was a Japanese Shiatsu practitioner and author of books on Shiatsu. He was born in June 1925 in

Kure, Hiroshima is a port and major shipbuilding city situated on the Seto Inland Sea in Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. With a strong industrial and naval heritage, Kure hosts the second-oldest naval dockyard in Japan and remains an important base for the Japan ...

and graduated in

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...

from

Kyoto University , mottoeng = Freedom of academic culture , established = , type = National university, Public (National) , endowment = ¥ 316 billion (2.4 1000000000 (number), billion USD) , faculty = 3,480 (Teaching Staff) , administrative_staff ...

in 1949. In 1959, he graduated from th
Japan Shiatsu College
and went on to teach psychology and shiatsu at the college. At the same time, he was professor of psychology at Tokyo University. Masunaga grew up in a family of shiatsu practitioners, with his mother having studied with Tamai Tempaku, originator of the term shiatsu and author of "Shiatsu Ho" ("finger pressure method"). He founded Zen Shiatsu and the Iokai Shiatsu Center school in

Taitō is a special ward located in Tokyo Metropolis, Japan. In English, it is known as Taitō City. As of May 1, 2015, the ward has an estimated population of 186,276, and a population density of 18,420 persons per km2. The total area is . Thi ...

. Masunaga is the author of ''Shiatsu'' (Japanese title), which became '' Zen Shiatsu'' when translated into English by Wataru Ohashi and published in North America and Europe in 1977. He also wrote several other Shiatsu books. He died at the age of 57 on July 7, 1981 of colorectal cancer.

Selected works

* Shiatsu Therapy (指圧療法, 1970) * Shiatsu (指圧, 1974) * Health Method of Streaks and Key Points (スジとツボの健康法, 1975, second version published in 2010) * ZEN SHIATSU (1977) * Meridians and Shiatsu (経絡と指圧, 1983)

References

http://www.oomicure.com/masunaga.html Japanese writers People from Kure, Hiroshima Kyoto University alumni 1925 births 1981 deaths Shiatsu {{Japan-writer-stub