The web page mentioned she started teaching others in 1989, but K. Tohei's book came out in 1983. It looks like there are two possibilities here. She came up with the name
Kiatsu to describe her therapy, not knowing that someone else had used the term, or she might have heard the term, or even read the book and decided to call what she did
Kiatsu.
There is nothing mentioning any connection to an Aikido, Kokikai or Ki Society background. The Oregon Ki Society has a formal course in
Kiatsu. However there is no indication on the web page that she is aware it even exists. BTW although Tohei's book was titled
Kiatsu, I have seen it called Kiatsu-ho, Kiatsuho and Kiatsu Ryoho. In the preface he says "...Kiatsu means 'press with Ki' and Ryoho means therapy."
He describes his first incident of extending Ki through his fingers for healing in February 1944 during WWII. Since his book came out in 1983 and he also developed a Kiatsu school in Japan, I would consider him the originator and developer of Kiatsu.
The web page states "...Answering her need to reduce stress she created a bodywork technique: KIATSU, based on Shiatsu, incorporating breath, toning, Process Oriented Acupressure and other energy releasing methods.". This doesn't seem like Ki Society Kiatsu as I've known it. While it is also based on Shiatsu, it doesn't incorporate much of what she is doing. That doesn't make it better or worse, it just makes the two ways different.
After many years out-of-print, Koichi Tohei's book
Kiatsu has finally been revised and is coming out May 2002. You can
order it from Amazon.Com, if you want to see what people are talking about.
Kiatsu Developer
Since there is very little on kiatsu on the internet, I can't find the answer myself. Any Ki-Society people out there, or anyone for that matter, know the answer to this?
