How I found Esalen Massage

Big Sur California

It’s 2012.

I’m living in Albuquerque - going to the New Mexico School of Natural Therapeutics, learning about bodywork and all kinds of holistic healing methods. 

Bodywork is new to me.

I never even had a massage before I came to this school. 

Receiving massage daily in class, I start to notice differences between all my classmates. 

Some people’s hands feel great, others I try to avoid pairing up with, and one of my classmates - Julian - has something special. Every time I work with him, I just melt under his hands.

I don’t know what he’s doing differently from the rest of my classmates.... but his hands have some kind of magic I can’t describe... his touch feels like a natural extension of myself, as natural as breathing, as natural as gravity.

Eventually I asked him what his secret is.  

And he told me that before coming to this school he spent some time in California and studied Esalen massage. 

That was the first time I ever heard of Esalen.

Naturally I NEEDED to learn this secret for myself.

I wanted to make people melt under my hands too. 

I wanted * it * *that magic factor that made his hands feel different from anything else I ever experienced

It took me 5 years before I was able to travel to Big Sur California and take my first Esalen massage course and then two years after that before I could complete the full training and become a certified Esalen massage practitioner.

What happened then was a beautiful unlearning process of every thing I had ever learned about massage and recalibration to something new.

Something natural.

Something that is now a part of me, embedded in my hands.

I don’t offer Esalen massage as a specific option on my service menu because..

EVERY massage I give is Esalen massage.

The quality of touch, the presence, the inquiry...

*it *  is in every massage I give :)