Pauline Sasaki my Teacher and Inspiration by Clifford Andrews
This is a copy of the article that has just been published in the UK Shiatsu Society News. This article was proofed and edited by Dinah John.
It was 1981 I was living in Brighton, studying Tai Chi in the evenings and driving a delivery van for Infiinity Foods Wholefood Cooperative during the day.
I attended the very first Shiatsu workshop at the newly opened Brighton Natural Health Centre with Paul Lundberg. I immediately loved Shiatsu – meditation, body-work, energy awareness, Asian philosophy, and it an alternative holistic world-view. Paul’s profound knowledge, and his caring and thoughtful attitude to healing was something to aspire to, I was hooked.
The Brighton Natural Health Centre was founded by Infinity Foods – one of the first organic wholefood co-operatives in the UK – and as a worker at Infinity, and member of the Coop, I was able to attend workshops at a discount. There was, and still is, an active Shiatsu scene in Brighton, and I attended workshops with Paul Lundberg, Michael Rose, Jon Sandifer, Bill Tara, Simon Brown and Harriet Geddes (now Devlin). It was the meeting with Harriet that was to change my life completely and lead me to Pauline.
Harriet was unusual in that she had studied Shiatsu world-wide – in Japan, America and Europe, with all the world’s major teachers. She told me that in her opinion “the best teacher in the world used to teach at the Ohashi institute – but was now working in Connecticut”. Her name? “Pauline Sasaki”. I wrote to Pauline and received several long handwritten air-mail letters. Pauline was due to teach in the UK the next year – so she recommended that I study with her first in Europe.
Pauline’s annual visits to Lam Rim in Wales starting in 1983 completely transformed Shiatsu in the UK, providing impetus for the growth of the fledging Shiatsu Society and providing inspiration for the syllabus of most of the major schools in the UK. Pauline was someone who not only knew the Masunaga system inside out, but could systematise it and teach it. Pauline was – through her association with Akinobu Kishi – also at the cutting edge of the development of Shiatsu. Pauline continued Masunaga’s pioneering spirit and she was never content to let the work become static.
I had now moved from Brighton to Norwich. I was working part-time in Shiatsu – treating one day a week and teaching occasional weekend courses. I was also working part time working for Rainbow Wholefoods a shop and warehouse in Norwich. I practiced everything that I had learned from Pauline. I was also studying the book Zen Shiatsu, the newly launched Journal of Chinese Medicine and any other resources I could find. After each year I returned to Lam Rim full of questions to re-connect with Pauline -, and to meet up with my fellow “students” who made up the majority of the UK’s Shiatsu teachers and practitioners at that time. Almost all the heads of schools in the UK during the 80s were at that those early Lam Rim workshops with Pauline, and many of us feel it was this shared experience of studying and working with each other that gave the fledgling Shiatsu Society, and the UK scene much of its early spirit of co-operation.
After four years in this rhythm of studying and Pauline invited me to visit and be apprenticed to her in the US. I had absolutely no idea what was in store for me. After a year of saving all my available money I took a flight to New York. I arrived jet lagged, culture shocked, excited and apprehensive – what would happen next? I half imagined I would be hanging out, maybe taking a few classes a week. Pauline however had a very different idea.
Pauline was living and working in a small detached timber framed house “The Red House” near her sister’s family on a family plot in suburban Norwalk in Connecticut about 45 minutes north of New York city. The majority of the ground floor of the house was dedicated to the Shiatsu treatment and teaching space. There was a separate entrance, a waiting room and then a teaching room that was divided by curtains during the day to create two treatment spaces.
Pauline had prepared a small room upstairs in her house for me to sleep in, and the next day the relentless, demanding, exhausting – but ultimately inspiring and rewarding schedule started.
I was shown how to clean, set up and care for the treatment rooms and teaching space. I was instructed on how to answer the phone, keep the appointment diary and file the client records. The day started at 7.30 with breakfast and a final check of the rooms, the first client arrived at 9am and the last left at 6pm. The teaching room was then prepared and the evening classes started at 7pm and finished at 10pm. I then cleaned the whole space – ready for the next day – usually getting to bed just before midnight.
I was at that time a radical wholefood vegetarian – and the most extraordinary thing that struck me about Pauline was how ordinary she was. I remember her taking cake decorating classes, shopping at the Mall, being a sister and Aunt – and carefully collecting discount coupons for shopping expeditions. Years later when I saw the film the Matrix it struck me how the character of the Oracle was so like Pauline, her powers and abilities were often hidden behind an unassuming day-to-day suburban domestic exterior.
What took place during the Shiatsu treatments, however was extraordinary. The schedule was brisk – I would clear one treatment space and set up the other in turn, so that Pauline could treat one client each hour – with the two spaces allowing clients to prepare before, and rest after the treatments. In the centre of all this activity my main training took place. Pauline asked me to assess the Hara diagnosis of every client, I was given a few seconds to do this, – I would then sit by Pauline, watching her every move, for the remaining 45 – 50 minutes while she gave the treatment. While the client was resting Pauline and I would move to the kitchen to prepare the tea for the clients – and there she would asked me to tell her what I had picked up in the Hara, and describe the treatment, I could then ask questions.
I often saw dramatic changes during treatments, but I also experienced the sheer stamina needed to work in a full time practice day in and day out, week after week, month after month – which has never left me. And in the centre of all this activity was Pauline, always caring, always calm, and never flustered irrespective of whether a client had experienced a miraculous healing experience or a terribly difficult painful reaction to a treatment. I once asked Pauline– do you ever get nervous treating some clients? or conditions? She answered in her completely relaxed smiling way, with her characteristic sparkle in her eyes “not really – I am just interested to see what Shiatsu can do”. This caring, interested and ego free attitude lay behind all of Pauline’s work, and was to provide me, and thousands of others who met her, with a lasting example and inspiration.
At that time Pauline was teaching 3 evening classes a week, Level 1, 2 and 3,and two small advanced groups Level 4 and 5 during the day. I attended every class, religiously documenting everything in a large yellow notebook – which was soon to become one of the main points of reference in the Shiatsu College UK training syllabus.
In addition Pauline persuaded me, despite my extreme nervousness, that we should swop treatments on a weekly basis. Looking back I feel it was this consistent experience of being treated by, and treating, a Master that took me beyond the normal experience of class based training – into the realm of direct transmission. It is an experience I have tried to include in my own teaching whenever possible ever since.
By the end of my stay with Pauline I had started to treat some of her clients, I usually got the acute emergency appointments – the one’s that Pauline could not fit in her diary at short notice. This gave me a steep learning curve and a perfect opportunity to work challenging clients in a highly professional environment – with Pauline’s support always there in the background.
During my time in Norwalk I got to know some of Pauline’s family who lived nearby, and met some of her friends. I was so grateful for the generous welcome I received. I took part in Pauline’s family thanksgiving celebration, which involved transforming her teaching space into a large dining area to seat a huge gathering of friends and relations. Pauline was generous almost to a fault. If there was any way she could help anyone she would do it – without a thought for herself. I was to experience this spirit of generosity over the following 20 years as Pauline and I collaborated in developing, teaching and spreading a new interpretation of the Masunaga system world-wide. Despite her quietly powerful presence Pauline’s ego never came to the fore, she was one of those people who seemed to genuinely and effortlessly put others before herself, whether they were family, friends, students, clients or colleagues.
By Christmas 1986 my apprenticeship was over. During my stay I completely redesigned her record keeping system, which was buckling under the sheer volume of treatments she was giving, I taught myself to type on a computer that was in my room, and worked many of my Sundays (which were our only days off) to provide secretarial support for her treatments and teaching. Pauline invited me to stay in the USA and work alongside her. It was a tempting offer – however I felt it was time for me to return to Europe. The Shiatsu College was just forming and I wanted to re-connect with my colleagues and friends Paul, Carola and Nicola. I also wanted to start my own practice – which I modelled closely on everything I had learned from Pauline.
Soon after I had returned to Europe in 1987 the second stage of Pauline and my relationship started, for 20 years up until 2007 Pauline and I worked closely together teaching in Europe and the USA. Our shared project was to systematise, complete and develop the “Zen” Shiatsu system that Masunaga had left unfinished in 1981 when he died.
For two decades Pauline and I met 2 or 3 times a year in the UK, Europe and the USA to teach. Pauline could be challenging to work with. During what I call the “white hot” period from 1987 to the mid 90s, Pauline would usually present me with a barrage of new ideas about Shiatsu and Energy Work every time we met, usually this sent me reeling – and often I struggled to understand her. The students were often as bemused as I was, and Pauline was as demanding of the students as she was me and of herself.
Thinking nothing of lecturing continually in a rapid stream of consciousness for extended periods – Pauline often left translators and students alike struggling to keep up with her stratospheric new concepts and techniques. It was my role to translate this latest material as rapidly as possible into a logical sequence of experiential exercises, and understandable theoretical concepts that could be followed by the students.
Working with Pauline – particularly in the early days during the late 80s – I found almost unbearably demanding at times. I vividly remember being right at the edge of my abilities when we taught together. Our team teaching was a formulae that was very popular with students and course organisers throughout the 80s and 90s – which suited Pauline and me – because it provided us with the opportunity to regularly meet up, work together, discuss the latest ideas about the work and to swop treatments – Pauline and I would often be up until the early hours of the morning figuring out our latest interpretation of the work and how we could best share it with the students.
By the mid 2000s I was starting to develop my own interpretation of the work – diverging in some ways from Pauline’s approach, but we were still working and sharing together regularly. In 2007 Pauline, tired from the transatlantic trips – she never was a great traveller – decided that she would retire from Europe and concentrate on working in the USA. We taught our last UK workshop together at Grimstone manor and the final leaving party took place soon after at Le Torrace in Umbria Italy organised by my friend and colleague Patrizia Stefanini.
Pauline was generous to the last, leaving me a beautiful parting gift and letter of appreciation for the work we had completed together as we said our goodbyes. It was to be the last time I was to see Pauline. In the last 3 years of her life Pauline moved away from Shiatsu into working with the Light Body and Soul retrieval, I was lucky enough to experience her early experimental treatments in this new direction. In hindsight it is hard not to interpret these later developments of her work as being part of her preparation for her next stage beyond the limitations of this life. When we contacted each other via email and the phone over the last 3 years she talked with her characterisic enthusiasm about her experiences with angels and “non physical beings”. She was closer to joining those angels herself than she consciously knew at that time, but they say that Zen Masters prepare for their own passing – and, true to Pauline’s usual form, it is hard to imagine how anyone could prepare more thoroughly. Pauline was always far ahead of us in her life, and it was totally in character to be far ahead in her passing too.
Pauline’s own light shone selflessly and generously and illuminated everyone she met throughout her life. Shiatsu now is a much richer thanks to her restless curiosity, her piercing intelligence, her absolute compassion and her devotion to her clients, students and colleagues.
In our last meeting Pauline gave the task of documenting the work we did together in a book. I have now started compiling the book online – and opening it as a collaborative project at www.newenergywork.com with the working title Shiatsu – the New Energy Work. I am dedicating the book to Pauline, and I would like to invite anyone who studied with Pauline or me, who has any notes, audio or other resources – to join in this project.
In 2011 Cliff will be returning to his birthplace and the original home of his Shiatsu studies – Brighton – to live and work. In September – one year after Pauline’s death – when according to Buddhist tradition the soul moves on to the next realm – Cliff is organising a weekend workshop and Ceremony dedicated to her Shiatsu and Energy Work legacy. There will also be an open celebration of Pauline’s life on the Saturday Evening. All proceeds are to be divided between the Zendo in New York and the www.ShiatsuSpace.net project – two non-profit organisations that Pauline supported during her life. For more information please visit www.newenergywork.com or email Asher at asher@newenergywork.com .
Pauline Sasaki Memorial Workshop and Ceremony in Brighton
24 – 25th September 2011 at the Brighton Natural Health Centre.