Based on the principles of Zen Shiatsu, teaching workshops and courses in Auroville celebrate the life aquatic
If you take like fish to water, how about considering an alternative career, which involves spending all your time in a pool? We’re talking about Watsu, a form of aquatic bodywork that is offered in many health centres, wellness spas, and aquatic physiotherapy programs around the world. Luckily, you needn’t go very far if you wish to learn the therapy. Auroville plays host to one of the only centre in the country (apart from Goa), where you can learn to practise the technique and specialise in it.
The bigger picture
The Watsu India, Institute for Aquatic Bodywork, an association of internationally recognised teachers and certified practitioners, was launched over a decade ago in the French quarter. In collaboration with the Worldwide Aquatic Bodywork Association (WABA), Watsu India offers a complete professional training program, recognised by WABA. It aims at training students to create professional therapists/practitioners and spread the benefits of aquatic bodywork in India.
In principle
I caught up with Guy Ryckaert, a practitioner who explains the history behind the therapy. “It began in northern California in the 1980s, Harold Dull, Shiatsu instructor helped people float and applied the stretches and principles of the Zen Shiatsu he had studied in Japan,” he tells me. Performed in warm water (around 35°C), this exercise combines physical benefits of massage, joint mobilisation, muscle stretching, and energy. “Also, you gain the emotional benefits derived from being held, cradled, rocked, supported while floating, and gently stretched. Warm water is profoundly relaxing for clients, making them particularly receptive to healing on multiple levels,” he says.
Designed for mums
Watsu is increasingly recommended to aid recovery from injury, relieve muscular or joint pain, encourage movement and flexibility, treat a variety of illnesses, curb depression, and provide deep relaxation. While it works for clients of all age groups, backgrounds and fitness levels, Ryckaert says it especially helps new and expecting mothers, infants, toddlers, the elderly, physically disabled or chronically ill.
Join the club
Watsu India provides a professional learning programme with qualified teachers from India and abroad. Courses and workshops are organised each year at the Quiet Healing Center (www.quiethealingcenter.info), Auroville, and, more recently, at Magic Water in Dune Eco-Village (www.thedunehotel.com). Indian and foreign students, mainly from Europe, attend the courses as well as a number of Auroville residents, aged from 20 to 70 years.
Soul benefits
“Aquatic bodywork frees the body, heart, mind, and soul in ways not possible on land”, says Ryckaert. Besides relaxing the muscles, the warm water supports the spine, allowing it to be manipulated in an unprecedented way. Instead of depending on a table or other physical tools, water frees the body to work out restrictions by cycling between moments of stillness and rhythmic flowing. The way the practitioner holds the recipient—level to the heart, rising and sinking to the same breath—brings a new level of connection and trust.
Details: http://www.watsu.in
Slice of Life 