For the first time in decades, a major figure in Oriental medicine is offering a book redefining the meridian system upon which the field is based. Author Tetsuro Saito is one of few international figures in shiatsu therapy with schools in Europe and North America.

Shin So Shiatsu: Healing the Deeper Meridian Systems -- a rich compendium of 40,000 words, 300 figures and charts, and 130 black-and-white photographs -- is presented in two parts. The first book details the history, theory, principles, and techniques of Shin So Shiatsu. The second, a handy Practitioner's Reference Manual, is intended for use in the treatment room.

Shin So Shiatsu is for shiatsu therapists, acupuncturists, acupressurists, and practitioners of other energy-based approaches. Anyone who engages with Oriental medicine or is interested in the human energy system will want to read this major revision to a centuries-old approach. Its theoretical and practical uses will make it an essential textbook for schools and workshops.

Highly regarded as the "father of shiatsu" in Canada, where he is now based, Saito introduced Canadians to the Japanese art of "finger pressure" in 1971, just as the West was discovering acupuncture.

For the past 40 years, Saito has treated thousands of patients, trained hundreds of therapists worldwide, and pursued his own research on energy-based healing with a rare diligence. Shin So Shiatsu: Healing the Deeper Meridian Systems represents this lifetime of work.

Saito picked up where his mentor, renowned meridian-therapy pioneer Shizuto Masunaga left off when he died in 1981. Until now, Masunaga's Zen Shiatsu (Japan Publications Inc, 1977) has been unsurpassed as the primary guide for beginning students and experienced practitioners alike. Shin So ("deeper level") Shiatsu is a long-awaited step forward, and promises to reach a far broader audience of healing artists.

Saito links the most ancient and forgotten tendrils of Chinese meridian theory with Masunaga's insights, his own remarkable findings, and the invaluable research being undertaken by other contemporary Oriental medical pioneers. Born in Japan and trained there -- first as an engineer and then a shiatsu therapist -- Saito merges the frontiers of science and healing arts to take our view of the human energy matrix far beyond the familiar Traditional Chinese Medicine meridian chart. His alternative is a far more complex, yet comprehensible view of the human body at work.

A natural teacher, he illustrates with striking clarity how our road map of the Regular Meridian system has been abridged over time for simplicity's sake. He presents in painstaking detail the complete view of the Regular Meridians as they manifest at three levels of imbalance. He then fully details each of the lesser known, but equally important, Extra, Divergent, Ocean, and Cosmic energy systems, and explains how they interrelate with each other.

He grounds us in this theory, then tells us exactly what to do with it. This is the crux of his work: Shin So Shiatsu enables any ordinary practitioner to "sense" and precisely trace the multitude of meridian pathways in the human body, to identify the levels at which energy imbalances occur, and to treat those imbalances -- with astonishing results.

Practitioners of meridian-based therapies will instantly recognize the veracity and sincerity of this master's approach. Shin So Shiatsu is not a beginner's guide: Saito asks his readers to have a basic working knowledge of shiatsu or other meridian-based modalities. But with even a minimum of experience, practitioners from a diversity of backgrounds will quickly be able to integrate the key elements of Shin So Shiatsu into their own work.