Akinobu Kishi Sensei (1949-2012)

 

With gratitude and warmth to a remarkable selfless healer, teacher and artist

 

Akinobu Kishi is the founder of Seiki, an approach to selfhealing and a manual Ki-therapy he developed after studying extensively in the fields of Japanese healing traditions and Western therapeutic disciplines, as in BioEnergetics, CranioSacral therapy and Acupuncture. He is an internationally renowned Shiatsu teacher and master who dedicated half a century of his life researching, demonstrating and facilitating the process of human healing  for each one different, yet universal in nature.

 

Born in 1949, in the Gunma region of Japan, he began his Shiatsu training with his father, an accomplished judo master, when aged nine. Kishi went on to graduate in Natural Garden Architecture and started his formal Shiatsu training first with Toru Namikoshi, the originator of Shiatsu Therapy, and later at the Iokai Centre, a postgraduate college founded by Shizuto Masunaga, the initiator of contemporary Zen Shiatsu. Kishi assisted and collaborated with Masunaga for ten years, teaching together in Japan and Korea. He was recognised by Masunaga as his own master. In 1979, after a serious illness, he stopped teaching Zen Shiatsu and developed his own method of healing which he called SeikiSoho ... a step that was further inspired by his spiritual connection and practice of Shinto.

 

For the following thirty years, he proceeded to bring his work to Europe, where he also lived for several years, in Belgium and Germany. In 1989 he married Kyoko and together they delivered innumerable courses throughout Europe. They also organised regular retreats for western students, to Japan, at the heart of Japanese Shinto and Zen “hara” culture, as they felt it was important to experience the “Ki” cultural context Seiki originated from. After a sudden illness aged 63, Kishi passed peacefully away at his home in Japan.

 

Kishi’s popular courses were attended by Shiatsu and other students from all walks of life and cultural background. They valued his life-transforming treatments, his ability to teach by example and with fewer words, his compassionate humanity and devoted sense of enquiry into the nature of healing.

 

Today, Kishi’s work and vision continues its development with Kyoko, his wife and longstanding co-teacher, and the community of Seiki practitioners and teachers in the UK, in Europe and beyond. In November 2014 the International Seiki Community met for the first time In Ghent, Belgium, with Kyoko Kishi as the main guest. It was heartwarming to witness the impact Seiki is having on our lives and professions. At the reunion, our commitment to continue its evolution in our own way became clear. This has always been Kishi’s wish, for all those who studied with him to find their own understanding and expression of Seiki.