OUR VISION
The first vision of The ANMA Institute is to see skilled touch recognized in our culture as a basic requirement for health and well-being. We believe in touch. We believe it is essential for developing and maintaining physical and psychosocial health. We believe touch is essential to healing, which in the original sense means “to make whole”. We also believe that the absence of positive touch, like the absence of food and water, results in people developing a wide range of physical and psychological symptoms.
Our second vision is to make skilled touch an integral part of human relationships. Everyone deserves to be touched as often as they would like from the day they are born until the day they die. In this era of high technological development we find ourselves frequently “out-of-touch” with ourselves and one another. Touching is one of the fundamental requirements for human development and growth. As Ashley Montague states in his seminal book, Touching: “The communications we transmit through touch constitute the most powerful means of establishing human relationships, the foundation of experience”.
OUR GOALS
The current organizational goals of The ANMA Institute reflect the strategies which we have adopted to pursue our two visions.
Our first goal is to offer a comprehensive curriculum that will enable current bodyworkers to integrate traditional Japanese massage techniques into their practice. To help our culture recognize touch as a basic requirement for health and well-being we have chosen ANMA, traditional Japanese massage. ANMA has a very clear, easily understood intention: to facilitate circulation throughout the body. When the massage is finished, people feel better. When people feel better they are recognizing a difference in their physical well-being. Noticing this difference helps people discover the vital role skilled touch plays in their health.
Our second goal is to offer a high-quality avocational training program. To make skilled touch an integral part of human relationships we have chosen to focus on making training in traditional Japanese massage more accessible. To insure that everyone has the opportunity to experience the significance of touch both as a giver and a receiver, we have developed a massage training program that is safe, convenient, and affordable for the non-professional. There is no massage more accessible than one given by a friend, a family member, or a colleague.