Ancient Energy Massage

In a small parlor in New York City, I found and fell in love with the ancient healing technique of Amma massage.

I didn’t have a name for it back then. I just knew it felt good. When the stress of New York City got to be too much, I’d head to the Lower East Side, to Chinatown, for yet another dose. There, in a humble storefront massage parlor, I’d lie fully clothed on a table while a woman who spoke no English massaged my back, neck, and extremities with a delightfully vigorous and rhythmic finger-point technique. At the time, I assumed this style of massage was simply her marvelous invention. She was my urban angel, smoothing my jagged edges week after week.

Nearly two years ago, when I abandoned New York for the West Coast, I missed that wonderful masseuse and her ingenious technique almost more than the city itself. I also despaired of experiencing her unique brand of bodywork never again. That is, until one day last fall when I had the good fortune to walk through the doors of San Francisco’s Kabuki Springs & Spa.

A study in earth tones and teak, with a menu that tilts to the Far East, Kabuki Springs & Spa is located in San Francisco’s historic Japantown district. I had come to research an article about Amma massage, the ancient form of Eastern bodywork that I then believed I had never experienced. But I was in for a surprise. Colette, my Amma therapist, worked with the same elegantly choreographed movements and the same rhythmic precision as my beloved Chinatown masseuse. Starting with my upper back, she kneaded and pressed her way along energy meridians, pausing to stretch my limbs with graceful adroitness. By session’s end, I felt as light as air. It was as if I’d spent a long weekend at a spa, rather than a mere fifty minutes on Colette’s table.

Amma massage is more than 4,000-years-old. Amma, meaning push-pull and sometimes spelled as “anma” or “anmo,” is the oldest Chinese word used to describe massage. Amma’s Taoist philosophy of healing dates back to the ancient Chinese medical text, The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine (2697–2597 B.C.). Like many traditional Asian massage therapies, it is based on the principles of Chinese medicine and the idea of Qi (pronounced “chi”), or life-force energy that flows through the body. As Amma developed, it spread through Southeast Asia, taking different expressions in Japan and Korea and becoming further refined into therapeutic art forms.

Through “kata,” or choreographed movement, Amma demonstrates the value of rhythm, pacing, and precision in massage. The series of pressure techniques and percussive manipulations is performed along the body’s fourteen major energy meridians. The aim is to restore and promote health by removing energy blockages. Amma also increases circulation, improves flexibility of joints and soft tissue, circulates and drains lymphatic fluid, and strengthens the immune system.

As with Shiatsu, perhaps a better known form of Japanese massage, Amma is performed fully clothed. But no one who has experienced both types of massage would confuse the two. Amma is faster in tempo, and its rhythmic sequences feel as well-choreographed as a martial art.

“Qi moves very quickly,” says Rylen Feeney, a certified Amma instructor and the founder of the Wellspring School for Healing Arts in Boise, Idaho. “With an Amma massage, some of that briskness, that rhythm, is at the level of the qi moving in the body. That’s one of the reasons why after an Amma treatment people report feeling alert and energized.”

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