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The Art of Essential Touch with Ellen Watson, Volume I
The Art of Essential Touch with Ellen Watson, Volume I
- Cultivate loving and skilled touch
- Learn to elict relaxation response
- Support body/mind’s ability to self-heal
This teaching video is designed for those who desire to learn and cultivate their ability to offer loving and skilled touch. Ellen Watson, founder of the MovingVentures School and long time Esalen® Massage practitioner, teaches the basics of Essential Touch, a style known for its long, integrating strokes and for eliciting the relaxation response, which supports the body/minds’ natural ability to self-heal. Through this practice, I support clients and students in deepening their capacity to experience pleasure. Essential Touch is about being breathed by the Big Breath, about union with ones’ self and ones’ Creator, about creating exquisite moments of unity where healing happens. During this 2 hour and 20 minute session, we will spend 80 minutes working on the back side of the body, and 60 minutes working on the front side of the body. You can practice along with me in the privacy of your home. I recommend that you practice often with people you love and who will give you accurate and valuable feedback. With proper instruction and practice, you can soon be giving a loving and skilled session in Essential Touch. Learning to give and receive Essential Touch will serve you and those close to you the rest of your life.
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(out of 3 reviews)
Price: $ 39.95
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#2 written by birthrightuuc 1 year ago
Review by birthrightuuc for The Art of Essential Touch with Ellen Watson, Volume I
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In The Art of Essential Touch DVD, filmed in Bali, Indonesia, and released in May 2004, the viewer is completely captivated by the beautiful presentation of Ellen Watson with her charming, engaging manner. Ellen is a blessed spirit who truly deserves the name of teacher. Her mastery and integration of several movement modalities into her art are strongly evident. Her elegant, graceful movements inspire you to learn. Ellen’s massage recipient is Perry Holloman, a member of the Esalen Massage Crew since 1979.A few wonderful excerpts from Ellen’s instructional commentary follow:
“Your body is a musical instrument. Keeping it tuned with breath, movement, and touch readies you for playing in the Divine’s holy band.”
“Thank you for joining me today for this demonstration of The Art of Essential Touch. This is a form of bodywork the foundation of which is derived from Esalen massage, and with my unique signature of using sound and scent – scent in the form of essential oils, and sound in the form of chanting and praying, and singing to my clients.”
“This is a moving medication practice. . . . Before I begin compression I’ll make some long strokes, another of the foundations of Esalen massage. . . . Keeping your hands in a paused position, in stillness, three breaths allows your partner to develop a sense of how you are going to contact him, establishing rapport and building trust, which is very important in this work because it is quite intimate. . . . Rocking compression, which comes from Trager work . . . and how I get this gentle rocking motion going is basically with the palm of my hand – I am not exerting much pressure right now – placed on the sacrum, and frees my other hand, in this case my left, to explore.”
“I could take both of my hands off right now without disturbing anything; I’m not, partially for the purpose of passing on to you that it is not necessary to remove your hands every time you need more lotion or oil, and partially because it does keep contact established and that’s important,”
“I can also reach up here in the back of his neck, curl my fingers around the other side of his spine, and inquire. Curious fingers, listening hands is a good way to think of your hands, that I am listening to these muscles how they are responding to me today, and then with a long stroke I find myself back down at the low back.”
“Most body parts we contact in Esalen massage. One of my teachers taught me something that I use as my hallmark. I look at my work as helping people increase capacity to tolerate pleasure, pleasurable sensations in the body. So many people don’t have that permission. And so how can I help anyone who I touch enjoy that touch more, enjoy being touched more, and have that being okay, not only okay, health giving, life giving?”
“The overall intention is increasing capacity to tolerate pleasure. It’s a doorway, a doorway most people love going through if they have the courage to get there.”
“In the system of bodywork called Feldenkrais, they teach you to work on the non-presenting side first, if somebody is presenting a situation, to work on the other side first and then to this side, because the release that takes place on the first side sends permission to this other side.”
“Sculpting is another way to look at what we’re doing. We are artists sculpting the contours of the people that we’re working on, helping them feel that they are a piece of artwork.”
“You can . . . learn wonderful ways to make contact with people who come through your life that you love and care about who will benefit greatly from skilled and loving touch.”
“This massage was not rehearsed, though I have given thousands of massages and have a basic form. So give yourself permission, if you use this as a practice session, to add innovation, and add your imagination and what may inspire you at the moment. If you only stay with this for a few minutes and get into your own thing, that’s just fine, or you might follow every move and out of that learn a basic session. Thank you for `playing with me’ today.”Let’s hope for many more massage DVDs from Ellen.
For learning Esalen massage, both the magnificent Esalen Massage DVD and the stunning production by Ellen Watson, The Art of Essential Touch DVD set, are highly recommended. Ellen Watson served on the Esalen Massage Video Committee for the video Esalen Institute Presents Esalen Massage released in May 1997 and re-released as the Esalen 40th Anniversary Edition in the DVD format in 2003. As a member of the thirty-six-member Esalen Massage Crew she is among twenty-two massage givers whose first names appear on the screen, and is also among the ten commentators supplementing the mellifluous, informative voice-over that guides the viewer through the total body massage. Nearly all members appear, if not as givers, then as receivers, and some as both. Since 1984 Ellen has been practicing and teaching massage, meditation, and movement arts at the Esalen Institute. She, along with the faculty of Moving Ventures School, offers workshops, retreats, and trainings at Esalen and at other inspiring places around the globe.
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#3 written by Wendy L. Collura 1 year ago
Review by Wendy L. Collura for The Art of Essential Touch with Ellen Watson, Volume I
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I’ve been a practicing massage therapist for over 25 years. Over the years, I’ve trained in numerous modalities, all to effect the greatest relief for my client. And I’m grateful to have these many tools at my disposal. When it comes to people and their diverse conditions, “one size does not fit all.” There is no magic bullet that universally extinguishes everyone’s pain and discomfort.That said, here’s what I love about Ellen’s video, The Art of Essential Touch, and what distinguishes it from the other trainings I’ve encountered. In this generous offering of over 2 hours of massage instruction she reminds me, over and over again, of the primacy of Being: with myself, with the Breath (mine, my client’s and the movement between us), with the many fascinating facets of the unique person on my table. Not just in a theoretical way, either. We get down to the nitty gritty of positioning, draping, classic massage strokes, as well as a variety of moves distinctive to Esalen massage (e.g., “the long stroke,” or, more exotically–how you can actually turn your client over yourself in a safe, respectful and comfortable way). At all times, while Ellen gives precise details of execution and observation–paying attention to the client’s responses–she is simultaneously keeping us ever mindful of Being (a “how to” be with Being, if you will). This allows for deepening the connection with our partner, the guest on our table.
This connection–the exchange of Presence with another–is the juice of any good massage. Presence is what allows the body to release tensions of all kinds, is what I live for in this work, and what’s so easy to forget in my clinical practice of back-to-back patients. Watching this voluptuously beautiful DVD, (the color and light are simply exquisite), literally helps me “return to my senses,” refreshed and renewed, remembering to slow down, be with Breath, just Be. My work becomes the play of consciousness, my clients feel the sharing of Presence, and we come away enlarged, aware in the core of our being of the blessing bestowed upon us.
Ellen’s constancy with her deepest passion in her work, being with Being, is exactly why I encourage all those interested in bodywork, at whatever level of expertise, to take a little trip to Bali in the comfort of your home, and remember what it was that called you to be a bodyworker in the first place. This is not just a training video, but a distillation of many years of devoted service and experience, delivered through the golden-hearted Presence known as Ellen Watson, that sings with Wisdom, Joy and Playfulness. Take the trip–you deserve it!
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Review by Stephen J. Peeples for The Art of Essential Touch with Ellen Watson, Volume I
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This is not a Hollywood production with perfectly scripted sequences, edited bloopers and multiple camera angles with distant zoom shots on a movie set. Ducks outside in the rice fields insert their chatter, the massage table moves, a drape is not always perfect. This production is real. As real (and flawed) as any massage can be. And there-in lies the beauty and value. Ellen Watson is able to demonstrate the ideals of master massage while at the same time acknowledging imperfection. As a professional massage therapist I can claim THE ART IF ESSENTIAL TOUCH with Ellen Watson is the essence of what I strive to give my clients. This is a tape I will continue to revisit on a regular basis to keep my practice grounded in the ideals of Esalen massage. My feeling is that ESSENTIAL TOUCH might be even more worthwhile as a quality introduction for the beginner interested in exploring the world of massage.
ESSENTIAL TOUCH will inevitably be compared with another tape ESALEN MASSAGE. Both are equally good. The ideal would be to purchase both. ESSENTIAL TOUCH has the added value of two hours compared to the Esalen Institute production of one hour. And it is real.
WARNING: Like the temptation of purchasing a motorcycle after 30 pages of ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTAINCE, THE ART OF ESSENTIAL TOUCH can create the danger of checking tickets to Bali, Indonesia, to learn more from Moving Venture.