Francesca Harvey trained at The Shiatsu College London from 1989 to 1992.
In 1993 she obtained her MRSS certificate, registering her with The Shiatsu Society.
In 1992 she met Akinobu Kishi. Kishi was a Shiatsu practitioner from the age of 9, an apprentice with Masunaga,
the master of Zen Shiatsu who brought Shiatsu to the West. In 1979, Kishi founded his own way which he called
Seiki. Seiki has a more intuitive approach to healing and Francesca has sought to develop this style.
She has worked with Kishi and his wife Kyoko at least once a year since 1995.
She went to Japan to study with them in 2001 and was fortunate to have Kishi and Kyoko to stay in her flat in London
regularly for a few years, before she moved down to Winchester.
In 1990 Francesca began her Qi Gong training with Zhi-xing Wang and Zhendi Wu.
Like Kishi and Kyoko, Zhi-xing and Zhendi teach as a team and Francesca has found it particularly helpful to have the support
of the women teachers, from whom she has learned tips on women's health.
Zhi-xing and Zhendi teach the Hua Gong style of Qi Gong which they developed themselves and have refined over the years.
Francesca has found the Qi Gong very helpful in conjunction with the healing work of the Shiatsu and Seiki.
The Qi Gong has helped her to develop more sensitivity and perception of the Qi or Ki, the vital universal energy
that is all around us.
Qi Gong has also helped her both to cleanse and to energize herself as well as to become calmer and more centred.
Francesca qualified as a Qi Gong instructor in 1997, having attended all the relevant courses and having been given
permission to teach by Zhi-xing Wang.
Since then she has been keen to encourage her clients to help themselves with Qi Gong.
Shiatsu and Seiki are both valuable but the client is more passive, whereas if one can learn Qi Gong one can become more
involved in one's own healing process and con contribute to its progress with some effort and practice.
Francesca would ideally like to teach each client Qi Gong before a treatment, thereby helping the client to loosen up
and enabling Francesca to observe where the tensions lie in the body.
The client can then go away with something to practice before the next treatment.
In fact Francesca uses a combination of all these 3 therapies, Shiatsu, Seiki and Qi Gong, in her treatments now.
Francesca worked for 3 years in The London Haven, a charity for women (and a few men also) with Breast Cancer.
She worked for The Trinity Centre for the Homeless for 10 years, for Rupert's Drug Treatment Centre for 3 years
and for Trinity Women's Centre for just over a year. Rupert's drug treatment centre lost the funding and the Trinity centres
have also had to cut all complimentary care except for ear acupuncture.
Francesca is in the process of completing her supervision as an ear acupuncturist, partly so that she can do some work
in the Trinity centre again and partly to add another string to her bow.
