Californian Massage
Californian Massage is a truly amazing therapy based on the conscious touch. It is far more than just a massage. It is a dynamic healing dance, one that connects rhythmically to the client’s energy and surroundings, to give a somatic bodywork technique that is much needed in today’s modern world. A world where we find ourselves disconnected, lost, untethered. Our busy minds constantly whirring, never at rest. Our bodies sluggish and in pain. Our spirits weary.
Here in a Californian Massage session, I create a safe harbour for you. I help you switch off and switch on with yourself. I help your mind, body and spirit reconnect and so restore inner balance, which is vital to your health and wellbeing. I bring you into a state of deep relaxation, stillness and calm, using long, slow, circular, deep, enveloping mindful strokes of conscious touch. I help you release all the physical and emotional tensions that have been weighing you down for so long. Whether you arrive stressed, tired, or in pain, you will leave energised, freer, serene.
What can Californian Massage help with?
- Release muscle tension
- Reduce Stress
- Relieve chronic pain
- Improve energy
- Rebalance nervous system
- Improve sleep
- Improve mood
- Relieve anxiety
- Aid digestion
- Release energy blockages
- Switch off busy minds
- Mobilise joints
- Increase overall well-being
- Generate the feeling of "being connected" with ourselves
Techniques
- Varied and creative forms of pressures
- Detoxifying stretches
- Long, slow glides over the skin
- Fluid frictions
- Kneading
- Sculpture of the deep musculature
- Passive joint manipulations
- Rhythmic and subtle swings
- Supports integration and expansion
- Delicate sacral-cranial rocking
- Punctual precision of neuromuscular work
Want to learn more?
In my opinion and from my feeling, the Californian Massage is a reunion with oneself, with the body, the heart and the senses through true contact, through conscious contact. This technique is based on a special quality of touch (conscious touch) characterized by total presence and attention to the present moment. Another fundamental characteristic of this technique is the movements, strokes and passes that are long, slow, circular and enveloping, with depth and delicacy, which generates a sensation of integration of the body itself and which induces the person to states of deep relaxation and rest. It is only from that place of stillness and calm from where it is possible to release rigidities, release physical and emotional tension and restore energy, integrating body, mind and soul during the course of the session. For this reason, I like to say that it is a massage offered from the heart that gives life and deep rest, it is a true pampering of the soul. A superb tune-up experience. More than highly recommended, it is a must.
This is how this set of movements combined from a state of total presence, performed with precision, detail and awareness, become a healing dance, one that connects rhythmically to the client’s energy and surroundings. Since every dance contains different rhythms, this is especially relevant since each rhythm stimulates a particular type of energy. The fluid and circular rhythm is the fundamental axis of this massage as it is especially nutritious for the nervous and endocrine systems, the great regulators of muscular tension.
The therapist works through her touch establishing an authentic and responsible dialogue with the patient without trying to manipulate the person towards any goal but accompanying him or her in the healing journey. This quality of contact exerted by the palms of the full hands and characterized by sincere care, warmth and acceptance is based on finding the person as they really are, listening to the soul, the true Self. This somatic technique of bodywork works through the conscious healing presence of the masseur in a trusting relationship based on true contact which helps the patient to deepen their experience and expand their consciousness.
HEALING DANCE AND MANUAL TECHNIQUES
The Californian Massage is a set of movements that when performed with precision, detail and awareness come together in a healing dance, that flows rhythmically with a client’s energy. Since every dance contains different rhythms, this is especially relevant since each rhythm stimulates a particular type of energy. The fluid and circular rhythm is the fundamental axis of this massage as it is especially nutritious for the nervous and endocrine systems, the great regulators of emotional and muscular tension.
During the 1960s and 1970s, the Esalen Institute served as a testing laboratory for the self-investigation ideas and techniques of the most renowned and influential personalities of what would later be called the alternative health movement. Among some of the visitors and residents we can find Stan Grof (creator of holotropic breathwork), Ida Rolf (creator of the structural integration technique called Rolfing), Milton Trager (revolutionary bodyworker who brought a new and light form of massage with the Harmonic Hammocks®), Fritz Perls the father of the renowned Gestalt therapy).
In full development of this new psychology, the need arises for body work that responds to the psycho-emotional sensitivity experienced in work groups. The effectiveness and simplicity that characterize it, coupled with the profound mobilization and transformation that it generates in those who receive it, made every masseur and patient experience radical and permanent changes in their work style as well as in their life.
It is a free massage and open to the integration of new elements, which is why in 1995 the kinesiologist Ingrid May and Dr. Marcelo Bartrolí moved to Buenos Aires and created what is now called Californian Oasis® Massage, incorporating the Esalen massage, novel rhythmic, technical and stylistic elements that, without taking it away from its roots as the emblematic technique of relaxation massage and emotional mobilization, opened up the spectrum to address the treatment of chronic pain and postural problems, something characteristic of patients subjected to high levels of stress . They also incorporate the non-dualistic vision (advaita vedanta) in their way of conceiving this therapeutic work.
ESALEN
Esalen Institute on the central coast of California called Big Sur, is founded in 1962 by Michael Murphy and Richard Price with the aim of exploring human potential. Thanks to the people who gathered there and their experiences, Esalen became the cradle of transpersonal psychology whose model gives rise to the deep human longing for the mystical experience.Silence arises as a necessity for the expression of the subtle. What technique and the quality of contact evoke in each patient is related to the receiver’s availability, the energy contained in their body and mind at the moment of receiving the massage… it is compassion, integrity, and the nobility of the heart that allows any manifestation arising from the experience of giving and receiving the massage to be expressed.
The Californian Massage is a set of movements that, when performed with precision, attention to detail, and awareness, come together in a healing dance. Like any dance, it contains different rhythms, and this is particularly relevant because each rhythm stimulates a specific type of energy. The fluid and circular rhythm is the fundamental core of this massage, as it is especially nourishing for the nervous and endocrine systems, the major regulators of emotional and muscular tension.
