Our Autumn 2020 issue featured a fascinating piece on the fusion of healing traditions from Japan and Ireland, with a special focus on the trailblazing work of Saralee Cassidy and Younis Fakhfakh. Read on to learn more!
Japanese-Irish Wisdom
Ireland and Japan hold a deep reverence and respect for the wild beauty of nature, its healing wisdom and its power. Both cultures are rich in the sacred traditions of shamanic practices, healing crafts and ancient healing sites.
Both traditions follow the healing power of nature to resolve illness through natural observation, movement and release. The body has an innate intelligence that, when deeply grounded and relaxed, has the power to purge and release distortions.
Healing practices in Japan and Ireland show the body to be a microcosm of nature itself – the macrocosm. Our bodies are deeply connected to nature and occupy a space of awareness beyond our thinking mind’s capacity. This is why people seek relaxation in nature and places charged with negative ions.
Both Japanese and Irish healing traditions advocate that when a body becomes still, relaxed and connected to a state of natural homeostasis, it finds its own coherence and balance.
A grounded and relaxed body knows its own authentic expression. In Japan, they say: ‘Emptiness is fulfillment and happiness is being in your hara (centre of your belly, two fingers below the navel).’
Younis Fakhfakh lives in Ireland, and has studied martial arts, body awareness, Amatsu and Japanese healing systems since 2002. He has taken the best from many oriental healing traditions and masters, bringing them to Ireland, where he practices and facilitates. On Irish soil, he has formulated a new dynamic healing system called ‘Kukan Taijutsu’.
‘Kukan Taijutsu’ represents a new form of body conditioning that allows us to become one with our bodies in the healing presence of Irish nature. Connection with nature is at the heart of its connective movement, but on a practical level, it increases our body’s intrinsic strength and incorporates the best techniques from both martial arts and Amatsu.
The result is that movement becomes more fluid, relaxed, graceful, and completely integrated.
Saralee Cassidy has been practicing and teaching Seiki-soho (Japanese breathing awareness) through yearly events and gatherings. She has ongoing connections with the international Seiki community, and wishes to bring Japan to Ireland. She says, ‘Japanese healing has the power to re-connect Ireland to its authentic natural wisdom, connection to nature, life and breath.’
Seiki – another Japanese tradition – empowers people to understand the nature of energy moving through the body, as a thinking pattern held within the breath’s movement. The observer and the observed become one through a process of resonance in breath.
Both therapists have come together to create a Japanese fusion experience, blending Japanese healing craft with Irish nature.
Both the Japanese and ancient Celtic traditions look to the body as part of nature, tapping into a space that utilises the power of non judgement. Through breath observation, movement and resonance, one can find one’s authenticity, beyond the stress and conditions of the noisy world.
These hybrid healing traditions offer a new space of focused concentration in nature. This space of non-judgement allows the body to find itself beyond its cultural conditioning, rediscovering its own inner movement and natural connection. Such findings release personal restrictions and produce real feelings of well being, bringing the mind into a deeper presence.
Younis Fakhfakh – 0863057323
Saralee Cassidy – 0867312044
