shiatsu for school dropouts at Lycée Maurice-Ravel

During the 2021-2022 school year, the former student, for four years, of the New Aquitaine Shiatsu school of Violette Melendez in Lahonce, practiced Koho shiatsu with high school students. An art consisting in exerting pressures of the fingers, on the zones of the body, by means of the tenugui, this fabric of fine cotton, in order to restore the balance in the whole of the body and to support health.

Volunteering

“I want to put myself at the service of everyone, but young people suffered a lot during the Covid period”, notes the practitioner, also keen on meditation, Qi Gong and Kung-Fu Saolim. “The demands and sources of stress are numerous. We pay less and less attention to our bodies. I haven’t found a better way than shiatsu to help high school students. »

The pedagogical and supervisory team of the Maurice-Ravel high school thought up this support in collaboration with the Mission to fight against school dropout and within the framework of a program called “Percer Vers”. After having identified, according to objective criteria, 25 students likely to benefit from it, the shiatsu sessions were offered to them, on the principle of voluntary participation.

Agoraphobia

The students followed by Camille Dhélin are or were affected by sometimes minor disorders, but signs of health in danger, indicates the practitioner. Physical or psychological disorders, contributing to a malaise affecting attention, concentration, school results, even life as a whole. Thus, this student suffering from agoraphobia, who did not go out in the playground with her classmates, and who was able to resume a “normal” life within the establishment, after a few sessions.

Disorders of attention, concentration, factors of “school dropout”, are often the consequence of various ailments, whether physical (digestive, respiratory, rheumatological, ENT) and psychological (stress, anorexia, anxiety, agoraphobia, depression).

The 30-minute sessions during which Camille Dhélin represented, for these young adults, neither a teacher waiting for a result, nor a psychologist waiting for a word, made it possible to establish a relationship of trust.

Awareness

Mainly stress, anxiety attacks, anorexia, dependence on psychoactive substances, depression, were among the ailments identified and having been monitored. The physical disorders likely to be relieved by Koho shiatsu are of various orders: respiratory, digestive, gynecological, ENT, etc. Camille Dhélin remembers in particular this young man who “regained consciousness of his body” after a few 30-minute sessions. “It made him want to start a diet, he lost 10 kilos. »

Camille Dhélin also carried out sessions with a young man who had given up the practice of sport and gained weight. “Shiatsu allowed him to regain awareness of his body and take care of it, then to get back to skating. In an era conducive to the break between the body and the psyche, the Koho shiatsu specialist reminded high school students of the necessary connection with their body and with nature. I asked them how long it had been since they had been in the forest. We are nature. »

120 sessions

The supervising and teaching team of Lycée Maurice-Ravel got involved in this unique initiative. Introductions to shiatsu have been conducted in other establishments in France, but the Luzian sessions have been subject to unprecedented quantitative and qualitative monitoring.

Participation rate and results observed, number of sessions per student, results by type of mental and physical symptoms, impact on well-being and personal investment and school results were listed by the practitioner.

The 120 sessions of 30 minutes to 40 minutes of shiatsu, depending on the needs of the student, were financed by the Maurice-Ravel school complex. For the action to be renewed for two additional years, in order to draw broader conclusions, a grant application has been made to the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Region. If validated, the action could resume in January.