Meet Hideshi Takesako

Hideshi's training began in Tokyo at Eisei Gakuen, one of Japan's leading colleges of Eastern medicine. After graduating, he studied directly under two senior Japanese practitioners, Takenouchi sensei and Ikeda sensei, whose teaching underpins his practice today.

Japanese acupuncture differs from the Chinese style most people in Australia have encountered. The needles are thinner and finer, inserted through a small guide tube. Diagnosis relies on pulse reading and a thorough consultation about your medical history, lifestyle and current symptoms, rather than symptom description alone.

Hideshi treats the cause, not only the symptom. That often means working on areas away from where the pain is felt, because the root of the imbalance lives elsewhere. Sessions usually blend acupuncture with moxibustion (the gentle warming of acupoints with mugwort) and shiatsu massage, drawn on as each patient needs.

Over the past three decades, Hideshi has practised in clinics across Sydney's northern beaches (Dee Why, Manly Vale and Willoughby) and spent time at the luxury resort of Parrot Cay in the Turks and Caicos Islands, treating an international clientele including actors, musicians and members of royal families. He has run shiatsu massage workshops in Japan and collaborated on acupuncture and moxibustion seminars in Sydney. Before settling in Kewarra Beach, his Cairns clinic was located in Palm Cove.

Hideshi came to Cairns for the warm weather, the beach and the slower pace, all of which suit how he likes to live as much as how he likes to practise. Outside the clinic, he can usually be found jogging along the sand, riding his bike or training kendo with a local Cairns club, which keeps him connected to the discipline he grew up with in Japan.