As a practitioner and teacher of yoga in addition to my training in aquatic bodywork, I have sometimes described aquatic bodywork to people as being 'like having yoga done to you'. And interestingly, Harold Dull, the creator of Watsu, invented a support practice for Watsu that he gave the less-catchy name of Woga. It involves adopting yoga-type postures while floating in water. But there is another aspect of aquatic bodywork that relates more intriguingly to yoga. It is rarely talked about, though I believe it warrants further exploration. I'm referring to a phenomenon Harold has called the 'bodywave'.
In yoga, the term kriya is used to describe a technique or practice, and also the outward physical manifestations or spontaneous movements of awakened kundalini energy. Certain kriyas eventually developed into the asanas (postures) of hatha yoga. A watery metaphor provides a good description of a kriya-type movement. Imagine a garden hose, coiled up and kinked. Turn the water on and the hose tends to thrash around until the water pressure causes it to straighten enough for the water to flow easily. The same description could be applied to an aquatic bodywave.
Kriyas (and the associated release of kundalini energy) most often occur, it is suggested, when the body's instinctive guidance is in the process of moving a blockage to the flow of spiritual life energy. When something like this happens in the water, with the responsive support of another person, the body is protected from injury and able to complete movements in ways not possible on land. In my experience, this is not a matter of the person who is facilitating a water session applying a technique; rather, the support they give (which probably does have a certain indefinable quality to it) enables the receiver's body to follow it's natural inclination.
Is there an association between this release of kundalini energy and the aquatic bodywave?
Entering dark waters: interpretation and investigation
In the early days of Watsu training, the bodywave phenomenon was not given direct attention and apparently is still not highlighted since no-one but Harold has referenced it in any writings to be found online. This arose perhaps in part out of negative experiences the creator of Watsu and his proteges had as a result of misunderstanding of what exactly this effect (when witnessed or experienced) was. In some cases, it's interpretation seemed to tap into deep wounds associated with human abuse issues (particularly sexual trauma), and to put receivers and practitioners into vulnerable situations for which they were ill-prepared.
In recent years, increasing interest in subtle energy-based healing methods and the recognition of the hidden harm caused by trauma (whether physical or emotional) has created an opening for a more mature and less dismissive approach to the subtle effects of aquatic bodywork of which the bodywave is one of the more visible expressions. The approaches (Aquatic Energy Work and Trauma Healing in Water) being developed by experienced practitioners like Diane Tegtmeier and Inika Sati are steps in this direction. In this article I want to talk about my own observations and to invite some in-depth sharing on the topic.
I'll begin with this salutary extract from a pdf document 'Watsu and earlier poems', on the sources of Watsu, by Harold Dull the creator of this aquatic bodywork form, published in 2005.
A footnote on the Body Wave
Those who see it or feel it in another without having experienced it in their own body, may interpret it as sexual or worse. In the Middle Ages, women who had these kinds of waves were burned as witches. In the 19th century Anton Mesmer had to cut short his pioneering work with energy in Paris because the medical establishment, seeing a woman he touched going into waves, made a law against it saying it was unhealthy for both the patient and the practitioner. Recently, in India, a Yoga teacher known around the world for the control over the body he exhibits and demands, after repeatedly telling a student to stop her belly's vibrating when she went into a pose walked up and kicked it.
The wave is a letting go of control; the wave that connects us to those we hold close to our heart, the wave that rises up out of the void we drop deepest into in meditation. Wherever control is let go of in the continuing creation that is this universe, a new order spontaneously arises. That wave or spiral up into the light is that most basic principle of creation being actualized within us again and again - light in water. This is where Watsu began for me.
And it is there that Watsu began for me also. For years I have wondered if anyone would be interested in investigating this extraordinary effect further, perhaps even from a scientific point of view. As with many alternative healing practices, any scientific study would be fraught with the usual difficulties. Those include finding methodologies and means of assessment compatible with an effect that does not fit with current conventional understanding of the human body, or could be diminished by an attempt to make it fit. Because I had a scientific training, and have erred from that path, this investigative dilemma often presents itself to me.
Personal experience of aquatic bodywaves
I have a body that has tended to be physically expressive (especially in water) of the impact of not only physical but also emotional and spiritual experiences in my life. From a difficult birth to the usual gamut of life challenges, I have found bodywork to be an intriguing way to bear witness to and (in my subjective experience) transform positively the negative effects these mind-body-spirit impacts have had. The bodywave was an effect that opened me up to this 'healing' possibility more fully than I believe would otherwise have occurred.
My first experience of aquatic energy flow was the gentle bodywaves that I witnessed in the slender body of a new friend I'd made in the Harbin Hot Springs pools when I was there for my first Watsu classes back in 1999. This man had an ethereal quality that seemed in keeping with his passion for raw food feasts and early morning Tai Chi. As a novice aquatic practitioner, I was surprised by his response to my tentative sessions but it seemed so natural that I was unperturbed. In this 50-year-old man, the pattern was a continuous up-and-down (anterior-posterior) spinal flow that lasted for up to a minute and kept recurring.
I saw something similar on land in the body of a young woman who was teaching a daily yoga class for the community at Harbin. We were gathering for the class and she was finishing her preparatory warm-up by lying flat in a resting position known as svasana. Her body suddenly displayed the same spontaneous spinal waving I had seen in the water, limited only by the traction of the surface on which she lay and the effects of gravity. I was intrigued, especially since the same phenomenon had begun to occur in my own body while receiving aquatic bodywork during those early training classes.
In me, bodywaves were initially jerky and wild with pent-up energy and could occur in my spine or in my limbs. I was lucky to receive sessions from experienced practitioners such as Harold himself and my ex-partner. I noticed that the water provided a safe and outwardly channelled experience of energy release. It did not happen for all students of Watsu or for all receivers, seeming to occur only in certain 'open' people. This appeared unrelated to how much experience someone had of aquatic bodywork or of any bodywork. Almost invariably, the person displaying bodywaves was undisturbed by these strange movements. The bodywaves appeared to have no ill-effects, whether they were smoothly rhythmic or jerky spasms.
Bodywaves in aquatic bodywork practice
After a while, I began to experience similar gentler pulses as a kind of empathic energy when receiving and giving aquatic sessions. This also happened on land when in states of relaxation alone or with people I am close to (reciprocated spontaneously by them), doing yoga, or giving and receiving other types of bodywork. In all cases, I felt no need to control or limit these bodywaves; although I might do what I could to avoid them being felt by a person receiving a session from me in case this should distract them from their own experience. It seems that I 'choose' on an unconscious level to allow the bodywaving to occur and that to stop it would be to prevent something that is beneficial and certainly not harmful.
I've noticed that in the water, energetic patterns are often easier to recognize than when doing healing on land. By touching the body at certain points, a significant release of energy and shift in structure is possible. When being floated, some people, like me, have spontaneous 'bodywaves' which mainly affect the spine but may also disperse through the limbs, engendering a powerful and usually pleasant sensation of release. As I've become more experienced in giving aquatic bodywork, and when I am feeling clear and well, I'll intuitively go to a spot on someone's body to initiate a wave or (in most receivers) a jerky response.
I don't know how I know where to go on someone's body but the reaction invariably tells me I've got it right. Sometimes, I keep the hold for a while before the reaction occurs and while I'm waiting I'll often have sensations in my own body first (including small waves) that encourage me to stay there or to adjust my position slightly. This is an incredibly focused process for me, and I do have the sense that it is a form of healing by which I mean it has the potential to give a person relief from suffering that might be physical, emotional or even spiritual. The person receiving usually goes into a state of trance and I, as giver, often have a feeling of great well-being while it is happening.
The initiating pulse for the bodywave in water seems mostly to arise in the area of the solar plexus, and from there it can radiate out as a wave or stay more localized and jerky, depending perhaps on whether the person's energy is strongly blocked or ready to run free. For example: an English woman who had studied with a South American female shaman, in her first and all subsequent sessions with me, had almost continuous waves that concentrated over her abdomen; another oriental woman had violent, contractile waves from the moment she was raised into the float position.
One of my aquatic instructors (David Sawyer, prenatal psychotherapist) suggests that it is good to support a person so as to allow the bodywave to reach the periphery (hands, head and feet) if possible. If not, noticing where the wave 'dies' along the spine, you can work to loosen these vertebrae, in order to open the blocks so that the energy can pass freely. For more abrupt waves, he suggests putting the person into tight flexion, allowing the impulse to build until it releases like a compressed spring. This is reminiscent of some osteopathic manipulation techniques I learned that encourage a body to go as far as possible into a contraction until it's opposite movement occurs quite spontaneously and breaks the holding pattern.
My way of working with bodywaves is nothing I was taught, though I have found some of my training in energy healing techniques helpful. For the most part, I discovered what I do in the water by doing. I can recognize by feel when the person's body is open to bodywaving, and when it is not. I stop as soon as I get the latter intuitive signal and move on to something less subtle, in some cases returning to whatever I have noticed later on to see if the earlier resistance has changed. I am finding that I can shift most people into a responsive trance-like state (easily broken out of by them should they wish this).
I prefer not to be attached to any particular outcome for an aquatic session. I am convinced that this work can reach someone on the physical, energetic, emotional, and spiritual levels, each of these aspects (or all) being valuable according to that particular person's need. I don't judge what that need is and actually I think that's unnecessary since for me the body itself has an innate wisdom that is not generally recognized by conventional science. Perhaps these spontaneous body movements are kriyas made accessible in water to those who might not otherwise experience them since they are generally not dedicated yogis.
Are bodywaves beneficial?
When I describe the 'contortions' some people's bodies undergo in the water as I lightly touch a certain area, and that I have found that there are ways I can work to encourage their bodies to move themselves back into a more natural alignment, I am not claiming to have identified that something 'wrong' had been put it 'right'. I am simply curious about it. Not everyone displays this and it seems reasonable to ask if the change that occurs is beneficial. If this benefit is made possible by what happens in the water when a person's body is suspended and treated in this way then that must surely be of interest.
Anyone looking down on such an aquatic bodywork session as it happened would see what occurred in the body of the person receiving quite clearly. However, they might not be able to appreciate what I was feeling in my body (I get strong sensations just before a reaction in the person's body happens) and in my hands (which go to or stay on certain places because I 'know' that something is needed there) that then leads me to make certain actions or touches. They might argue that I am making it up or somehow making the person's body do these things. This is not so but it is has led in some cases with other practitioners to troubling misunderstandings.
There is the additional curious finding that even though an outside person can see the distortions or twitches or jerks the person's body makes, the person themselves is often completely unaware of them. They go into a kind of trance state which seems to prevent 'normal' inhibition of these movements. It is possible that this is just a curious side-effect of nervous system dis-inhibition that occurs in some people and has no benefit or significance regards health or otherwise. It is also possible that it does have a benefit. So far, my informal questioning of those who have neuroscientific backgrounds has not produced any useful insights into this.
In my own experience as a receiver, there have been phases during which my body repeated strange nervous system effects. It's important to note that I am always aware of these effects, but I am able to allow them, and that this is a choice I make. After a certain time and repetition, and perhaps the consciousness I brought to them as body memories (reactions to trauma) that were no longer appropriate or necessary, most of these effects have stopped happening. I believe that this made a difference to me - a beneficial one. But it is no quick fix and it requires a certain willing surrender. Also I can't prove the benefit, or that it was due to the water work.
Head and heart rhythms translated in water
A land therapy that relates to these aquatic observations is craniosacral therapy (or cranial osteopathy), used by physical therapists, massage therapists, naturopaths, chiropractors and osteopaths. A craniosacral session involves the therapist placing their hands on someone in a way that is believed to allow them to tune into what they call the craniosacral system. By gently working with the spine and skull, the restrictions of nerve passages are said to be eased, the movement of cerebrospinal fluid through the spinal cord optimized, and misaligned bones restored to their proper position. Science does not currently recognize major elements of the underlying model, and considers that there is little evidence to support therapeutic claims.
Part of the problem has been in demonstrating that what is claimed to be being felt or altered in terms of body rhythms has not been detected in a recordable way. It is interesting to ask whether the kinds of patterns seen in the water with bodywaves might not be providing a visible indication that something is happening, though what that something is remains unclear. A subtle interaction between the person giving the session and the person receiving does seem significant and this is something that conventional science has difficulty acknowledging or investigating.
When Harold Dull came across the work of HearthMath with respect to identifying heart rhythms that affected well-being and could be transferred between people, he immediately recognized a similarity with what happens in the water. I have attempted to share some of my own thoughts on this with the HeartMath Institute also. Unfortunately, they have not yet included this in their investigations, though they have reported some very interesting work regarding water itself. Harold wrote this:
The way I find to return to the coherence of Watsu on land is to sink into the emptiness that we sink into at the bottom of the breath in the Water Breath Dance. In HeartMath I finally find an explanation for the wave that vibrates my body when I sink deepest into that emptiness. It is the body’s entrainment to the heart’s coherent rhythm. Because I often feel it initiated at the level of the heart when I embrace a friend and ‘listen’ to his or her heart with my heart, I’ve been calling it a heart-bodywave. We occasionally see this wave in someone when, after strong stretches and moves, we bring him or her home to the stillness of the Water Breath Dance. It was my own experience of this the first time someone floated me at Harbin Hot Springs, and wanting to share it with others, that started me developing Watsu, incorporating the stretches and moves of the Zen Shiatsu that I practiced and taught there. Our waves resonate with those we float. At HeartMath they record the change of rhythms in people touching and find resonances that point to some kind of shared coherence (a coherence I feel as rising to, resonating with, everything). Their research makes it clearer what is at the heart of Watsu. My heart mind feels understood. We can all have a little more clarity about the waves our love is making in the world.
Seizures or bodywaves?
It takes a certain confidence to be present and steady when someone's body responds with dramatic waves. Since this effect can resemble a kind of fit (epileptic or otherwise), it would seem important to be able to tell the difference. Certified lifeguards are trained to recognize and respond to seizures, which can occur in people who have never had them before as well in those who are or are not taking medication to control known seizure risk. People at risk sometimes wear identifying bands but anyone giving a session should make sure they know of such health concerns. Of course, conventionally trained lifeguards are unlikely to have been trained to recognize a benign bodywave. I put this forward as an issue to be aware of.
Anecdotal studies
If anyone who has experienced bodywaves, either as a practitioner of aquatic bodywork or as a receiver, would like to share their insights, I invite you to comment here or email me directly. Thoughts from others with experiences that might relate are also very welcome.
Related posts:
Trance, dreaming and aquatic bodywork
Aquatic bodywaves: an investigative challenge and a questionnaire
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