The wind is in your hair and your bicycle is riding smoothly along the pavement. All is well in your world as you make your way along the side of the road, pedaling and pumping to your destination. Then…WHACK!

It happened so quickly, you didn’t get a chance to react. Someone opened a car door into your bicycle’s path and you’ve hit it. It happens more often than you’d think and it happened to Adam Gottlieb in Montreal ten years ago, sending him on a long journey of self discovery which has lead him to become a practicioner of massage therapy in Victoria today.

But, let’s go back a bit…as a child, Adam had been affected by illness. His choice to study environmental health was his attempt to cure himself  from his physical afflictions. He’d already considered the link between personal health and environment. So, he went to Princeton, NJ for his undergraduate and Concordia for Graduate studies in Environmental and Health Science. He’d studied to become an Environmental Chemist in order to find tangible connections between peoples health and their environment and to be able to change the environment in tangible ways to promote healthy communities. He wanted to add to the existing knowledge and to understand what up until then still hadn’t been understood well or explored fully: the relationship between health and the environment.

However, after a few contracts working on environmental quality in the Montreal area, he found he was spending most of his time in a laboratory– measuring and monitoring the existing  situation,  rather than in a group setting, working with people changing the situation. Instead of being in nature, he was in a laboratory studying minute aspects of nature.

Adam wanted to be working outdoors, not in a sterile lab. He wanted to facilitate real change with his knowledge and often felt frustrated when his ideas were dismissed as “too radical”. In addition, he realized that he’d made a “safe choice” by becoming an environmental chemist–it was a choice that was taking him further and further away from the things he loved: community, nature and athletics.

And he was given the chance to re-examine his choices when the accident happened. After he was hit by the car’s door, he ended up having to take a month off of work and he had a great deal of difficulty with even basic movement, like walking, for the next two to three years. As part of his recovery plan, he went to a Shiatsu massage therapist. The therapist gave him movements to do at home in addition to the massage appointments. By engaging this therapeutic process, Adam soon learned that this approach to healing was not restricted to a few exercises, it was becoming a way of life.

With time, Adam learned the power of this therapeutic approach. He began to realize that while he’d initially gone to Shiatsu Massage Therapy to recover from the direct impact of the accident, the techniques and movements were helping him to heal other neglected, earlier injuries and wounds. Enthusiastic to have discovered a proven therapy which would enable him to engage with community, use his understanding of physiology and movement and enable people to access natural ways they could heal themselves, Adam embarked on a course of study to become a licenced Shiatsu Massage therapist and dance instructor. I asked him a few questions about his approach to healing with Shiatsu and his responses are below:

Q: What attracts you to doing Shiatsu massage?

A: The body never lies. You can confuse yourself with your mind, but your body will always tell the truth.

Q. What is the connection between Environmental Chemistry and Massage and dance?

A: The Environmental Chemistry was a roundabout way to heal the physical/emotional problem. Shiatsu massage is a direct way to do the same thing.

Q: Can you give me an example?

A: Allergies are a good example. You can try to cope with them through the pharmaceutical approach, you can try to reduce and lessen them with the environmental assessment approach, or you can work to heal them by recognizing the both the physical and emotional components. Allergies are also related to anxiety and anxiety can be worked away through massage.

Q: That’s an unexpected association. Why did you choose it?

A: I had serious allergies as a child and so learning how to cope and possibly cure them was a driving motivation for me. I actually have written a book called “The Sprouted Peanut Vaccine and Other Stories” which is a scientific study of the history of peanut allergies and the theories of what causes them. I wrote it to provide a greater understanding on how they can be prevented and healed naturally.

Q: Is the book available in any bookstores here in Victoria?

A: No. But, you can order it from Amazon.

Q: Have you written any other books?

A: Yes, I learned that I have an ability to explain complex things in a simple and fun way, so I wrote a book to show others how to communicate concepts in science. It’s called “Holy Holmium! Complete General Chemistry in 150 Pages” (available at amazon) and it’s quite popular!

Q: So, how would you describe your journey from hard science to Shiatsu and dance?

A: As the years go by, I continue to take a more and more direct approach to my questions about health and the environment. With science, I was searching for and proving “truth”, with Shiatsu and dance, I am able to live “truth”. I began with enviromental chemistry, moved to environmental activism, through to massage and dance. Massage feels good and is deeply re-aligning and dance is the fullest expression of the creative impulse of the body. There is a joyous creation and healing through dance.  In a Shiatsu message session theremay be an emotional release along with the physical one. What matters isn’t so much what it means as the fact that it is the person’s truth. We slow down and give the person time to be themselves. This itself is healing.”

Q: How can our people find out more about you”

A: Visit me on my website: adamgottliebshiatsu.com or phone me at 250-589-8655.

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