Seven Stars Shiatsu 

original source: http://www.theage.com.au/news/upgrade/chair-lift/2007/06/04/1180809431831.html

To mark our 200th column, we decided to sit back and relax in the Upgrade Research Lab with the mother of all shiatsu massage chairs.

Sanyo's HECDR7700 shiatsu massage chair is the ultimate in executive extravagance.

The reclining chair has rollers for massaging your back, shoulders and neck. The term "rollers" doesn't really do the chair justice, as they can mimic a masseur's hand kneading, tapping, rubbing and shiatsu-ing with surprising realism.

The seat moves to massage your backside and the footrest inflates to squeeze your legs while pegs press up into the soles of your feet.

The remote control on the chair's arm lets you choose from four preprogrammed massaged routines - Stress, Recovery, Relax and Fine - or manually control the chair. All that's missing is the button for firing photon torpedoes.

Each preprogrammed routine runs for 15 to 20 minutes and starts with a quick once-over to determine where you most need a massage. To assist with this, you to place your finger on a sensor that works similarly to a lie detector, monitoring your pulse and perspiration to detect tender spots.

What follows is a thorough massage with airbags inflating to stretch your back before the rollers work their magic, while your backside, legs and feet also get attention. You can separately vary the strength of back and backside/leg massage.

The chair, which has a built-in foot warmer, certainly left us feeling relaxed and content. But the best way to assess the merits of a shiatsu massage chair is to try the real thing, so we turned to the Shiatsu Therapy Association of Australia for a qualified therapist. Steven talked us through the basics of shiatsu theory during the course of a one-hour massage.

Shiatsu is considered a combination of physical, spiritual and emotional wellbeing.

While Sanyo's chair can, obviously, tend to the first of these three, it soon becomes clear that it can never match a person even in the physical aspect.

For example, the chair couldn't work on the back of our neck and base of our skull in the same way Steven could. Nor could it work on the arms or front of the body.

Also, you shouldn't underestimate the importance of the human touch and a sympathetic ear.

Our other concern is the use of the chair by those who don't know what they're doing. Steven says he refers about a quarter of patients to specialists for specific treatments, but the chair is unable to make such a judgement call - someone could easily aggravate an injury if they didn't have the sense to seek professional advice.

The only other concern is the price. Steven charges $60 an hour or $100 for a house call, minus private health-insurance rebates, so you would need to be putting in plenty of time in the chair to get your money's worth.

Sanyo's HECDR7700 Shiatsu massage chair, rrp $8950. For details call 1300 360 230 or visit http://www.sanyo.com.au