Acupressure

The following is my real life experience with Acupressure, starting in 1960 in California.

My father was an Electrical Contractor and worked physically very hard. So, he found his muscles and joints ached a lot because he demanded a lot of his body physically. Also, since he didn't smoke or drink or take aspirin or pain killers he needed some way to deal with the almost constant pain of some part of one's body hurting when one does a very hard and demanding very physical job on a daily basis.

So, I grew up going with my father often on Saturdays to his Chiropractor who then practiced either the Gonstead method or the Palmer method in the late 1950s. Dad also got bottles of  Lactobacillus acidophilus which then was not yet available in capsule form to take after one finishes a anti-biotic series like now to rebuild their intestinal flora and fauna so they don't stay weak from the antibiotic for months after taking it. So, he would inject it up into his intestines like an enema which was the only way to make use of it then medically at that time in the 1950s.

Eventually, my Dad and Mom heard about Acupressure because people they knew in church had discovered relief from back and muscles pains and spasms from this method. So, my parents began taking a course from a Japanese lady named Mary Burmeister. This was around 1960 when I was 12 years old in Southern California. Mary Burmeister was born in Japan and a native Japanese girl and had married an American Soldier at the end of World War II and come to the U.S. with him after the war. She had brought with her an Acupressure method that her father had gotten from China as he thought he was dying. So, as a last ditch effort to save himself he went to China to discover this healing method. It saved his life so he brought this method back to Japan and he called it "Jin Shin Jyitsu" or "The Art of God through Compassionate Man". Also, in 1960 I was playing football on the beach with friends without shoulder pads or helmet or any equipment and I collided too hard with a fellow player at age 12 and began to "pass out" (faint) a lot even while singing in a choir at church. (My father who was singing Bass next to me caught my head before it hit the floor when I fainted that time.) So, they took me to see Mary Burmeister because they were very worried about me fainting from that football injury. When Mary Burmeister worked on me with Jyin Shin Jyitsu (acupressure) I started to see colors in the air above me while I lay on my back on the massage table with her working the acupressure(acupuncture) meridians with her fingers. As I watched the blues and greens in the air above me as the muscles re-aligned my back and neck, I also heard my stomach gurgle as the toxins from the strained muscles vented into my stomach. (when one does acupuncture the toxins vent through the hollow needles instead). When Mary finished working on my back and neck I never fainted ever again  from those injuries. I had several more treatments and from then on was completely sold on the idea of the usefulness of acupressure for certain kinds of ailments.