About the Founder

Kazutaka Ara:

Kazutaka Ara was born and raised in Japan until the age of 18, after which he attended University in the States. He received a B.S. degree in Exercise Science from Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania in 2003. After graduation, he worked as a personal trainer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Because he couldn’t get rid of the pain, or get as good results with some clients, he kept looking for methods and modalities that would help him to help his clients better. He became certified with Muscle Activation Techniques® in 2005, a method that focuses on re-activating weak, or, inhibited muscles. This became the main focus of his work, both in Pittsburgh and for a few years after moving back to Japan in 2007 with his girlfriend (now wife) from Norway. Both of them kept looking for even better ways to help, and took numerous workshops and classes, both in Japan and in the States. The turning point with Kazutaka’s work came when he discovered Z-health, a method that teaches you the neuroscience of pain and movement and which uses things like vision drills to improve performance. Also, doing translation work for renowned Pilates Master Teacher Marie-Jose Blom, as well as for some other Pilates teachers and Gyrotonic® Master Trainers, including Uwe Herbstreit, really affected his way of thinking about the body.

What directly led him to start thinking about the blood flow, however, was reading a book by Frank Lowen, creator of a bodywork system called Dynamic Manual Interface, and former director of the Barral Institute in the States. In his book he talks about working directly with the blood circulation, something that really hit home. This book, and receiving a session of Dynamic Manual Interface, became the starting point of his exploration into the vascular structures of the body. In addition, Kazutaka, as a movement professional, began searching for ways to make use of manual therapy of vascular system into movement education/re-education.

Also, Kazutaka was a competitive Judo player, and what he learned from Judo has really helped him in the way he works with his clients. The motto of Jigoro Kano, the founder of Judo, is “mutual benefits and welfare”, and this alone has influenced his sessions in that he always has clients help him to get better results with them by having them participate in the healing process. Since both the therapist and the client are aware, the process of healing and improvement speeds up, and the client takes a more pro-active role.