BY ELIZABETH CUTLER
I came to the Art of Jin Shin at twenty-one through Daniel Tucker. Daniel and I had recently both moved to Telluride, Colorado, where he was starting an art school called “Ah Haa”—as in that moment when we know we get it. I was a recent graduate of the University of Colorado, starting my first job as the receptionist in a real estate office.
By that time I had already developed an interest in practices that allow our bodies and beings to feel their best naturally. My best friend had died of cancer in high school, and her suffering led me to ask myself what else was out there. The medicines available at that time made her more sick than she already was, and I felt a deep yearning to explore and learn more. One that would not go away. One like I felt before my partner, Julie Rice, and I started SoulCycle.
I took off from college in Boulder to do my junior year abroad, living in a monastery in India to focus on meditation and traveling to Taiwan to study tai chi and herbs, figuring that these various ancient teachings would give me some answers.
The experiences were rich, and I learned a lot, but something was still missing.
“You go around the world to come home again” was a phrase Julie and I always used when we were in search of an answer in our SoulCycle business and found it right under our noses. It happened frequently, so much that we would laugh about it.
That is how I felt after my third Jin Shin class in Telluride. Jin Shin Jyutsu is a magical, somewhat esoteric form of energy medicine that Daniel had studied for many years with Mary Burmeister, the Japanese-American woman who brought the practice to the US. The school’s introduction of Thursday night “self-help” classes intrigued me. People showed up at 5 p.m., setting up cots to work on one another using a book Mary had written and compiled from her studies with her teacher, Jiro Murai. In that book, as in this one, there are ways to hold places on your own body, and other people’s bodies, to help restore energetic pathways that become blocked by everyday living.
We started each class by putting our hands under our armpits, reaching the back of the scapula with our fingers while our thumbs faced up on the front sides of our bodies. We dropped our shoulders and began breathing thirty-six times, noticing at the end of those breaths whether we felt differently now than we had thirty-six breaths ago. The answer was yes, always yes. Sometimes a big “YESSSSS,” and sometimes a smaller “yes.”
By simply placing our hands and getting out of the way in order to allow the source of life to come through us, we could become a “jumper cable” for our own bodies, or for someone else. (I know this sounds crazy, but we all have this source energy running through our bodies and it’s okay—just try some of the simple holds featured in this book, and I promise that you’ll feel it, too.) We could be a jumper cable for our own body or someone else’s, and use a series of holds on specific energy locations to unlock the incredible, ancient wisdom of the Art of Jin Shin.
The amazing thing was, each time we did this, we added to our energetic foundation and the body’s ability to find homeostasis more efficiently.
Thirty-six breaths and I was hooked, practicing on myself daily. I went on to educate myself as much as I could and eventually began practicing on others. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I have found this practice to be one of the greatest gifts for all of humanity: accessible to everyone with breath, requiring no tools or special abilities.
In all the years I’ve practiced and loved Jin Shin, I could never understand why this healing art has remained so unknown—that’s why I wanted to write this foreword. The Art of Jin Shin remains life changing for me, giving me the stamina and depth to build a big business, stay grounded in my core beliefs, and do my best to allow the freedom of energy flow through my life and work each day.
I had a thriving practice in Jin Shin for fifteen years before I started SoulCycle. I loved the practice and experienced many of the things Alexis references in this book. The biggest hurdle for me was how to explain what I did when sitting next to someone at a dinner party. Usually it worked out, but I am relieved that Alexis has written this book to help the Art of Jin Shin become accessible to people like my twenty-one-year-old self—and for whomever its pages may help today.
I am extraordinarily grateful to all the teachers and practitioners who have shared their wisdom so that the Art of Jin Shin can remain alive. Jin Shin has been the greatest, most consistent gift of my life.