Originally printed in Health Quarterly, a supplement
to the Ellsworth American and the Mount Desert
Islander, on Feb. 1, 2007
Watsu: A Thing of the Past Is the Wave of the Future
BY ELLEN HATHAWAY
The healing powers of water have been recognized almost as long as there have been humans on Earth. The ancient Greeks practiced ablution to wash away sins and impurities. Hippocrates advocated bathing in hot springs as a cure for disease and in Egypt, followers of Isis saw water as a sacred disinfectant.
Hydrotherapy, an ancient form of healing, was developed as a formal treatment by Vincent Priessnitz around 1829 in Germany. A more recent evolution in water therapy came in 1980 when Harold Dull began working with his Zen Shiatsu students while floating and stretching them in a pool of warm water. Watsu, as the practice is now known, claims to be the first form of Aquatic Bodywork.
In 25 years, Watsu has grown to become a recognized therapy practiced in clinics and spas throughout the world with specified training for practitioners. To oversee the programs and standards of Watsu, the Worldwide Aquatic Bodywork Association, a nonprofit educational organization, was created.
According to the Watsu Web site: "While other modalities are based on touch, the holding that working in water necessitates, brings the receiver to a new level of connection and trust. This, combined with the therapeutic benefits of warm water and the greater freedom of movement it encourages, creates a modality that can affect every level of our being."
Vicki Mitchell of Blue Hill is a certified Watsu and Waterdance Therapist and Shiatsu practitioner. Mitchell did not set out to find Watsu. Watsu found her.
During a recent visit to her newly constructed 22-foot therapy pool in Blue Hill, she explained how it all happened.
Mitchell ran the Second to None thrift store in Ellsworth and while she loved it, she said that after almost 13 years, she needed something "a little more heart centered."
So she sold the store and was searching for something else to do with her life when she had a serious accident.
"I fell off a horse and dislocated my shoulder and I really injured my neck," Mitchell recalled. "I tried everything. I went to a chiropractor, I tried an osteopath, I had massage therapy, I was doing yoga and I didn't seem to get any better. My neck was so jammed that it was like it needed someone to go zooooop." She closes her fists and makes a motion as though stretching something between her two hands.
For two years she had been planning to go to Costa Rica to check out a treatment spa she had heard about, but when she looked over the workshops offered, she said, "It sounded too New Age-y to me; it just sounded weird."
In 2004, she finally made the trip and it was while watching a Watsu session that her life changed. "I was totally floored by watching this Watsu session," Mitchell said. "I couldn't believe not only how totally beautiful it was, but it looked like it would really help me. So I signed up for a session and I wouldn't want to say that this would happen for everyone, but my neck let go in a way that it had never done before. It was so intense what happened that I signed up for two more sessions after that."
The experience convinced Mitchell to learn Watsu. "I spent about six months in California where the work was developed, studying with Harold Dull."
Mitchell now has about 1,000 hours of training, 600 of them in the water. She is off to California in February for more training.
Her facility in Blue Hill is environmentally friendly with 10 solar panels on the roof and a non-chlorinated pool, which uses a commercial ionizer and non-chlorine shock to cleanse the water of oils. Showers are mandatory before using the pool.
Because Mitchell wants to offer the treatment to all people suffering from chronic pain, she has made the pool area completely handicapped accessible in compliance with ADA guidelines. There is a chair lift for use by those in wheelchairs or with physical challenges and a ramp leading into the building.
The pool house has lots of windows and plants surrounding a private round pool that is only a few feet deep. The water is a pleasant 96 degrees. There is no music, only lapping water sounds and the sound of the client's own breathing.
The session begins with the placement of buoyant bands around the legs so they won't sink while in the water. Then Mitchell guides the client to the center of the pool and supports the shoulders and neck so the face stays out of the water - ears are submerged and eyes closed - and the legs float up to the surface.
Then she begins the water dance of gently pulling the person through the water, first this way and then that. Each motion is repeated with both sides of the body, both arms, both legs, in a symmetrical water ballet.
"It's really great for stress, but it's also great for arthritis because it mobilizes the joints, and any kind of neck, back or shoulder pain," Mitchell says.
Because the body is floating on the surface, Mitchell can access and manipulate the back with very little pressure to gently stretch the spine and realign both sides of the body.
"The warm water does most of the work," Mitchell says. "It allows the body to let go of holding. So if you've had trauma in some area of your body, most likely your muscles are holding in that area where you had trauma. The water allows the muscles to let go of that hold because you are not on a table, you are weightless."
Everyone has a different experience with Watsu and Mitchell is reluctant to generalize about what goes on.
"This is a very Zen process," she says. "Your ears are submerged, your eyes are closed. It's all about silence. There is no where to go but in. People go on amazing journeys. For some reason, the water allows people to release all sorts of anxiety and grief in a very gentle way."
Some people could get a similar result from a good swim, but Mitchell says it's different.
"It's passive, so you're totally relaxed," she explains. "When you are swimming, you're doing. This is about being. It offers the body a chance to rest in a very deep way. We actually don't rest like this unless we're sleeping and that is where the body can heal, when you can rest."
The fee is $90 for an hour session with Mitchell,
but it takes closer to two hours to prepare and
relax after the session. More information is available
at mainewatsutherapy.com
or by calling Maine Watsu Therapy at 374-2520.
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Originally printed
in the Bangor Daily News, March 29, 2007
 
Framed through the leaves of a potted plant, Vicki Mitchell gently pulls
a relaxed Crystal Hall of Bar Harbor through ionized water heated to
96 degrees Fahrenheit during a recent session at Mitchell’s indoor
therapy pool in Blue Hill.
Watsu See Is Watsu Get
A Blue Hill woman's aquatherpy
center is an oasis of calm for people whose ailments
range from everyday aches to debilitating illnesses
BY KRISTEN ANDRESEN
PHOTO: Vicki Mitchell gently
stretches Crystal Hall's muscles in Mitchell's
therapy pool. Stretching is a key component of
Watsu Therapy.
Crystal Hall floated on her back,
almost weightless, eyes closed, in an indoor pool
filled with nurturing, body-temperature water.
Vicki Mitchell cradled Hall's head and shoulders
and led her through the water like a dance partner,
creating whirlpools in her wake.
Mitchell moved silently, slowly, pressing down on Hall's right hip, then the left, gently stretching her atrophied muscles. Then she shifted position, softly grasped the crown of Hall's head and pulled her languidly, like a piece of seaweed floating on the current.
"It's like the 'Pieta,' like Mary holding Jesus," Hall's friend Joanna Folger said quietly as she looked on. "I know for Crystal it really renews her body and her spirits."
Watsu, or water shiatsu, allows Hall to move her body and muscles in ways she wouldn't be able to on her own. Hall, 48, has dermatomyositis, a rare, painful form of muscular dystrophy in which her immune system attacks both her muscles and the skin around her joints as if they were foreign to her body.
"This treatment, the Watsu, is very beneficial for me in part because it stretches my muscles," Hall said before her session at Mitchell's pool. "It reduces my pain considerably. It lasted a whole day, where I had almost no pain, which is very surprising. The pain was lessened for almost a week."
Stories like Hall's make Watsu even more rewarding for Mitchell, 41. The Blue Hill woman first encountered the practice several years ago at a spa in Costa Rica, but when she read about it, she thought it sounded a bit "new agey" for her taste. Then she saw someone receive the therapy, and she knew she had to try it.
"I fell off a horse, dislocated my shoulder, and my neck was jammed," she recalled recently. "Nothing was releasing my neck until I got into the water and received the therapy. It was really a turning point in healing my neck."
Mitchell was also at a turning point in her life. For years, she had run Vicki's 2nd to None, a secondhand shop in Ellsworth, but she was ready for a change - and Watsu was it. So she went to Harbin Hot Springs in California, where she trained with Watsu founder Harold Dull. She has since become a member of the Worldwide Aquatic Bodywork Association, and is one of three Watsu practitioners in Maine.
Mitchell is a compact, athletic woman with a beatific smile and a peaceful, nurturing way about her. People who have received Watsu therapy or seen her practice on someone else often remark on her caring, almost motherly approach.
"Vicki holds her with so much love - it's so renewing," Folger said as she watched Hall receive the therapy.
Folger occasionally accompanies Hall and her personal care assistant, Tabatha Coombs, on the trip from Bar Harbor to Blue Hill. The women have been friends since childhood, and Folger has fond memories of Hall's "wild child" days.
"I always cry a little because it's so freeing to see her move the way I remember her moving when we were young," Folger said.
For Mitchell, water is the great equalizer. To that end, She installed a hydraulic lift to make her pool accessible to people with physical disabilities. Since she began her practice in September, she has worked with people who have muscular dystrophy, arthritis, polio and Parkinson's disease - as well as people who have muscle tension from day-to-day stress.
She has worked hard to create a healing oasis. Housed in a quaint stucco cottage crafted from self-insulated, eco-friendly building materials, the Watsu center feels like a special retreat.
Mitchell chose a warm palette of terra cotta, celadon and brick-red glass tiles to accent the keyhole-shaped pool and private changing room. Orchids and tropical foliage plants flourish in the warm, humid air, making the space feel like a rainforest in miniature. It's a fitting retreat for this calm, silent treatment.
"There's nowhere to go but in," Mitchell said. "That's when your body heals itself, when the body can be quiet."
For Crystal Hall, that quiet introspection has had a profound healing effect. She has been living with dermatomyositis for the past 25 years, and her muscles have deteriorated to the point where she can't raise her hand to her face. Though the physical tension is obvious, this creates mental tension as well. When she's in the Watsu pool, however, some of that melts away.
"Everything I do, I think, 'Who's going to do the next thing for me? How am I going to get this done? How am I going to get the toothpaste on my toothbrush? Brush my hair? Put on a sweater?'" Hall said. "All those thoughts are eliminated for that time. It's almost trancelike."
On a recent afternoon, she floated in the warm water, her torso rising as she inhaled and sinking a bit as she exhaled. Mitchell looked down, smiled and gently rocked her in her arms like a baby. Hall's eyes were closed and her ears were below the water's surface.
It was the portrait of serenity.
For information, visit www.mainewatsutherapy.com,
www.waba.edu, or call Vicki
Mitchell at 374-2520.
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What Is Watsu?
Originally printed in Maine
Alternative Health Guide, 2007
WATSU, or Water Shiatsu, is a gentle yet profound form of aquatic bodywork developed over 25 years ago by Zen Shiatsu practitioner Harold Dull at Harbin Hot Springs in California. Dull began combining Zen Shiatsu with floating people in the warm springs. Today, WATSU is practiced on 6 continents in settings ranging from hospitals, physical therapy clinics, leading wellness and beauty spas to back yard pools.
What is it like to receive a session? Imagine being floated in a pool of warm, pristine water, heated to your body temperature. Surrounded by silence, your body has a sense of freedom as you are gently stretched, massaged, moved in graceful, ribbon-like movement with the rhythm of your breath. Time and place temporarily recede as alpha states are entered providing the body with the deep rest it requires to rejuvenate and heal. WATSU is an opportunity to move beyond the physical, to a place of three dimensional weightless surrender.
'Instant mediation', 'transcendence', a 'slice of heaven', 'physical freedom' are only a few of the many comments about how much this therapy has to offer. WATSU is used around the world for treating tired aching muscles, arthritis, fibromyalgia, lymphedema, sciatica, cancer, orthopaedic and neurological issues, range of motion problems, neck, hip and low back pain, along with a host other conditions. It also opens the heart, allowing for deep peace, and relief from stress, anxiety and grief. WATSU can even relieve symptoms of PTSD, ADHD and insomnia. It has the ability to gently bring us back to our true selves.
In a WATSU session, your muscles are effortlessly stretched using the inertia of the water. The joints are mobilized leaving a feeling of space between them. Being in warm water softens the tissues and allows the body to effortlessly release long held patterns of holding, which can be the cause of chronic pain, even if an injury seems to have healed. The weightless environment of the water allows for graceful, fluid, dance-like movements. Because there are no constraints of a massage table, the neck, spine and pelvis are able to release tension and chronically held pain easily.
All these aspects put together equal a holistic and therapeutic bodywork experience literally like no other, supporting the constellation of body/mind/spirit. To learn more about the therapeutic effects of aquatic bodywork, visit the web site of the Worldwide Aquatic Body workers Association, WABA at www.WABA.org
Vicki Mitchell is a Certified WATSU and WaterDance Therapist and Shiatsu Practitioner. Vicki practices in a beautiful, private therapy pool located in Blue Hill, Maine. She can be reached at 207-374-2520 or visit www.mainewatsutherapy.com
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