The power and subtlety of aquatic bodywork lies in the medium, Water ...
Human bodies are in a constant state of liquid motion: joints spiraling, fluid pumping, cells metabolizing, electrical impulses, biochemical exchanges. Illness or discomfort may be seen as an interruption of these natural spiraling or pulsing movement patterns - just as confined and stagnant water loses its vitality.
This is the basis of Continuum movement therapy, developed by dancer extraodinaire Emilie Conrad, which views the human system as being dynamically engaged with an underlying creative flux:
'Having been structured by billions of years of life forms that were shaped by the sea, our oceanic origins exist in our fluid and cellular systems. Our spines, organs, bones and muscles are linked to the swell of life in an ongoing liquid exchange.'
That our bodies are a mass of fluctuating electrical impulses and energetic patterns and water has the capacity to transmit such vibrations has, I believe a great deal of significance in aquatic bodywork. I'll be writing more about this in the accompanying blog, In the Flow.
I practice an approach to aquatic bodywork (Aquapoetics) that endeavors to be in tune with water and in this way help us to reconnect with this fluid source of all life. As with many other forms, it involves floating a person in body-temperature water while gently massaging and mobilizing them.
My practice focuses on guiding the body into a state of resonance with the surrounding water which in turn seems to harmonize the internal fluid system. In this state, there is a sense of recognition and reconnection that indicates to me just how important and how little understood is our relationship with water.
The effects of massage and movement are enhanced in the warm water which acts as a powerful yet gentle medium for the amplification and transformation of physical or psychological disturbances. Movement, touch, and body positions, seem to trigger the release of held energy patterns and shifts in structure.
Many of the movements that arise spontaneously in water are typical of early stages in our evolution and in our infant development, and revisiting them may have a rebalancing effect on the organism. This aspect has been explored in depth in the modality Prenatal Journey (David Sawyer/Annie Brook).
While things are happening on a visible physical level, a new set of options is being mapped out for the emotional and cognitive parts of our brains which leads many to describe their experience as transformational. It's not something that occurs on a conscious level, making it difficult to articulate or evaluate.
Very often both receiver and giver eventually reach a state of synchronicity that is quite blissful. Is it possible that one can move between cellular and cosmic levels of awareness, mediated by the magic of water? This is certainly something German researcher Theodor Schwenk hinted at in his work on water.
At first most people receive on the physical, sensual level - with eyes closed and ears immersed beneath the water's surface they enter a world of heightened sensory awareness. Contact with the surrounding water and the practitioner moving them provides proprioceptive, kinesthetic, then imaginative stimuli to which the whole system responds.
All around, the water presses in so imperceptibly that the receiver is not just immersed in it but saturated with it - they 'become' the water. Since we are over 70% water, this is perhaps not a surprising experience, though it is not something of which we are generally aware in our largely land-based lives.
As a session progresses, the practitioner moves into physiological coherence with the person being held, aware of the vibrations within their own body and those of the receiver and the environment. All attention is focused on following the ebb and flow of the receiver's subtle energy, the delicate wave-like rhythm of the craniosacral tide.
In the water it may be easier to recognize the energetic patterns (chakras, or centers, and meridians, or channels, of energy) that are considered fundamental to the human body in Eastern health modalities. Common amongst those who have spent some time in the water is the 'bodywave', an intriguing energetic impulse which mainly affects the spine but may also disperse through the limbs.
That energy can exist in different physical or non-physical 'densities' is very apparent in the water: when people are relaxed in mind and body they float more readily than when they are thinking 'difficult' thoughts or restricting movement in a body part. This is something a sensitive practitioner can explore intuitively to see what creates more freedom.
Wave-like motions, by their very nature, disrupt linear behavior, whether physical or psychological, and rhythm and vibration are often experienced as threatening, perhaps because they challenge the ego's control. Those who are able to surrender to the water without inhibition generally experience great relief. The next level of experience after this 'letting go' is an expanded or altered state of consciousness.
The real body or body of consensual reality (objective physiological measurements) can be distinguished from the dreambody or body of non-consensual reality (personal descriptions of signals, sensations and fantasies that do not necessarily conform to collective materialistic definitions), as described by psychotherapist Arnold Mindell.
The dreambody hovers somewhere between body sensation and mythical visualization and it is very familiar to those who can surrender to the water during aquatic bodywork. In mythology, water has been associated with the unconscious and the warm-water pool can be a portal to this dream world. Dr Jonathan DeVierville, spa educationalist, says that 'water is to the body as dreams are to the soul'.
Aquatic bodywork has shown me that I have a deeply resonatory nature, a melodious underwater life, in which all my experiences are embedded like beautiful overtones. There is much scope for both scientific research and creative expression in the experience of aquatic bodywork. Perhaps through such studies we can reflect back to water the life-giving properties it so freely lends to us.
For more explorations of mythology and creative expression in relation to water, visit my further site Diving Deeper: An Adventure inspired by Water.
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This work by Sara Firman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
