Sennin-So Shiatsu is a unique form of shiatsu founded by my grandfather, Sengo Shimizu, and has been handed down from one generation to the next. This is our story.

My grandfather (Sengo Shimizu) was a Japanese native who emigrated from Japan to the United States, shortly after being married in 1935. Being a skilled farmer, Sengo and his wife, Haruko, set out to start their new life and settled in the fertile valleys of Salinas, California.

However, with the advent of World War II, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which authorized the US military to evacuate all Japanese persons from a number of areas on the Pacific coast to be relocated and confined to internment camps further inland.

Sengo was detained by the FBI because he was an active community leader within the Japanese community and thought to be a potential threat to the United States. Because of this, he was separated from family and sent to a different internment camp from his wife and children who were interned in Texas. For a better part of the war, Sengo was separated from his wife and children, neither of them knowing if the other was safe, healthy or alive.