Mikis Tapaswi
(日本後は下へ)
Mikis was born to a father from the Sea of Japan coast of Akita and a mother from the Pacific coast of Iwate, and was raised in Miyagi prefecture.
From an early age, his life was marked by physical vulnerability, as his parents chose for him to undergo surgery for a congenital condition. He spent his childhood alongside his active older brother, growing up with a strong awareness of his own sensitivity.
Later, he experienced a complex fracture of his left wrist at the age of sixteen during a football game.
At that time, he found himself without meaningful guidance in rehabilitation or healing, which led him to develop a deep and personal inquiry into the relationship between body and mind.
In 2004, he traveled to Byron Bay, Australia, where he began practicing yoga and surfing. Through these experiences, he gradually became aware of subtle shifts in his bodily perception.
Later, he moved to Hachijojima, a small island in Japan, where he encountered Thai massage, Noguchi Seitai, and Reiki.
In March 2011, following one of the most devastating tsunamis in Japan’s history, which caused immense damage and loss, he spent time in one of the most affected areas where his grandmother lived.
There, he began offering massage naturally at a temple where people had evacuated. This experience became a significant turning point as he felt a direct response to real human conditions.
In 2012, he traveled to Chiang Mai, Thailand, to study Thai Yoga Massage—often described as a form of yoga practiced with another person, in contrast to the individual practice he had known—completing a government-approved training program.
After returning to the island, while still living a simple life centered around farming and surfing without much stress, he began to seek ways of engaging with others through expressing his own sensitivity and allowing it to be fully present.
Since 2016, he has studied Osteothai under its co-founder, David Lutt, integrating elements of
osteopathy into his practice.
Alongside this, his ongoing research has included Craniosacral Therapy, Gestalt Therapy, and Wuotai Osteodance as part of the somatic field.
As his bodywork practice matured,
he began to question the relationship between giver and receiver in the structure of the bodywork sessions he offers,
because the challenge arose when receivers did not engage in their own process of awareness and self-inquiry. This led him to understand that healing cannot fully take place without a sense of autonomy.
This realization drew him toward practices such as Contact Improvisation, where participants listen to the body and lead one another in equality, and Authentic Movement, which emphasizes direct personal experience.
Through these approaches, his interest gradually shifted from a reliance on being taught by others to a process of exploration and self-emergence.
This shift, together with meeting Sasha Dødø and Dolores Dewhurst Mark—who introduced him deeply to Contact Improvisation and influenced his artistic perspective—led him into dance and further travel throughout Europe.
Beginning in 2019, he began facilitating intensive bodywork workshops and retreat programs across Japan, Thailand, and Europe, through which movement gradually emerged as part of the practice.
While these experiences were deeply enriching, they also revealed a growing inner movement. Through encounters with different cultures and practices, his attention gradually returned to Japan—its philosophies, such as Zen and Shinto, and embodied practices like Butoh—beginning to resonate and interconnect within his own lived experience.
At the same time, the physical demands of constant travel began to surface. Long journeys, changing environments, and instability gradually brought fatigue to his body. His increasing sensitivity made it clear that a different rhythm was needed—one that allows for continuity, depth, and rootedness.
From this convergence—of bodywork, dance, cultural inquiry, and healing through a grounded way of living—he began to create what he now refers to as "Living Somatic".
He has developed Living Somatic as a platform for exploring the integration of movement, awareness, and performance in everyday life, inspired in specific environments and shaped through practice and relationship, drawing on Japanese culture to open a space for mutual learning in dialogue with an international community.
For him, therapy and healing extend far beyond the treatment room. Likewise, dance and performance are not limited to studios or theaters, nor to those who formally identify as practitioners. They can emerge anywhere, take countless forms, and invite endless possibilities.