What is Watsu?

It sounds like a 60s dance, doesn't it? I remember hearing a lot og buzz about, but no one really seemed to know what it was. I finally tried it a couple of years ago, and then wrote a story about it in 2005. At the time it was difficult to find locations that offer it because it requires a pool. When I tried it I immediately fell in love. It’s become increasing more common at destination spas and seems now to be a must-have in all spas with pools.

So what is it?

Harold Dull, a California-based Zen shiatsu practitioner, developed it in the 1980s. Zen shiatsu is a Japanese pressure-point massage technique, so basically this is a water massage. With so many ‘fusion’ treatments out there I was a bit skeptical. But I shouldn’t have been; in the right hands it’s divine.

Get ready for a four-foot deep dedicated pool set at around 95 degrees. Entering it feels like dipping into a warm bath. You’ll be asked to put on floaties around your calves and to rest your head on a fiber-filled pillow, which my practitioner occasionally swapped out to under my knees and neck, leaving her arms free to move me around while keeping me supported. You don’t have to know how to swim, but if you have a fear of water it might be harder to give in and allow yourself to be moved about in the water; the key is to relinquish resistance to what will ensue, which is floating along in a sort of ballet between you and your practitioner. This will give you the deepest state of relaxation that you might ever know. (You’ll also be asked various questions about your personal psychological issues that could unknowingly open up past traumas.)

Once in the pool you’ll be cradled in the practitioner’s supportive arms as she moves you, body part by body part, to and fro, like a hypnotic rhythmic swaying that lasts about an hour. She might move a single leg or arm, stretching it while listening to your body's response to gauge how far she goes. The shiatsu is employed intermittently, finding pressure points with her fingers, or sometimes with her whole hand.

With ears submerged it becomes even more ethereal; breath and heartbeat are amplified and in harmony with the swoosh of the water. She and I struck such a flow that I lost all sense of time, and I wasn’t quite sure if it was she or I initiating the movements. A peaceful ambiguous water dance.