Practitioner
Ichiro Shoji, Licensed Acupuncturist
Ichiro is a licensed Acupuncturist in MA. He graduated from the New England School of Acupuncture in Watertown (now in Newton), MA in 2002. In his practice, my areas of focus are pain management. He has successfully treated various pain issues such as low back pain, sciatica, knee pain, shoulder pain, neck pain, ankle pain, headache, jaw pain or menstrual pain. However, with the whole-body approach of acupuncture medicine, every problem has the potential to be addressed, so my practice is not limited to pain management. When you come in for treatment with Ichiro, you can expect calm atmosphere of healing, an attentive and listening ear, and the gentle, effective approach of providing therapy and care for his patients. On his spare time, Ichiro enjoys running, carving a small statue of Buddha.
Becoming an acupuncturist
In most acupuncture schools, only Chinese Acupuncture is usually taught, which forms the image of acupuncture that a lot of needles are sticking out from the body, but in the acupuncture school Ichiro went to, Japanese Acupuncture was also taught. When he was 1st year student, one Japanese acupuncturist visited our school and showed a demonstration of his treatment. A student who had shoulder pain became a model patient of his treatment. Ichiro was shocked by watching the Japanese acupuncturist's treatment, because it was totally different from what he had learned at the school. The acupuncturist didn't insert any needles into the model patient's skin and treated him like playing a piano on his body, holding a needle in his right hand and finding where to treat with his left hand, but after the treatment, the student's shoulder pain was gone. Since Ichiro saw the demonstration, he was so interested in this style of acupuncture that he ordered various books about this style of acupuncture from Japan and tried to find out what this acupuncture was. One day Ichiro found that there was an acupuncturist who was practicing the same style of acupuncture and was also teaching at the school he went to. The acupuncturist was teaching Aikido, so Ichiro joined his Aikido class to get some connection to him and started visiting his clinic and observing his treatments once a week. When Ichiro became 2nd year student, he wanted to learn more about the Japanese acupuncture deeply, so decided to become an apprentice of the teacher, Koei Kuwahara, who also had experienced a life as an apprentice of a very famous leader of acupuncture world in Japan. Ichiro started living in his teacher's house to learn what to do, what to eat to be a good acupuncturist. Ichiro could learn about macrobiotics a lot. The life as an apprentice started at 6 am in the morning so Ichiro had to get up at 5 to 5:30 am and went to the clinic before 6 am. Their morning started with chanting and Aikido or Qi-gong exercise. On weekdays, he worked at the clinic, assisting his teacher and treating patients and on weekends, he attended his teacher's acupuncture courses as an assistant teacher. Once a week they had a half day practice at the clinic. They practiced what they had learned on another apprentice or an acupuncturist attending the practice class. They treated each other with his teacher checking their treatments. The apprenticeship continued for 5 years. Ichiro learned a kind of Japanese acupuncture called Meridian Therapy during his apprenticeship. The characteristic of Meridian Therapy is that Pulse diagnosis plays a very important role to decide how and what to treat. So he saw a lot of patients' pulses while treating a lot of patients and learned about the pulse during the apprenticeship. In Meridian Therapy, the needle techniques are gentle and most needles are just touching the skin, yet effective on a deep level. When he was an apprentice, a needle made of silver, which was a regular sharp needle but gentler than commonly used stainless steel needles, was used, but now he uses mainly round-tip needles which are much gentler. In his practice, in addition to the pulse diagnosis, he also focus on Abdominal diagnosis because various signs such as pain, tightness or uncomfortable feeling appear in the abdomen when pressed, which are related to the patient's health issue, and he tries to make these signs disappear by the treatment since it leads to the improvement of the patient's health issue. This treatment approach is applicable for a wide range of patients, from young children to the elderly because the treatment is PAINLESS. |
Cozy Acupuncture
10 Colonial Rd Unit 23 Salem, MA 01970 For questions: 617-584-8703 or [email protected]
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