Usui Shiki Ryoho (臼井式靈氣療法) — the "Usui system of natural healing" — is the branch shaped by Hawayo Takata and her successors. It is the form most people mean when they simply say "Reiki."
The Western lineage
When Takata brought Reiki from Hayashi’s clinic to Hawaii and the mainland, she adapted how it was taught for a Western audience. The twenty-two masters she trained carried this form outward, and it became the default lineage across Europe and the Americas.
Structure
This branch is known for its clear, teachable structure: three degrees, a defined set of hand positions, the four traditional symbols introduced across the levels, and a formal attunement at each stage. That clarity is much of why it spread so successfully.
"Nearly every Western practitioner can trace their teaching back to Takata."
Reach
From this lineage grew countless further branches and offshoots as teachers adapted and renamed their own approaches. Whatever the variation, the through-line to Usui, Hayashi, and Takata remains, which is why the whole family is often called simply the Usui system.
Many branches, one root
From Takata’s twenty-two masters, Usui Shiki Ryoho fanned out into countless further branches as teachers adapted, renamed, and blended what they had learned. Some of these offshoots stay very close to her teaching; others have travelled a considerable distance from it.
Beneath the variety, though, the through-line holds. Whatever a modern branch calls itself, if it descends from Takata it belongs to this family, and behind Takata stand Hayashi and Usui — which is why the whole tradition is so often gathered under the single name "the Usui system."