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Ancient Healing Art comes to Clarksville

By Christina Burawa

Clarksville, TN – We each hold the potential for healing in our hands. It has always been so.

Japanese healer Jiro Murai knew this. As a young man, early in the last century, Murai fell mysteriously ill. Doctors were unable to diagnose him, yet they pronounced him terminal. Beyond the help of conventional medicine, Murai retreated to a family cabin, where he spent seven days fasting, meditating, focusing on his breath and practicing ancient mudras (hand positions used to affect breathing and energy flow in the body). During this retreat Murai developed an awareness of energetic flow patterns and pathways in his body. At the end of the seven days he was healed.

This was the first step on Jiro Murai’s path to becoming a well-known healer and teacher of Oriental medicine in Japan. Out of wide-ranging observations of nature, hands-on experiences treating himself and others, and research that included studying and interpreting the Kojiki (“Record of Ancient Things”) in the Japanese Imperial Archives, Murai rediscovered and further developed a healing art that he called Jin Shin Jyutsu. Jin Shin Jyutsu can be translated variously as “Art of Benevolence”, “Art of Longevity”, or “Art of the Creator Through the Person of Compassion.

Jin Shin Jyutsu is not massage. It is most often compared to acupuncture or acupressure. However, the Jin Shin practitioner uses her hands rather than needles at specific points of concentrated energy on the body called “safety energy locks,” and pressure is not required for effective application of the art.

Murai developed a system of twenty-six “safety energy locks” along energy pathways that feed life into our bodies. Some of these locks correspond to acupuncture points, but most do not. The Jin Shin practitioner serves as a human jumper cable, gently holding specific safety energy locks in prescribed combinations called “flows” to harmonize and balance energies in the recipient’s body. The energy boost delivered during a session combined with a tandem effect of deep relaxation support the body’s innate capacities for healing.

Mary Burmeister
Mary Burmeister

If Jiro Murai is the father of Jin Shin Jyutsu, then Mary Burmeister is its mother. A first generation Japanese American from Seattle, Burmeister went to Japan in the late 1940s, planning to study Japanese. Mary first met Jiro Murai when she was invited by a friend to hear him speak. Mary later recalled: “The first words he said to me were: ‘How would you like to study with me to take a gift from Japan to America?’” Mary accepted Murai’s offer, studying with him in Japan for the next five years and then by correspondence for seven more years.

Mary Burmeister spent twenty years translating and expanding upon Murai’s teachings for Western students. She began teaching in Scottsdale, Arizona, in the early 1960s. Mary Burmeister passed away in 2008, leaving behind twenty-one approved Jin Shin Jyutsu teachers. As a result of Burmeister’s efforts, Jin Shin Jyutsu workshops are now offered across the United States as well as in twenty-two other countries and there are thousands of practitioners and students worldwide.

Many Americans haven’t yet heard about Jin Shin Jyutsu. However, it has gained recognition in some parts of the mainstream medical community. For example, there are hospitals that have added Jin Shin Jyutsu to their array of offerings for cancer patients and heart transplant patients. Jin Shin Jyutsu is not intended as a replacement for Western medicine; it is a complementary therapy.

Before moving to Clarksville last year, my husband Chris and I lived in Arizona near Scottsdale, where Mary Burmeister established her Jin Shin Jyutsu practice and her teaching headquarters. I became a student of Jin Shin Jyutsu in 2003 and began a professional practice in Jin Shin in 2006.

People came to see me for a variety of reasons, but the majority of my clients have been chronic pain sufferers who found that Jin Shin Jyutsu reduced or eliminated their symptoms.

I am now seeing clients here in Clarksville.

I choose a combination of flows for each session based on what a client tells me, what I can deduce from the shapes and posture of the client’s body on the table, and what my fingers “hear” when I listen to pulses in the client’s wrists.

Clients receive Jin Shin Jyutsu lying face up on a massage table. It isn’t unusual for clients to fall asleep during a session. Clients do not disrobe. Sessions last about an hour.

I offer clients personalized self-help exercises they can practice on their own. The element of self-help distinguishes Jin Shin from many other modalities. We each hold the potential for healing in our hands.

About Christina Burawa

Christina Burawa
Christina Burawa

Christina Burawa has been studying and practicing healing arts for over 12 years. She has completed over 1,000 hours of training, including Advanced Certification in Therapeutic Massage and 300 hours of training in Jin Shin Jyutsu. Christina also holds an MFA in Painting and Drawing from Arizona State University and teaches Art Appreciation part-time at APSU.

Christina can be reached at (931) 539-9265 or at christinaburawa@gmail.com

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