El Seitai

Seitai is a cultural activity centred on the body’s capacity for self-regulation. Practice fosters an active involvement by each individual to maintain and take care of their own health. It was created in the forties by Haruchika Noguchi (Japan, 1909-1976), who, after twenty years of working as a therapist, refocused his professional practice to concentrate on education.

Katsumi Mamine, a direct disciple of H. Noguchi, brought this activity to Barcelona some 30 years ago, providing us with new insights from his own experiences and extensive research.

Basic concepts of Seitai:

The self-regulation of the body

The human organism continually strives to find its correct internal balance in order to perform its vital functions optimally.

Given that we are subjected to many stimuli that are external and internal, psychological and physical; movement and change are constants in our bodies. Simple and daily involuntary actions such as yawning are governed by a wish and need for internal balance.

At times, the intense expression of this need is manifested through different symptoms (fever, pain, cough, etc.), which we are used to viewing as negative, without acknowledging the role that they play in corporal readjustment.

CVP

The CVP (cranium, vertebrae and pelvis) is the ruling part of our bodies and is the maximum organisation force for all of its cellular associations.
Concretely, the CVP is comprised of five cavities: the cranial cavity (centre of the nervous system), pectoral and shoulders (centre of the locomotor, combustive and respiratory systems), digestive (centre of the assimilative circulatory system), urinary (centre of the eliminatory system) and pelvic (centre of the reproductive and cellular regenerator systems). The interdependence of these cavities and organic systems permit the existence of life and spontaneous movement.
In order to have greater vitality, precise coordination must be established between the C, the V and the P. This coordination is the absolute interdependence of the five organic systems and of all activities involved in being alive (energetic, organic, biological and psychological).
Seitai practices cultivate the natural coordination of the CVP.

The Oseis

By practicing Yuki, above all, Master Noguchi found a systematic relationship between zones of the body, overall body movements, biological functions, psychological behaviours, perceptions, ideas, sensitivity...
 
He defined it with the name of Osei: our natural ability to react to stimuli in a unified way (motive, biological and psychological) to achieve vital balance and adaptation. There are 5 Oseis: Vertical, Frontal, Lateral, Rotary and Central. Each one can be active or receptive, thus creating ten different ways of perceiving the world and reacting to the world. All human beings have a unique combination of these five Oseis.

Excess Partial Tension (EPT)

Tension is revealed differently in every person. For example, after being seated for a long time in front of a computer, some people feel tightness in their backs, others in their necks, others in their waists or legs. This is because the body is being partially used, in response to individual predispositions.

The way we feel, express ourselves, perceive and react to the world, concentrate and disperse energy and get tired is different for each individual, both in its most visible manifestations (the posture we adopt) to the least visible (the internal movement of tissues).

Partial Tension (PT) in itself is not a problem; it is a phenomenon inherent to being alive. However, when it becomes excessive (EPT) and starts to accumulate, causing a break in CVP coordination that is not resolved spontaneously through rest and sleep, then it becomes problematic and represents the main internal factor of illness.

A lion analogy: To be effective, the lion must totally concentrate and completely tense his entire body before springing at his prey to capture it. After eating, the lion then spends several hours sleeping, stretching, playing and relaxing in order to recover his energy. Many of us accumulate tension over the course of a long day of work, but then we do not spend time releasing it.

There are two types of Excess Partial Tension: EPT from overexertion or extreme exhaustion and EPT from the inhibition or frustration of internal desires.

Seitai Practices

Seitai offers a number of simple practices that we all can do that have a direct impact on our daily lives. These exercises require nothing more than simply spending a few minutes paying close attention to our bodies. Through these practices, we recover physical and psychological flexibility; we bolster an increase in our organic functions; we improve rest and communications with ourselves and our environment. These practices are: Katsugen-Undo, Yuki, Gyoki and the observation and comprehension of Taiheki.

Katsugen Undo

This practice consists of feeling the state of our CVP, stimulating the body’s own spontaneous movement. To the degree that this movement is more fluid or, in other words, displays greater CVP coordination, our being not only regenerates, but also expresses itself psychologically and bodily more authentically and more in line with our nature.

Yuki

Yuki consists of focussing on our organism through our hands. This exercise can be done individually in an intuitive way, by placing our hands over the top of the stomach, abdomen, etc. When practiced in couples, it leads to mutual communication.

In one of the practices in couple, one person places his hands on the other’s spinal column and discovers where there is hardening, lack of movement or breath, feeling the other’s organic structure and connecting with the person. Each vertebrate is related to an organic, psychological and motive function. By feeling them, we can understand the degree of CVP coordination and increase it.

After practice, it is common to have an intimate sensation of renewal: breathing gets deeper, the mind clears and a feeling of wellbeing arises that is the fruit of the change in our bodies.

Gyoki

Gyoki consists of practices to increase concentration and develop the ability to perceive Ki, the life force, by using breathing exercises. One exercise, for example, is to imagine that you are breathing using the entire spine, from the nape downwards, feeling the condition of each individual vertebrate.

Observation and comprehension of Taiheki

Taiheki, which is hereditary, is the particular combination of the five Oseis present in each person, in which one or two act more intensely.

In order to understand Taiheki, it is essential to observe your spontaneous movement and the others’. This helps us to better understand and respect our nature and the nature of all individuals and thus, relate better to ourselves and to our surroundings.

An analogy using plants: there are an infinite number of plants, each one of them with specific needs. Some plants need more water; others need more sunlight; while others only thrive at specific temperatures. A gardener does not ask why a plant needs more or less water; he simply gives them the amount that they need.

Like plants, every person has specific vital needs given by their Taiheki. Not understanding these needs is a source of problems. For example, a person who needs more affection and more attention could be seen as a selfish person and often denied what she or he needs.

Understanding and respecting our needs and those of others is a way to respect and care for health and life.

Seitai Soho – individual orientation

The Seitai Soho meets individual’s needs by showing them -as faithfully as possible- what their Excess Partial Tension is, so that the individual can then, with respect to their true state, recuperate and cultivate CVP coordination and the flexibility of spontaneous manifestation.