The Lineage I Was Taught In
August 2026 · 4 min read · By Vanessa Chugani
People ask me sometimes who taught the person who taught me, and how far back the line actually goes. I can answer that in four names. It is a short list, and I think that is exactly why it is worth trusting.
Usui, Hayashi, Takata
Usui Reiki Ryoho, the form I practise and teach, begins with Mikao Usui in Japan. Chujiro Hayashi trained under him and turned what he had learned into a working method: a clinic where it could be practised, refined and taught properly to others. Hawayo Takata trained with Hayashi and carried the practice out of Japan, first to Hawaii and then to the rest of the West. Those three names sit on the historical record. They are not a story I am asking you to take on faith, and they are not quite the whole of what usually gets told about them either: the popular version has been dressed up over the decades, and the honest version differs in a few places that matter. I have written the fuller account, including where the popular story and the record part ways, on where Usui Reiki actually comes from.
My own two teachers
I trained as a Reiki practitioner in 2006, in Aachen, Germany. That is where the line reaches me. It took another thirteen years before I was ready to teach it to others myself. I became a Reiki Master Teacher in 2019, trained at the Asian Healing Arts Center in Chiang Mai and, separately, with Vonny Stella in Ubud. Two teachers, one lineage, nothing folded into it beyond Usui Reiki Ryoho. That is the half of the chain I can speak to directly, because I sat in the room for it, was attuned by them in person, and watched how they taught before I taught anyone myself.
In the years between those two dates I trained in other things too: as a Meditation Teacher in 2008 and a Naturopath for Psychotherapy and Life Coach in 2009, both at Paracelsus Schule Aachen, and later a 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training with WLYA in Chiang Mai in 2015. Those trainings shape how I work with a student in the room. They are not part of the Reiki lineage, and I keep them separate on purpose. It would be easy to fold a whole CV into one impressive sounding line of descent. I would rather you knew which parts are the lineage and which parts are simply me.
Why I keep the list short
A lineage in Reiki records something specific: each person on it was attuned by the person before them, in person, hands on shoulders or head, in the same room. That is what the list actually means, a chain of particular people who trained particular other people, not admiration passed down the generations. A name that does not belong there breaks the chain even if nobody in the room ever checks.
I have seen training certificates with a dozen names between Usui and the person signing them, sometimes reaching back further still, to a monastery or a master nobody else seems able to name. I understand the appeal. A long list looks like more authority than a short one, and in a field with no licensing board, a lineage chart is often the only credential on offer. But I cannot vouch for a teacher I never sat with, and most of the people printing those long lists cannot either. What I can give a student is the line I actually walked: Usui, Hayashi, Takata, an honest gap that belongs to history rather than to me, and then my own two teachers in Chiang Mai and Ubud in 2019. Four names I stand behind will always be worth more to me than forty I cannot.
What it means if you train with me
If you come to me for Reiki training, this is the lineage you are joining, stated plainly, with nothing added to make it sound older or stranger than it is. I teach live, in Canggu or online, in groups of no more than six and often one to one, and I attune each student myself. No recordings, no automated attunements, nothing passed down to you that I did not receive the same way from someone standing in front of me. You can read more about my training on the About page, and if a traceable lineage matters to you the way it matters to me, that is worth saying on our first conversation. Reach me through a message whenever you are ready.