Mitsutoshi Taniguchi has many strings to his bow. More than 30 years ago, he started studying acupuncture and graduated from a medical university in Osaka. Among other things, the programme included Judo therapy, oriental medicine and of course Shiatsu.
His passion for healing took him to China, Belgium and more recently to France and Rwanda where he started training therapists in Keiraku massage combined with Shiatsu through the school he created two decades ago: The Japan Body Care Academy. In this interview he tells us about his journey and the purpose of his school. On this first weekend of October, I had the great pleasure to participate in the very first seminar of the technique called Keiraku, taught by Sensei Mitsutoshi Taniguchi.
He kindly accepted this interview to get to know him better and to know the origin of the techniques he teaches. I found a mild-mannered man who likes to teach while joking and who is very approachable. Odile Fayet : Would you like to tell us about your background? Where were you born? How was your family surroundings and how about your childhood?
Mitsutoshi Taniguchi: I was born in in Osaka in Japan. He said joking When I was in high-school I started to practice base-ball but at 17 years old I got a bad elbow injury and I could not throw strong balls anymore. Since base-ball was everything to me I did not know what to do. I lost my dream. I was living in Osaka at the time and although it is a nice city there were some bad boys and my town was not particularly easy for children.
These boys wanted me to join them to misbehave and I was tempted but I thought it could be dangerous. Oh my, what a difficult situation! So what happened then? Can you tell us more about your training years? Did you study shiatsu first? At the time, he was studying acupuncture at Kansai Medical College. My father was a banker who decided, at the age of 45, to change his career.
