What is Seitai? How can you treat shoulder and back neck pain?

Most of you probably know Shiatsu, also known as acupressure, which is a pushing technique with the fingers. But have you heard of Seitai? Seitai includes all alternative therapies that use hands. Since the reopening of Japan in 1854 after its 200 years of seclusion, Western therapies such as chiropractic and osteopathy were introduced from abroad, and adapted to the traditional Japanese techniques. These new approaches were then called "Seitai," which means "comprehensive alternative therapy." This term is thus a rather new word that originated in the early 20th century.

However, Seitai is not a treatment technique on its own. IN fact, there are hundreds of different Seitai methods in Japan! Some of them use quite strong hand techniques, and some others just gently stroke the skin in proper directions to release the tension of the body. I leaned Western oil massage in the US, then Shiatsu and several other types of Seitai. At the beginning, I felt a lot of physical burden with giving Shiatsu massages, because obviously you need your own entire body power to provide proper pressure. But with the new techniques of Seitai, I discovered that I needed less physical power for the treatment, as these techniques use just a little stimulation at certain body points or gentle strokes on the skin, to release the tension deep in the body. It also meant my treatments were more efficient with less impact for the clients. These Seitai techniques were traditionally taught by a master to its apprentices within closed walls. But in recent days, most of the schools have opened up widely and teach easier methods to the ordinary people in order to show them how to take care of themselves.

Let me teach you some of these techniques!

To start, I'd like to show you what to do when you feel stiff around the shoulders and the back of the neck. Touch along the bone on the back side of your upper arm, from below the shoulder toward the elbow. This is where the shoulder and back-neck pain come from. There are 2 ways to take care of it. One is to make a gentle stimulation with your finger nails, and the other is just to stroke the skin in proper direction:

For the stimulation with your finger nails, wear long sleeves or cover your arm with a thin cloth.Put your fingers get together (like the image) to create one long "blade" of nails.Then scratch the back side of your upper arm along the bone (like the red line in the image). After stimulating several time, slide your muscles away from the bone (like the blue arrow). Please sure to cover your arms first! Otherwise your nails could harm the skin. It may be painful at the beginning, but it will decrease during the exercise, because the pain occurs when the shrinked myofascia expands. It is not because you are breaking anything!



For the strokes technique, you can uncover your arms or wear thin long sleeves. Gently stroke the skin downwards (from the shoulder to the elbow) with your palm and finger cushions several times, with the strength you would use to stroke a cat.

I am still studying and doing research to find out more precisely why these techniques are effective. Though at this moment it occurs to me that one of the reasons would most likely relie into the connectivity of myofascia. Myofascia is like the net that covers the muscles, bones, and all of the organs, and its physical function is attracting the attention to Western medicine as well. It forms a network in our whole body, and helps us distributing impact in case of an accident. For example, if one end of this network gets stiff, the other end is pulled and gets tense. We feel pain where our sensors are stronger, but the origin of the tension could be somewhere else in the network. In the case of the shoulder and back-neck pain, the tension comes down through the scapula, the back of the arm, and even reaches the fingers. This causes the stiffness of the myofascia on each bone edge. Releasing them helps to decrease the tension of the shoulder and the back of the neck, as we did in the exercise.

When you are mentally stressed or simply concentrate on something, especially in front of a computer, your body reacts. You may be unconsciously crisping your hands or shrinking your shoulders. This is also a main cause of tension. It is important to notice these unconscious habits and to sometimes breathe deeply, rotate your shoulders, and release them to relax.