Ivana Contardi is a special shiatsu masseuse. From the root, shiatsu, with years of experience has grown humanly and professionally, has created a personal massage, a sort of “tree” whose branches touch the skies of Chinese tui na massage, massage therapy, lymphatic drainage and reiki .

By “climbing” this special tree which is the shiatsu massage developed by a professional therapist, we have discovered many “fruits” that we share with you.

To massage is to make contact. A vocation that you have always felt belonged to you (or to which you always felt you belonged)?

Let’s say it was the vocation that came to me . I had and have great manual skills, but I had never heard of shiatsu here in Umbria, in Spoleto, where I live. Then a homeopath active in the Roman territory told me about this practice and I became curious.

The belly in shiatsu is a very delicate “emotional place”. Because? Is it massaged in the first session, immediately?

I call it the warehouse of our emotions . The viscera do not synthesize and transform only food but also the emotions and unpleasant ones they store deep down. Special abdomen loosening requires prior evaluation, especially in cases of deep suffering. Normally, it is difficult for me to place my hands on my abdomen during a first massage session.

Paint. When you do a watercolor, are the sensations similar to those experienced when working on a patient? Is there a fine line between art and curation?

The massage has nuances similar to those of painting : it is always the art of moving the hands, that is, making a painting on the person, like making a watercolor. Often with massages, however, you have to consider the case you are dealing with, there are more and less easy ones and in some cases you cannot let yourself go as if you were painting.

Barbara Ann Brennan is the author of “Mani di luce”. In this book, physical practice is also about energy practice and vice versa. How much energy do you give and take when you touch someone’s body?

In the beginning, when I was studying, I was often told that patients steal your energy. However, you see, practice has confirmed that luckily I came here to massage . I work on people following a law of compensation : some people who come to me are more charged, and therefore need to discharge, while others are somewhat discharged, and then I go to fill the energy deficit.

As I told you, a law of compensation: where there is need, give, where you need, take. Over time, one learns to distribute and combine appointments on the basis of this law. If in a day I received four people who “take energy”, I would arrive dazed. My goal then is not to do too many a day, the more you go on the more you have to decrease. Furthermore, with experience, you create a shield, an armor ; your body builds protection .

My work, beyond the economic fact, is also a mission , I consider it such.

The patient comes to you. He begins a work of listening which, before passing through his fingers, is pure attention to his medical history. Listening implies the ears, but how important is it also to use the eyes to see their posture, to study their attitude to have more elements?

Very very much. Now this type of observation is activated automatically for me. While the client-patient speaks, I observe the critical points of his body. An example: a shy person will normally always tend to close with his shoulders, to have a kyphosic attitude. This factor tells me that, with a lot of potability, I have someone in front of me who has had to repress his emotions a lot.

A person with nice broad shoulders may not repress and, on the contrary, when a situation arises, immediately throw out emotions. Attention: it is not certain that one situation is positive and the other negative. Once a sage told me that reflection is a reason for wisdom and should precede the moment when something comes out.

Of course, sometimes there are surprises that emerge when massaging . You never stop learning, you can never take anything for granted. It would be nice if all professionals kept this factor in mind, that of the unexpected, the surprise, the lesson that is always around the corner. Through touch I understand where visually I am wrong, and with my hands, let me tell you, it’s really hard to go wrong.