Welcome to the Ryoho Association YOGA & SHIATSU

What we stand for

Yoga

Ryoho Yoga is a Japanese yoga therapy system based on the Eastern concept of the body’s meridians (energy pathways). It focuses on aligning the individual with nature including seasonal changes, balancing energy levels, and enhancing physical and emotional well-being through traditional yoga and seasonal practices.

Shiatsu

Shiatsu is a Japanese hands-on healing therapy that uses pressure on specific points to balance the body’s energy (ki). It is both a diagnostic tool as well as a therapy based the body’s meridians and focuses on acupoints for treatment. Shiatsu is an excellent modality of bringing the body’s deficiencies and excesses back into harmony.

Macrobiotic Diet

A macrobiotic diet is based on whole foods. It is a high fiber, high complex carbohydrate, low fat eating plan that focuses mainly on whole grains and vegetables. The diet encourages eating foods that are unprocessed, organic, in season and locally grown. Macrobiotics is way of living in harmony with nature by balancing yin and yang energy.

What is the Ryoho Association?

The Ryoho Association is an incorporated non-profit organisation, which aims to provide a platform for the Ryoho Yoga Teachers and Shiatsu practitioners to connect, exchange ideas and keep growing together and keep on healing and supporting our communities. We believe that together we can create more awareness of Ryoho Therapy methodology, consolidate practice, maintain high standards and honour the legacy to further the knowledge in the future. Association membership is open to all Ryoho qualified practitioners as well as current students.

A Community Forum

The Association brings together the community of students taught by Andzej Gospodarczyk and Lisa Foster. Through our unity, we aim to support one another in our mission to heal people around the world. Our objective is to make this knowledge more accessible to the general public and have potential clients, existing teachers, and therapists refer to this website and the Ryoho Association when they need more information, in-person classes, or treatments.

Founder – Andzej Gospodarczyk

The late Andzej Gospodarczyk created Ryoho in the early 1980s as a unique wellness system. It is based on a sophisticated combination of yoga (in particular the teachings of Master Oki, a Japanese yoga master, founder of the Okido yoga movement), traditional Chinese medicine & Five Element Theory, meridian-based healing modalities of China and Japan, transcendental meditation and breathing techniques, macrobiotic diet and medicinal nutrition, and Shiatsu (Masunaga system). During his life, clients from all over the world would seek treatment from Andzej for a wide variety of (often chronic) conditions associated with back pain, neck pain, hip pain, headaches, women’s health, men’s health, children’s health, obesity, weight-loss, depression, stress, anxiety, digestion, respiratory, circulatory and hormonal issues as well as other major chronic conditions eg diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, asthma, endometriosis and other fertility issues.

Andzej was a Master Ryoho Yoga Teacher and regularly taught yoga either in his own practice or as a part of the Ryoho Visiting Master Program when invited by yoga schools or retreats all over the world. In addition to this, he ran Ryoho Yoga retreats aligned to the seasons and supervised fasting retreats.
Andzej’s education involved extensive travel and training with elite Eastern yoga and health practitioners in Japan, China, Hong Kong, India, the USA and Europe in the 1970s.

The Association honours Andzej’s legacy by using the Ryoho name.