Hydro Eclectic Power

Hydro Eclectic Power

Watsu combines water, massage and a poet's ideas about. . . . the cosmos.

I consider myself a massage connoisseur, but nothing prepared me for my first Watsu session.

Watsu--short for water shiatsu--is massage performed in water. The idea is that, largely liberated by the water from the bounds of gravity, the body can be stretched and flexed in ways it can't be on dry land.

My Watsu session took place at Bodywave Balneotherapy Center in Alexandria, in a six-foot round pool of chest-high, 97-degree water--about the same temperature as the skin. Backed by the strings of Vivaldi, instructor Chris Hennin gently floated me on the water's surface and performed massage and various stretches for 90 minutes. The experience left me limp and dreamy. Watsu was powerful stuff--something I didn't realize until signs of my normally tense body returned two days later.

Harold Dull, a poet of the 1960s San Francisco Renaissance, created Watsu in the early 1980s at the School of Shiatsu & Massage in California's Harbin Springs. "Massage and shiatsu are Watsu's sisters on land," Dull e-mailed from Perugia, Italy, where he is teaching this summer. "Working in water allows weight to be taken off of the vertebrae to allow the spine to move in ways that would be close to impossible on land," he wrote.

Dull called each Watsu a poem: an arrangement of gentle movements, with gradual twists and pulls added in layers to release pressure.

Two types of positions, simple and complex, comprise Watsu. In the simple positions, the therapist holds you under the leg, shoulder or hip and sways you around the pool. At times, when Hennin took my leg and wrapped my knee around his neck in what's considered a simple position, Watsu felt like yoga. The difference was that the water allowed my body to ease into moves I'd thought only a Yogi could pull off.

The complex positions are called cradles and saddles. A cradle is just what it sounds like: The instructor literally cradles the person in his or her arms. In a saddle position, the instructor's hands are free to do massage because he supports the person with his legs.

The way a body rises and sinks with each breath allows instructors to coordinate stretches and movements, Dull offered. "Watsu's basic philosophy comes out of Zen Shiatsu: That of being with another, not doing something to someone," he wrote. The closeness with a Watsu therapist is part of the experience, and in a good match changes in positions occur effortlessly.

Yet that intimate connection may be one reason the West Coast phenomenon has yet to catch fire in Washington. Cathy McSweeney moved here from the seaside town of Cambria, Calif., to introduce Watsu to Washingtonians. She opened Bodywave in Alexandria in 1999. The way has not been easy. It appears Washingtonians are too stressed--and too uptight--to indulge.

"I find that I can't start off with many of the basic Watsu moves on Washingtonians because they are too stressed out," Hennin said. "It's often like taking an ironing board and moving it in the water." He knows whereof he speaks: Hennin worked for the World Bank for 17 years before chucking it to spend three years training in Harbin Springs under Dull.

To customize his Watsu techniques for local sensibilities, Hennin developed a full body pressure-point massage routine that he performs for 30 minutes before beginning Watsu stretches. "That way, I develop a rapport with a person and also diagnose areas that may be immobile or too tight," he said.