The founder of Zen Shiatsu, Masunaga-Sensei was born in Hiroshima Prefecture in 1925. After graduating from the Psychology Department of the University of Kyoto, he began working in the field of shiatsu. For ten years, he was an instructor of clinical psychology at the Japan Shiatsu Institute. He was a member of the Japan Psychological Association and the Japan Society for Oriental Medicine. He founded IOKAI in 1968 and evolved his own practical method of shiatsu treatment. He popularized shiatsu throughout the world in the strong belief that shiatsu could bring people good health and happiness. He died at the early age of fifty-seven, but the seeds he planted have taken root steadily all over the world.*

*(borrowed from Iokai Japan)