Aquapoetics

Personal transformation on the aquatic healing path

On a desolate beach in Thailand under the moonlit skies; I was gently immersed into the phosphorescent sea. As I was cradled and held I fell into a trance like state. My breath became still and my body melted into a dancing dolphin. My tears streamed from my eyes with deep appreciation of this true, unconditional love that I was receiving. I was pulled onto the moonlit sand, awakening out the most profound experience I had ever had.

This is an exhilarating extract from Tara Anstensen's diary after receiving her first waterdance in the ocean, an experience that initiated her aquatic healing path.  She describes her practice simply as consisting 'of integrating manual techniques such as Watsu in a physical therapy environment'. 

Tara Anstensen is a physical therapy assistant at Martin Memorial Hospital, Rehabilitation Department in Florida, and also offers private sessions at home. Her training in aquatic therapy has ranged from a spiritual esoteric place to the more clinical approach of physical therapy. 

It's a combination that is admirable, and fortunately increasingly possible. Tara says this integration has been the most challenging part of her practice but it is something she made a conscious decision to pursue when she experienced the other extreme of 'no boundaries'.

It's likely that bringing this personal depth to a practice that is also strongly grounded in clinical training gives Tara's work good deal of gentle power.  In addition to being a licensed massage therapist and certified Watsu practitioner, she has a background in jazz dance.

Aquatic bodywork has definite dance qualities to it, enabling someone with a feel for that to share an easy sense of fluidity and rhythm with their clients. My favorite derivative of Watsu, Healing Dance (one of Tara's modalities), was developed by dancer Alexander Georgeokopolous.

Tara emphasizes the balance in her training by saying that the most useful thing she has learned is to use the principles of the water to create the effect, while the most valuable thing she has learned is to be present with the individual receiving as well as present within herself. 

When Tara first started to study Watsu, she had great intentions for self development. At the time, through the initial training, she says that her 'open and trusting nature felt at home with such closeness and intimacy'.  Many of us have been there, especially if starting at Harbin Hot Springs.

Tara continues, 'The gates of self-discovery truly opened through those [first] two weeks of training. I experienced deep and emotional outbreaks, crying in stranger’s arms and embracing newfound friends. I remembered past traumas that I had hidden away for years.'

'The transformation that occurred was a permanent change, a beginning to the discovery of who Tara really is. Physical pain and emotional baggage came to the surface, revealing inner caves of past abuse. My life changed ….My spirit was open and eager to share this incredible experience.'

The ability to facilitate this kind of opening for another, can only come I believe with the courage to have gone there oneself. And some such healers have had to experience the downside of that opening too, which only makes them all the more effective if they are able to learn from that.

'What I didn’t realize,' admits Tara, 'was that Los Angeles was not Harbin Hot Springs and I experienced some challenging issues regarding boundaries. This was an integral part of defining myself, learning how to speak up and be in my truth.' 

The issues of boundaries and transference, well-known in psychotherapy and somatic psychotherapy seem to have an even more profound and, for the unprepared, potentially difficult quality when bodywork is done in water.  This is something I will be exploring further in this blog.

I agree completely with Tara when she says that 'the most important factor in the effectiveness of a session is allowing the water and the moment to guide the flow and to leave any agenda outside of the pool of what I feel the recipient needs'.  This is not traditional clinical practice.

In physical therapy, the 'patient' may be receiving land-based therapy as well as aquatic therapy depending on a variety of factors. Tara's preference is for a one-on-one approach where the therapist is in the water with the patient during physical therapy treatment. 

She feels it is important to have eye contact with the patient during the exercise portion of treatment and to manually cue when needed to assist them in self awareness. During Watsu (even at the clinic) quiet or soft music creates a safe place for profound healing to take place.

For Tara, the limitations on one-on-one time and the system for documentation and productivity are challenging and sometimes restricting in the physical therapy setting.  Her style is clearly individually-oriented and personal, which is not easy to cultivate in formal clinics.

Regards self-care, some techniques that help Tara to stay balanced are Tai Chi for grounding, yoga, and simple acts of breathing.  She notes that she has reduced the amount of time that she is in the indoor pool each week so as to not overexpose herself to the chemical environment.

Like Kim, in the previous posting for this section, Tara says she will be forever a student. 

She recently took Watsu 3 adapted for special needs, and would like to study Bad Ragaz (to bring the patient from passive to active assist and active exercises while supine in the water), also more Healing Dance and Waterdance (underwater work). 

Tara concluded by saying: 'I believe that a trusting touch can have profound effects and produce long lasting change for everyone ... I share with you the truest feelings within my heart regarding my path to this point and recognize the lessons as the greatest gifts to happiness.'  

Tara lives by the ocean in Florida with her husband and has two beautiful water babies. I met Tara at my first training, which was also hers, and am thrilled to have rediscovered her recently and to see how far she has taken her love of the water.

You can contact her by email at tarawatsu@gmail.com and/or visit her profile on the Aquatic Therapists network.

If you have thoughts about the above or wish to extend the discussion with your own experience, please do comment below or email me here.

For submissions, please refer to the initial blog posting here for Aquatic Healers.

To make sure you see further accounts of other aquatic healers and more, subscribe to this blog's feed below.

The Yin-Yang of aquatic bodywork

         It takes a lot of courage and faith to do what Kim Chamberlain, the first aquatic healer presented here, has done.  The fact that she was the first person to respond to my request for this section of my blog on other Aquatic Healers says a lot about her too.                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Kim Chamberlain is an Holistic Health Practitioner (AMTA, NCTMB) and Aquatic Bodyworker based in Fortuna, California.  Website: Akasha Bodysmith.

Kim tells me that the most important thing she learned in her training to do aquatic bodywork was 'Presence of being in the moment.  Allowing not doing. Yin as in not Yang.'  What I see, is that she has found a good balance of these two energies - the Yang of action and the Yin of receptivity.

She started doing bodywork about 11 years ago and established an injury rehabilitation and pain reduction  practice with an emphasis on deep tissue, working for herself and by herself.  That's a very proactive (Yang) thing to do.  With 1000 h training in massage and national certification, Kim is serious about her practice.

Six years ago, someone she exchanged massage with introduced her to Watsu at Harbin Hot Springs.  Kim says: 'The moment I saw Watsu I knew I had to do this. I could see the benefits it would have for the people I worked with. I also was interested in transitioning my work to something easier on my body.'

All three statements are typical of established bodyworkers who take to the water.  They recognize the Yin aspects that can be missing from more traditional therapeutic training programs, and want to learn more. Kim notes that it took about a year and a half before she really understood this difference. 

Up until that point, she says that her massage practice was very Yang (strong, forceful and goal-orientated).  It was challenging to learn how to be simply present with another, to accept 'education taught in a right-brain curriculum'.  It is possible to adopt a Yang-style in the water but that is to miss the true value of this medium.

The most valuable thing Kim learned in Watsu training was 'Our connectedness, oneness through sympathetic resonance.'  Also, the value of 'listening' which she believes is the most important factor in the effectiveness of her water sessions.  Kim isn't talking about aural listening here.

She's talking about the way in which the water seems to enable a connection between you and the person you are floating.  If you can allow yourself to be receptive and responsive to that (a Yin skill), then it tells you what that person needs - which might be stillness or movement - and probably a dance of both.

Kim added another 1000 h aquatic training to her skills, and just two years after discovering Watsu she purchased a commercial property where she could live and build a pool as part of her combined land-water practice.  Four years later, she says this is 'One of the greatest things I've ever done'.

I'm impressed by Kim's willingness to respond (Yin) to something hard to define and not well-known (aquatic healing) and then take the risk of making that possible in practice by incorporating it into her work in a very professional way. She now has the autonomy and privacy to offer clients healing modalities she believes in.

When I asked Kim to describe her aquatic practice in one sentence she replied: 'All are welcome within this  sacred, private space inviting freedom through movement, empowerment through trust, healing and nurturing of body, mind and spirit.'  Kim is clearly inspired.

Her indoor 13 ft salt water pool has ADA access ( ramp, lift and shower) - ideal for one-on-one sessions.  She says it's also great to have this at home and to use it for her own therapy. She makes regular visits to Harbin - 'it reminds me why I am doing this' - receives bodywork herself, and avoids taking on too much.

She'd love to increase her water sessions from a current 10% to 50% of her practice. Working with a lot of first-time (uninitiated) Watsu people, she strives to create a positive therapeutic experience one session at a time.  And she also considers that she is forever learning about the work and how to improve.

Because Kim can offer both land and water work, she has the opportunity, I suggest, to build trust with her clients in traditional massage work and can then encourage them to include water sessions as part of their healing program.  Some will take to the water like ducks, others not at all, some will prefer the combination.

One of her biggest challenges has been marketing; something I'll be addressing in this blog and also providing guidelines for in a forthcoming E-book.  Because this form of aquatic bodywork is relatively unfamiliar and a step up (intimacy-wise) for many, inspirational education is an important part of marketing.

Kim notes she's always interested in working for public awareness of aquatic therapy and willing to work with others toward this goal. She already has a promotional video (which she plans to rework) for use at presentations and health fairs, where she gets useful feedback about her work and how people perceive it.

Being willing to step out (Yang) and find out what people think and want (Yin) is a good balance in promotion. You listen, learn and then act.  Kim lives in a relatively isolated area and is always looking for ways to stay connected with other water family - her pool is available for rent and for trading sessions.

You can see more about her practice on her own website, and also visit her profile on the online social network for Aquatic Therapists where Kim is an active contributor.  Kim italicized this sentence about her work:  Live in faith that I am doing what I am supposed to be.  I think she is.

If you have questions for Kim only, please contact her directly through her website.  If you have thoughts about the above or wish to extend the discussion with your own experience, please do comment below or email me here.

For submissions, please refer to the initial blog posting here for Aquatic Healers.

To make sure you see further accounts of other aquatic healers and more, subscribe to this blog's feed below.

Breaking the bottled water habit

Please join me in this pledge to Break the Bottled Water Habit.  It's easy for me since I'm not in the habit and I also have access to rural well water that tastes delicious.  But it's one way that as a society, and aquatic bodyworkers, we can really make a difference.

Everything we consume has a climate impact, but manufacturing and trucking water bottles to homes with clean tap water seems particularly wasteful. The Beverage Marketing Corporation reports that Americans consumed 31.2 billion liters of water in 2006 – nearly 9 liters per month for every man, woman, and child.

Manufacturing all those bottles requires 900,000 tons of plastic, the equivalent of more than 17 million barrels of oil, and emit more than 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide. Trucking around all those heavy bottles emits even more greenhouse gases. 

Beyond the climate impact there’s the massive waste – 86% of water bottles aren’t recycled -- and water bottling is also, ironically, a very water-intensive endeavor. The Pacific Institute tells us that it takes three liters of water to produce one liter of bottled water!

It just doesn't make sense.  So, please click on the image below to sign the pledge or learn more.

Aquatic healing blog carnival

                                                                                                                       

This carnival is for blogs (journal-style websites or weblogs) that are concerned with water therapies of all kinds, but especially Watsu-style aquatic bodywork.

I'd love to know of blogs by people who are receiving as well as offering aquatic therapy.

Click here for more information about this carnival and blog carnivals in general.

Click here to submit your blog posting entry.  I'll need the address of your site and which blog posting you would like featured.

I will try to include all submissions but hope to present them in the form of an interrelated posting to make for interesting reading too.

Deadline for first carnival (sufficient postings dependent) is 1 December 2008 for Carnival date of 8 December 2008.

Remember to subscribe to this blog's feed to be sure you see the post. Click here.

The Aquatic Healing Blog Carnival will hopefully become a regular event.

Any questions - just comment below or write me directly.

Questionnaire for aquatic healers

I'd like to use this section of my blog 'aquatic healers' to share the stories of other practitioners. 

My definition of aquatic healer is broad, so please feel free to submit even if you do not practice watsu-based aquatic bodywork.  If you know someone you'd like to see included, please alert them to this post or tell me how I might contact them.  Frequency of posting will depend on the rate of submissions and my time only!

Below are the basic 14 questions.  In some cases, I will contact respondents for further information. 

A copy of the final text to be posted will be sent to respondents for approval before publishing.  Please see the end of this post for information on how to submit and what else to include.  If you have any thoughts on other questions you'd like to see included, please comment below.

Tip:  The more you share yourself and a real passion for the work, the more likely your submission will be read and enjoyed.

Questions

1. How would you describe your aquatic practice in one sentence?

2. What are your basic credentials for this work (brief outline)?

3. Where do you practice (home, spa, clinic, location)?

4. What influence, person, or event initiated your aquatic healing path?

5. What was the most useful thing you learned in your training?

6. What has been the most valuable thing you've learned in practice?

7. What were your most challenging lessons in training and practice?

8. What is the most important factor in the effectiveness of your sessions?

9. Do you include non-aquatic activities to support your aquatic work?

10. What are your preferences for clients, conditions, setting in your work?

11. Is there anything you would change about your work or circumstances?

12. How do you take care of yourself in order to be most effective?

13. What further training are you doing or would you like to do to advance your work?

14. Is there anything else you would like to add about aquatic healing or yourself?

If you are submitting, please copy and paste the above questions into a document, add your answers, and the information listed below, and send them as an email attachment to me.

Please provide, along with your answers to the questions above, the following:

• your name and contact information

• internet link to your profile or website

• bio photograph (gif, jpg, png format)

Click here to email me your submission.  Thank you!

When your post is published on Aquapoetics: In the Flow, don't forget to add a link to your website or blog or share on other online social networks where you are profiled.

Let's do all we can to let people know about the power and value of water-based healing!

Thermae Bath Spa - an example of Watsu in a leisure spa setting

During a three-month period of employment in the last quarter of 2007, I had the opportunity to practice aquatic bodywork in a new leisure spa setting in the UK.  That this public spa had the foresight to include a pool especially for the experience of Watsu, indicates an appreciation of the unique value of this offering in modern spa culture.  However, the special needs of aquatic bodywork are still not well understood.

My experience at Thermae Bath Spa makes an interesting case study regarding presentation to a novice audience in a very public setting with a management that must juggle the needs and expectations of a broad clientele.  I want to share here my observations since they illustrate both the progress made and the understanding still needed before aquatic bodywork is properly integrated into the new spa world.

Watsu is a quintessential spa treatment in that it makes full use of the therapeutic qualities of water and provides a profoundly relaxing and pleasurable experience.   Part of the slowness in it's uptake by spas in general has been because it requires a dedicated warm pool (just below body temperature, at least 10 ft x10 ft) in a peaceful and private setting, and also because it demands a degree of sophistication in the 'art of spa'.

I have worked in the sanctuary-style setting of a five-star hotel spa (at the Royal Crescent where I was also spa manager), in a private spa-retreat environment in the US (where I was joint owner), and more recently had the opportunity to experience working in the large leisure-spa facility that is Thermae Bath Spa. 

In all these situations, the focus was more on pleasure than therapy, though the spa-retreat aimed to expand this experience into the personal growth arena. My experience has been that aquatic bodywork can be adapted for many settings and in all of them it's benefits are invariably profound.

Return clients, and those specifically seeking aquatic bodywork, are not yet common in the hotel/ leisure setting.  However, as spa culture develops and more people have the opportunity to experience aquatic bodywork, this will likely change.  An important factor in ensuring this, is that good qualified practitioners be employed, since the first experience is likely to be a strong deciding factor in choosing to repeat or recommend aquatic bodywork. 

Click here to read more about Watsu at Thermae Bath Spa.

Oriental healing arts take to the Water

According to Chinese medicine, the chi energy (life force) of the body is ideally in continual motion meeting no resistance.

The nearest approach to this optimum may be when the body is afloat in water. Once we step out our fluid systems, soft tissues and bones must hold us up against gravity. Water, by contrast, offers buoyant and hydrostatic support. It dissolves boundaries and transmits vibrations that may enable us to settle into a steadier state. Just how this happens remains a mystery though.

In Taoist philosophy, the yielding quality of water is frequently used as a metaphor for human experience.   Our bodies are made in large part of water, and perhaps they hold within them memories of all aspects of water experienced in our personal development and even in the evolution of life. Perhaps also, we can draw on this to restore a profound sense of flowing balance to our lives, both physically and psychologically.

Immersion and movement in warm water have allowed me to explore these possibilities. Having spent over a decade practicing aquatic bodywork, I know that the experience has affected how I experience all aspects of my life. This does not necessarily mean that things are easier but rather that there is a greater willingness to surrender to what is, and to accept the same in others.

The effects of both massage and movement are, in my experience, somehow amplified and more profound when carried out in warm water. Two modern aquatic massage and movement forms - Watsu and Ai Chi - were inspired by ancient oriental practices, rooted in the understanding of energy flow - Shiatsu and Tai Chi respectively. I'll start this section of my blog (aquatic modalities) by referencing them.

Watsu (water shiatsu) was developed at Harbin Hot Springs around 1980 by Harold Dull who had studied the creative principles of Zen shiatsu with Shizuto Masunaga.  He found that they could be adapted to great effect in the water. The key concept of continuous support with the mother-hand takes on more serious meaning when the practitioner is responsible for keeping the receiver afloat, nose above water.

Though technique is important, equally so is to understand ‘being without doing’. The spontaneity of free-flow is the high-point for an experienced practitioner who has learned form and can let it go. Seeing the receiver as teacher, encourages the practitioner to work more intuitively and respectfully. “The true Zen of Watsu,” says Harold,  “comes when you feel that same freedom with whomever you float around the pool”.

Masunaga emphasized stretching of the body’s meridians along which chi energy is considered to flow. In Watsu, it is not necessary to stretch meridian after meridian methodically , since all will get stretched many times during a session. Being stretched spontaneously in this way, also makes it more difficult for the recipient to mobilize habitual resistance, and shows them how to let go.

Acupressure points are taught in Watsu but practitioners are encouraged to use intuition in applying them. Also crucial is awareness of the breath and how this both influences aquatic biomechanics and provides an indicator of the receiver’s state. The restful emptiness at the bottom of the breath, and the rising up again, represent ‘a return to the Tao', a sense of universal connectedness that is a deeply healing aspect of Watsu.

One way in which beginners learn the basic flow of Watsu is through ‘Airsu’, standing on land with an imaginary partner in their arms and flowing through the moves as in Tai Chi. The Tai Chi principles of circularity, harmony and effortless effort - slow and light, tranquil yet alert - all apply. Tai Chi, and its water counterpart Ai Chi, are good practices to support the practice of aquatic bodywork.

Ai Chi (love energy) was developed in 1993 by Jun Konno, former coach of the Japanese swimming team, as a prelude to Watsu.  It aimed to allow the receiver to relax, gain stability, coordinate breath and feel confidence in the giver.  Its Tai Chi-like combination of deep breathing and slow, broad movements of arms, legs and torso is performed in shoulder-level warm water.   

Although stability and confidence can be gained through repetition of a set form as in Tai Chi or Yoga, it is arguable that this could prevent us from being truly in our own bodies. Creative movement meditations both on land and in water encourage us to explore coordination of breath with the body’s spontaneous letting go.  Using the natural breath as a guide to this spontaneous movement is helpful.

I practice both Ai Chi and Watsu as movement meditations. Being in the water often I have learned to let body, mind and spirit settle into the flow.  After a while I let go of the formal movement patterns I have been taught and allow whatever my body asks for to be followed. Most exciting to me is being open to possibilities beyond anticipation both for myself and in working with others. 

Once the form is thoroughly learned, a practitioner knows in their own body  what to do at any given point, knows that wherever the flow takes them there will always be something to do that frees you from looking for what to do next and allows you to let go into the unknown. The receiver picks up on this and discovers a newfound freedom in their own movements and psyche.    

Harold writes that Watsu’s movement and dance frees the body,  its closeness and nurturing frees the heart and its play and spontaneity frees the mind. In this way, it is a truly holistic therapy. The best way to experience this is by experiencing it. If you have examples of how spontaneity came into a session you were receiving or giving, or of the free flow of chi energy, please comment and share below.

Water: the key ingredient in aquatic bodywork

Just as we forget that our lives depend upon breathing invisible but ever-present air, the importance of water to life is easily overlooked. 

Aquatic bodywork depends upon the medium in which it takes place, and the reasons for this are often taken for granted or perhaps not fully appreciated. 

This is the first entry in the blog category 'Water and healing' where I will be exploring in depth the key ingredient of aquatic therapy, water.

There are many aspects to consider: qualitative and quantitative, subjective and objective, practical and imaginal.  My associated blogs also reference these from their different focuses on water consciousness in the context of creating healing environments or spa-retreats (Vision Spa Retreat), and on water in art and personal journeywork (Diving Deeper).  Here, I'll focus more directly on water as healer or in therapy.

And because these are blogs, enabling a more interactive and exploratory way of communicating, I hope that you will comment with your own experiences and questions.  As much as possible I'll be drawing directly on the experiences of others.  For example, the responses to the question 'What do you think when you think water?', which I posed to all my aquatic bodywork clients over several years, will be reviewed here soon.

Medical hydrotherapy and the modern spa business have made good use of water's more obvious therapeutic benefits.  Buoyancy and hydrostatic pressure relieve the effects of gravity and allow for more supported movements, encouraging the neuromuscular system to respond in new ways.   Water also offers a degree of resistance to movement that can be used to build strength or create gentle traction.

Applied at different temperatures, water is used to change the tone of tissues and to stimulate the circulatory, immune, and hormonal systems.   Immersion, showers, and steam are employed for a variety of beneficial effects.  Waters of different mineral content have also been found to have health applications.  Much of our understanding of these effects comes from  well-established physical and biochemical studies.

However, relatively little research has been done on the more subtle energetic processes that take place in and through water.  In aquatic bodywork, the person is suspended freely in a warm liquid medium with the support provided by the practitioner.  As the practitioner of Watsu-type aquatic bodywork becomes more adept, they will inevitably witness some profound and mysterious effects of the work. 

These are subtle effects that arise out of the ways in which touch and movement are translated through water, a medium with sensitivities that are rarely acknowledged and even less understood.  Human bodies are over 70% water themselves and it is not uncommon to experience a sense of blending or merging of the medium and the receiver and practitioner. 

The nature and effects of that blending have captured my interest, and become the central focus of my own aquatic work, Aquapoetics.

So, 'What do you think when you think water?' ... please add your comment below.

For a fascinating short course on water and it's crucial role in life, please follow this link.

For an outline article on the effects of water in aquatic bodywork, click here.

For more on the mysterious qualities of water, click here.

My first visit to Harbin Hot Springs

It used to be landscapes that rooted in me a sense of belonging - always those devoid of human markings, spacious and rarified as desert or mountain. That was until I visited, in the hills a few hours north of San Francisco, a sacred Indian site where naturally hot waters burst to the surface. And it seemed to me then that those waters, that climate, those dry northern Californian slopes had fostered a humanity that dissolves all boundaries.

A single woman camping alone in a clothing-optional community - sure it breaks boundaries! Yet there, amongst apparent strangers, I felt safer and more accepted, acknowledged, recognized than ever before.  For the first 24 hours, I wandered around cautiously waiting for the signs of threat, the warnings to retreat  - they never came. Meanwhile, something extraordinary was happening to my guarded English heart.  I was approaching my fortieth year and ready for something new.

What follows here is an edited  and ecstatic extract from my journals after my first visit to Harbin to train in Watsu back in September 1998. It was a significant step in my water quest - one I'd like to share with you to begin this blog about aquatic bodywork and it's essential medium, water. In the ten years since then, there has been much water under the bridge of my life but the memory of magic still remains.  The venue itself has become more popular and perhaps more business-like but healing spirits are still it's guardians.

I was there (at the School of Shiatsu and Massage founded at Harbin Hot Springs) to learn an unusual form of water therapy invented on site more than two decades previously by poet turned bodyworker, Harold Dull. Although Watsu (water-based shiatsu) is an effective therapy for physical, mental and emotional pain, this practice appeared to me to be a kind of cultural phenomenon. The ‘water family’ it spawned seemed to be tapping into our species' oceanic origins.

The watery medium and the warmth are a crucial part of this transcendence. Somehow the boundaries between individuals and between people and the immediate environment or larger universe are removed, at least temporarily. Water as cleanser, supporter, protector, eases the transition from separation to connection. In this place I fell in love with all types of people instantly and innocently.   For the most part, the sense of safety was validated. 

How is it achieved? You learn to hold another, or are held, suspended in spring-fed pools shaded with fig by day, lit by stars at night. Matching breath to breath you follow the free-flowing patterns of movement that arise spontaneously in liquid bodies. And after a while, if you let go of doing, remain present and aware, something magical happens. Perhaps it is this magic that evaporates out of the water and suffuses the air of that place.  Perhaps the water itself hold the memory of all that joy.

Stepping out on to land, people are ready to play, eat well, dance, laugh, be creative, be themselves. There is no need to act the purist, radical or fanatic here because ordinary human activities seem somehow washed clean of prejudice. Originating in the primal soup, nurtured in the watery womb, made mostly of liquid substance ourselves, the aquatic experience can be a kind of homecoming. I returned for a 3-month sabbatical the following year and immersed myself in learning aquatic bodywork.

It's been too many years now since I was there; I plan to remedy that soon and write an update here.  I'd love to gather here the first experiences of others who went on to train in aquatic bodywork after visiting Harbin Hot Springs.  You can write a comment directly below or email me. 

Click here for a poem written after that first encounter.

For a fascinating blog including reflections on Harbin counter culture by Scott Macleod, click here.

Image: Warm pool celebration at Harbin.