Natural Healing Artists New York

Makiko Oka-Castro

Natural Healing & Lifestyle Consultant
Posture & Movement Specialist

Hello! Welcome to my website. I was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan.

I grew up in a traditional Japanese musician family. My mother is a teacher and performer of the Japanese harp, the Koto, who performed for Kabuki Theaters, Imperial theater, on radio and TV shows. My Aunt is a teacher of Kabuki music, Nagauta. My grandmother was a teacher of Koto, Shamisen (a guitar), and Kouta (popular music from the Edo period).

And especially my grandmother, who was proud of being the last samurai blood; she strictly taught me to focus on good posture and strive for balance in my life.

In my grandmother’s time, the Japanese still measured the value of people by one’s posture more than by money or looks. A good posture symbolizes well-being, especially a healthy mind and attitude.  My grandmother used to tell me that “…well, he is a rich man. But he has a slouched back. So you may not be able to trust him all the time. ” 

I have been using what I learned to observe, help and communicate with people because Posture is an essential communication tool.

After moving to NYC, my English was not good enough, so I had to pay attention to people’s body language and posture closely. Since then, I have learned how to read my clients’ posture imbalance as a fundamental root cause of health issues, such as backache, headache, insomnia, ear-ringing, mood swings, anger, anxiety, etc. As I learned and applied many healing modalities to help my clients, I realized that many of them focused on one aspect – body, mind, or soul. And this idea of separating the human being would then limit the capacity to heal.  Because wholeness is proper health and well-being, which shows up in our posture.

So I ended up with an all-in-one approach called the Posture Balance approach to rebalance and regain one’s sense of the whole being where the “body=mind=soul” should be. 

Therefore, as I worked with many clients’ health issues with my approach, I concluded that bad posture reflected a dysfunctional digestive system where excessive eating of sugar, flour, and synthetic dairy, as well as long-term use of medications, were common factors, which typically let their abdomen expanding and swelling to the point of discomfort.

Naturally, without proper abdominal muscle functions, their posture worsened. Because the gut forms our center physical body. And the well-formed gut lining is the key to our good posture, which creates good humanity and its actions. 

After I became a certified GAPS (Gut and Psychology & Physiology Syndrome) diet practitioner, nutrition became a more significant component of my Posture Balance approach.  Basically, the diet enhances the regeneration of body functions. The GAPS diet combines proper food and supplements to heal our gut dysbiosis and relieve neurological and psychological conditions, including autism, ADD, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, bipolar, schizophrenia and others.

Dr. Natasha Campbell- McBride, MD. developed the GAPS diet to heal her son’s autism successfully.   

Without properly balanced nutrients in our bodies, we cannot function properly.  Therefore, “body=mind=soul” may be challenging to achieve, but worth the time and effort to achieve a well-balanced posture.    

• In 1990, she moved to NYC, joined the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance, and performed with the company between 1992 and 1994.
• In 1996, she started to teach Pilates, but then she realized its limitations as a treatment for some of her clients. So she derived her own style of specialized Pilates for pain management.
• In 1997, she established her own Dance Company, 舞 Mai Dance Project, and performed throughout the US and Japan.​ In 1999, She opened her own Pilates Studio on Upper East Side in Manhattan. ​​Her Makiko-Style Pilates gradually evolved into the Posture Balance Approach.
• In 2008, she established Natural Healing Artists, Inc. She opened a practice at Union SQ in NYC, focused on the Posture Balance Approach, which combined both Bio-chemical and Bio-mechanical aspects of healing with the GAPS Diet and Feldenkrais Method.
• In 2022, she was certified for JKA – Feldenkrais Method focused on Babies & Children with Developmental challenges and started. So, she added this technique into her practice.

Educational Credentials: MA in Dance & Movement Education from NYU, BA in Drama Study from Nihon University

Active Certifications: CNC (Certified Nutritional Consultant), CGP (Certified GAPS Practitioner), GCFP, FGNA (Certified Feldenkrais Method practitioner and guild member),  Certified JKA practitioner, Reiki Master

And other training and certifications: Pilates, Gyrotonic Expansion System, Cranio-Sacral Therapy, Food Therapy, Japanese Hari (Japanese style acupuncture without needles), Hypnosis (NHG, NLP, and Ericksonian hypnosis), Regression Therapy (present and past life through an energy healing), Intuitive Healing, Energy Clearing & Healing.