonly practiced ABT techniques today is Amma therapy. According to Carl Dubitsky, author of BodyWork Shiatsu: Bringing the Art of Finger Pressure to the Massage Table, “amma is the forerunner of all manipulative healing techniques that evaluate and cure the energetic system”.

Around 300 B.C.E., early Chinese massage, was referred to as moshou (manual rubbing) and by 500 C.E. it had evolved to the point whereby doctors were required to learn moshou in order to hone their palpation abilities for medical diagnosis and practice. During the Han dynasty (206 B.C.E. to 220 C.E.), Chinese bodywork therapy came to be known as anmo (which literally means to “press and rub”) and later on from the Ming dynasty (1368 to 1664) to the present day, as tui na (“raise and grip”). Gan Jin Osho, a Buddhist monk, in 600 C.E., brought anmo therapy to Japan. The Japanese renamed this technique to the Japanese word for massage: Amma (sometimes called “anma”).

One of the most important figures in the progress of Japanese medicine is Waichi Sugiyama (1614 to 1694). Blind at the age of one, Sugiyama left home as a teenager to learn amma. He was responsible for making amma available as a profession for the blind and also transformed Japanese acupuncture by inventing the needle insertion tube, a concept that came to him in a vision. As a token of appreciation for curing him of a painful stomach disorder, Tsunayoshi, a shogun Lord, conferred Sugiyama with the title “superintendent of the blind” and set up 45 medical schools for the blind. This is why there are many blind massage practitioners in Japan today.

Koho, an ancient amma technique, is not just a form of relaxation massage therapy but a medical practice as well that includes diagnosis. It utilizes the feet, knees, elbows, forearms, fingers, or thumbs of the therapist to tap, stretch, stroke, and bear pressure on the 14 major energy channels (meridians) of the body. But in the middle of the 18th century, after the restoration of the Meiji era, blind people were taught a more simple form of traditional amma as a means of sustenance. Some people perceived this simplified form as a mere pampering of the wealthy, and those who practiced this type of amma were called “amma shampooers.” By the 20th century, to announce their services, blind amma therapists walked the streets blowing a whistle, stamping a ringed iron staff, and shouted “Kamishimo! (which literally means, “from top to bottom,” which implied a whole-body massage).

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