What Is Watsu?

Watsu is a gentle form of body therapy performed in warm water, (around 35°C.) It combines elements of massage, joint mobilisation, shiatsu, muscle stretching and dance. The receiver is continuously supported while being floated, cradled, rocked and stretched. The deeply relaxing effects of warm water and nurturing support, combine with Watsu's movements, stretches, massage and point work, to create a bodywork with a range of therapeutic benefits and potential healing on many levels.

Moments of stillness alternate with rhythmical flowing movements, which free the body in ways impossible on land. The warm water relaxes the muscles and supports the spine. With this support and without the weight of the body, the spine, joints and muscles can be manipulated and freed in a way unique to water work. The effects include a very gentle, yet deep stretching and a release of muscular and joint restrictions, along with a state of deep relaxation, which encourages the release of stress and tensions.

Worldwide Watsu is currently provided in many international health and wellness spas as well as in aquatic physiotherapy programmes. It is finding countless applications in therapy, aiding recovery from injury, relieving muscular and joint pain and encouraging movement and flexibility. In addition many are enjoying sharing Watsu's simpler moves with family and friends. At practitioner level it can stand alone as a therapy or be used as a wonderful complement to therapeutic work on land.

What Does Watsu Do?

Many clients will come with a specific focus (e.g. pain syndromes, post injury or post surgery, specific movement restrictions)...while others seek Watsu for the experience of relaxation, blissful letting go, time-out, and quiet meditative stillness it can induce.
Watsu Experience

Imagine, the warmth and sense of weightlessness induced by water,... your eyes closed, so there is just the play of light across your eyelids, your ears are under the water so the sound of the world is muffled. The world starts to disappear, leaving just yourself and your experience of body and being in the water, nothing to do, nowhere to go, just receiving and letting go, into the graceful movement, rocking cradling and gentle rhythm. It is no wonder people speak of states of bliss and levels of relaxation never before imagined.

Specific therapeutic effects noted by receivers, include increased mobility and flexibility, muscle relaxation, fuller deeper breathing, reduction in anxiety and stress levels, decreased pain, improved sleep and digestion and a general sense of wellbeing.

Each person's experience is unique and varied, for many the focus will be on the physical effects of letting go, relaxing, the gentle full body stretches, freeing the spine and joints. Others might experience emotions, new personal insights and/or resurfacing of old memories. Many receivers will remark on the deep sense of beauty, or lightness, ease and grace experienced during their Watsu; or a sense of nurturing, safety, relaxation, maybe at a level never felt before or remembered from 'long ago'. The way Watsu is experienced is as varied as individuals themselves and so there is no right or wrong way to receive, practitioners do not 'push' any particular aspect, but simply listen and allow and support whatever the receivers experience is in any particular session.

Benefits

The following is from an article on the benefits of Watsu® for those with special needs by the Physical Therapist, Peggy Schoedinger. There is a link to the full article and precautions at the bottom of this page. What is excerpted below are those benefits everybody receives in a Watsu. Additional benefits can be found on other pages in this site such as those in the responses to a study in Brazil .

Watsu is a passive form of aquatic bodywork/therapy that supports and gently moves a person through warm water in graceful, fluid movements. Watsu promotes a deep state of relaxation with dramatic changes in the autonomic nervous system. Through quieting the sympathetic and enhancing the parasympathetic nervous systems, Watsu has profound effects on the neuromuscular system.

The sympatholytic effects of Watsu lead to enhancement of the parasympathetic nervous system. Physiological changes then occur throughout the body. These changes may include:

* Decreased heart rate.
* Decreased rate of respiration
* Increased depth of respiration
* Increased peripheral vasodilatation
* Increased smooth muscle activity (digestion)
* Decreased activation of striated muscles (skeletal)
* Decreased spasticity
* Decreased muscle spasm
* Decreased Reticular Activating System activity
* Enhanced immune system response

Watsu helps decrease muscle tension and increase range of motion. The support of the water provides relief from compression forces in the joints. The movements through the water provide gentle stretching into all ranges for the spine and extremities while these joints are unloaded.

Clients report decreased pain as Watsu decreases their muscle spasm and muscle guarding, increases their range of motion, and promotes profound relaxation. Many clients also report a decrease in their emotional pain.

Therapists utilizing Watsu as part of their aquatic therapy treatment programs report the following improvements in their clients:

1. Immediate Benefits With First Session

* increased range of motion
* increased muscle relaxation
* decreased muscle spasm
* decreased spasticity
* decreased pain

2. Long-term Benefits After Multiple Sessions

* improved sleep patterns
* improved digestion
* improved healing and immune system response
* greater decreases in pain
* decreased anxiety
* many clients report a decrease in their emotional pain

Watsu is being incorporated into aquatic therapy treatment programs in hospitals, clinics and rehabilitation centers around the world. Therapists are impressed by the benefits for so many of their clients. Some of the many populations who have benefited include those with

* traumatic brain injury
* spinal cord injury
* strokes
* Parkinson’s Disease
* arthritis
* cerebral palsy
* chronic pain
* fibromyalgia
* ankylosing spondylitis
* post mastectomy
* post thoracic surgery
* post traumatic stress disorder.

Many clients report that nothing else is as effective in decreasing their pain and improving their ability to move.
...source: watsu.com