The relevance of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM ) today
A conversation with Carola Beresford Cooke (acupuncturist and shiatsu practitioner)
I want more people to realise the relevance of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) today and thought I would interview someone for whom TCM has been part of her life since she was young. Carola Beresford Cooke practiced shiatsu (acupressure and acupuncture) for 44 years and only retired a couple of years ago when she was in her mid-seventies.
If you’d like to watch our conversation here is the link
You don't need to know anything about TCM to watch this and we both hope that if you don't, you will be inspired to learn more. And if you do, or are perhaps even a practitioner, that you will find our conversation interesting and inspiring. I know that I certainly did. It was a real pleasure to chat with Carola about why we have both found TCM such a powerful approach and how it continues to support us both in our lives today.
We also talked about how TCM is so much more than medicine and so much more than simply Chinese as well as life after the transition of the menopause .
Carola Beresford Cook is well known in the shiatsu world as she wrote the main book (Shiatsu therapy and practice) which is used worldwide in shiatsu trainings. Before she wrote it, shiatsu practitioners had to, like me, glean theory from a Japanese teacher (Masunga) or from acupuncture texts.
She first connected with eastern approaches to health and philosophy as a child because she spent much of her childhood in the far east. After studying French and Italian at University, (like me!) she trained and worked as a beauty and massage therapist. She attended one of the first shiatsu workshops in London in 1978 run by Ohashi and was asked wrote the chapter on Shiatsu for the best-selling book “The book of Massage - The Complete Step-by-Step Guide to Eastern and Western Techniques. This led to presenting a Thames Television 6 part series on Massage.
In 1986 with colleagues Cliff Andrews, Paul Lundberg, Elise Johnson she set up the Shiatsu College – one of the first 3 year professional trainings in the UK. I was studying shiatsu with Sonia Moriceau then.
Highlights - TCM is a whole way of being
Highlights are for me were talking about the importance of intention, how TCM supports our connection with nature, how we can understand our emotions and relations with others in a revealing way, how we can re-wild our body as well as our environment, the gateways of life (conception, being in the womb, pregnancy, birth, parenthood, menopause, ageing and dying), the nature of the 12 meridians and the Extraordinary Vessels.
Since we have both passed the penultimate gateway in our life journey, the menopause, we also talk about post menopause and the challenges and learnings of ageing. I hope you enjoy our discussions about how TCM is is a way of life which supports our well-being in all its senses so that we can be fully well and connected with our environment.
Enjoy and we’d both love comments on the video.