Helping Hand

When we set out to write our new book “Museums and Well-being” (available now from Routledge or why not ask your local indy bookshop to source it for you), we thought we might include a range of ideas for well-being practices that you could programme into museums. As it turned out the book changed over time, and this wasn’t quite the direction we took.

However, the practice of Jyutsu Shin Jin, a form of acupressure exercise that you could do anywhere and at any time that your hands are free, is an example of the sorts of well-being practices that caught our eye as being potentially interesting to undertake in a museum and simple to connect to collections.

In your collection where can you find hands? For example; in paintings, photos, or sculptures. You’re likely to have numerous examples of hands, and perhaps even some examples of hands in tension which might be a nice connection too. In the museum we could build upon the situation of the hand as a focus of a healing session, to discuss the hand as medium; connecting the artists hand and the healers hand. It struck us as a simple practice that could have a wide variety of intriguing possibilities in a museum.

The literal translated of Jyutsu Shin Jin is:

JYUTSU – Art
SHIN – Creator
JIN – Man of Knowing and Compassion
(Art of the Creator through man of knowing and compassion)

The theory of the practice is that it is the Art of releasing tensions which are the causes for various symptoms in the body. The idea is that through applying pressure you can unblock energy pathways within the body. The key to this art is that it is available to ourselves. It is often noted that this beautiful, simple Art is our inheritance as people.

Of apparent ancient origin, Jin Shin Jyutsu was rediscovered by Master Jiro Murai early in the 20th century. His Japanese American student, Mary Burmeister, brought the Art from Japan to America in the 1950’s; but did not promote the practice as a business so its growth until recently has been down to the few students who came to her. More recently it has spread more widely via the internet.

The image above shows the basics of how to do the practice, and there’s examples videos online too.

Why not try it out for yourself? You don’t have to believe this practice will heal you for it to be useful. If nothing else sitting and doing the practice could be seen as a form of embodied mindfulness practice, of bringing your awareness to your hands, and if you visualise the associated stress this too could be a useful mindfulness practice.