Courtnee, Cheri & I got together for a watsu practice session the other day. Cheri attended a Watsu workshop at Breitenbush Hot Springs last month and was sharing her tidbits of new information.
The practice session steadily shifted course away from the more clinical forms that Cheri learned. We started exploring various ways to use our whole bodies during the stretches and different ways to hold someone so that more massage could be done. The "noodles", that have until this point in time only been used to add buoyancy, were pressed into service to hold up the neck, thereby freeing both hands. With this configuration we were able to get more dynamic stretches, massage the body from numerous angles and incorporate more fascial pulls. It was an incredibly informative and fun exercise.
I have been experimenting as people come in for sessions that include watsu and it's unanimous that it is just as relaxing and even more soothing.
We need a new name for this type of bodywork. For a while now I have been using Water Contact Massage as a way to differentiate what we do from the traditional forms of Watsu. Much less of a mouthful would be better. Also, having a name that expressed the flowing and improvisational nature that could give people more of an idea of what they were signing up for would be ideal. Names in the running are in the vein of Aquatic Bodywork. This is much more difficult than I thought.
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