Synergy Physical Therapy, LLC

Yesterday I received a Watsu session from my friend Sharon Dvora.  Wow! 

Watsu (from “water shiatsu”) is type of bodywork done in the water.  (Find out more about Watsu here.)  

You float in warm water, while being continuously cradled, rocked and stretched by the Watsu practitioner.  Stillness alternates with flow, coiling and uncoiling with the gentle rhythms of the water.  The body is weightless, yet always supported.  The physical body and the energy body are moving together, sensing, integrating.

Again and again during the session, I found myself thinking, “Everyone in the world should experience Watsu!” 

In a Watsu session the body moves, senses and feels in ways impossible on land.  The nervous system – and therefore the entire body, mind and emotions – experiences itself and its environment completely anew.

The sensation truly is like nothing else.  You might think, “Well, I could just have that experience in my bathtub or out swimming somewhere.”  But no. 

Floating in a body of water is beautiful in its own right.  But add the deep presence of a practitioner and the organic Watsu movements, and nervous system and spirit receive a profound nourishment they have never had before.

Watsu offers the body and the mind these benefits:

• The nourishment of profound restfulness.  The sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems are rebalanced.  Research continues to show that the relaxation response brings healing to multiple body systems.
   
• The nourishment of change.  The nervous system craves variety.  Interposing new movement patterns into habitual ones enlivens and feeds the nervous system, bringing about musculoskeletal change and healing.  Every joint has many, many proprioceptors, specialized nerve cells that give the body information about movement.  Proprioceptors love to feel new movements.
   
• The nourishment of freedom.  Therapeutic unloading of the head, spine, pelvis, knees, ankles and feet from the forces of gravity, combined with the gentle movements of Watsu, increases circulation, relaxes tissues and gently realigns the body and the mind.  Unloading is particularly beneficial for the health of the discs in the spine and for posture.
   
• Self-healing via the intelligent body.  Watsu, like a Feldenkrais lesson in water, awakens the nervous system to it’s own optimal self-corrective activity or dynamic homeostasis.
   
• Nourishment for the connective tissue.  The connective tissue system, which holds the entire body together, giving it its shape through tendons, ligaments, discs, fascia and cell membranes, is made up largely of water.  Stiffness, injury and dysfunction are signs the fluid matrix of the connective tissue has congealed.  Watsu helps the body to remember its natural, fluidic state.

So if you want peaceful healing, if you want profound relaxation, if you want to enliven all 75 trillion cells of your body, if you want to travel energetically within your own body, if you want to give your nervous system one of the biggest gifts possible, try Watsu.

Watsu, like Nia, is like chocolate — you have to taste it to know if you like it.

Sharon Dvora, LMT, Certified Watsu Practitioner, can be reached at 541-482-6396.

Rachael R. Resch is a physical therapist in private practice, owner of Synergy Physical Therapy in Ashland, and a Black Belt instructor in The Nia Technique.  She can be reached at 541/482-8333.