John Veltri, Producer - Director - Photographer - Editor

Marguerite Lorimer, Co-Producer - Photographer

Kyung Lee, Second Camera

Atsuko Yasuda, Model (Patient)

Compassionate Touch : Zen Shiatsu

is endorsed by Zen Shiatsu Master Waitaro Ohashi

in New York City, New York

and the Masunaga Zen Shiatsu Clinic in Tokyo, Japan

DEDICATED TO THE SPIRIT OF ZEN SHIATSU MASTER SHIZUTO MASUNAGA

Shizuto Masunaga  増永静人  (1925-1981) was born into a family of Shiatsu practitioners.  He became a professor of psychology, then decided to pursue the study of traditional Shiatsu, emphasizing the meridians and the Five Element Theory. He started a school of Shiatsu in Tokyo, and in the 1960’s began integrating the traditional methods of Shiatsu with western psychology and physiology. 

In 1977 Masunaga brought Zen Shiatsu to the US. He then traveled to many countries, setting up Zen Shiatsu schools throughout the world. His reputation as one of the great Shiatsu Masters of our time remains strong, with a legacy that continues to grow.

ABOUT THE STORY

COMPASSIONATE TOUCH : ZEN SHIATSU (Japanese 禅指圧) opens with a short narrated history about Shiatsu in Japan. In an honoring of Zen Shiatsu Master Masunaga, viewers are shown a series of images of Masunaga, photographed by Veltri in 1977. Sensitively photographed, Veltri’s sepia-toned photographs poignantly illustrate Masunaga’s historic first Zen Shiatsu teaching in the US.

As a westerner who was so profoundly influenced by Masunaga and the healings he witnessed that he briefly left his photography-filmmaking career to became a Zen Shiatsu practitioner himself, Veltri ends the film with a short story of the experiences he had with Masunaga, and his own demonstration of Zen Shiatsu.

Digital photographic images, HD videography, interviews, images of Zen Shiatsu treatments, written materials, archival images, archival footage. Music courtesy of Edie and Robin Hartshorne. Photographs of John Veltri’s zen shiatsu treatment with Atsuko Yasuda.

MATERIALS COMPILED FOR THIS PROJECT