All About Ashwhin

Your Personal Retreat

Enjoy, Learn and Discover

LEARN

AROMATHERAPY & EMOTIONS
CHI KUNG
COUPLES MASSAGE
MASSAGE TECHNIQUES
MEDITATION
(for relaxation)
REIKI
- Level 1
- Level 2
YOGA BASICS

Learn techniques to improve your life like meditation, and things you can share like massage, reiki and using aromatherapy oils.

Aromatherapy and Emotions

Our sense of smell is one of our older or more primitive senses. And it is linked strongly with emotion. All of us will have experienced being transported back to another time and place when we catch a whiff of a particular smell. It is this area of ourselves that we target when using oils to scent our rooms, and we can learn to manipulate the way we feel by selecting the best combination of oils to use at any particular moment.

The focus of the workshop will be on how you respond to each oil - on many different levels. For instance, you might select sandalwood because you suffer from itching skin - which is one of the physical conditions that sandalwood can address. Or you might select grapefruit because you are feeling bitter about some experience that you have had in your life, and grapefruit is suggested as an oil that might help to dispel feelings of bitterness. And of course you will be responding to the oils themselves and how you personally respond to their smell - anything from wrinkling up your nose in disgust to saying - Oh yes, I love this one.

Chi Kung

At the heart of Chi Kung is focus of attention on the life energy that flows through us all the time. The practice improves your life by enhancing the mind-body interaction. Really, you have to try it to see how wonderful it is.

Perhaps the best part about the practice for me as a therapist and trainer (enabler), is that virtually everyone can benefit from Chi Kung. There are many movements, all of them are done very slowly and most of them can be made by the frail and elderly - but they touch us all.

By working on an energetic level, you will be working with the ancient Chinese Healing system of meridians - the paths by which life energy is believed to follow through the body. The movements are designed to stimulate and encourage energy to pass smoothly, to release blocks of energy (that lead to pain and stiffness), and to leave you feeling bouncy and enthusiastic about life.

Couples Massage

Touch is healing - this is such a simple truth that we can forget it.
Many of us suffer from cultural or family taboos about touch - this workshop is for those people. It is also for people who would like to find a loving and gentle way to develop their relationship. The sense of feeling completely at ease and relaxed with your partner provides you with the core of security and contentment that is central to a truly balanced life.

Massage works on many levels. On the physical level it stimulates your circulation, your whole cardiovascular system and releases tension in all muscles. This allows toxins that have built up due to tension to be released, which in turn helps to boost and maintain your energy levels. Massaging the neck and head also releases endorphins - that wonderful (happy) chemical that our bodies naturally produce when we are not under too much stress or suffering from pain .
Light-touch can also be just the beginning. Couples may wish to explore the wonderful intimacy and joy of tantric massage. Whilst it might not be very British to talk about sex, great sex can hold two people together through all sorts of challenges and adversities. And really great sex is felt emotionally and spiritually, at the level of awareness where you know that your essence and body are one - each reflecting the other.

Massage Techniques

I give a basic introduction to touch therapy and then introduce the two techniques that I have developed for use at Ashwhin - Light-touch and Featherbright. We also touch upon baby massage, massage for kids, and massage for couples.

Light-touch

Unlike younger practitioners who have been to a specific school, and learned a single technique, my massage is based on many years of theoretical and practical evolution. I wanted to find a name that clearly describes what I do, and thus settled on Light-touch. Whilst I do often use firm and deep strokes once I have loosened the tension in musculature, I have never and will never use the powerful (and often painful) technique of Swedish massage.

Featherbright

Featherbright is the name I have given to the technique of massage that I use with aromatherapy. Many therapists (though not all) that I have been to for aromatherapy are heavy handed in their practice of massage. I have developed a lighter alternative that is gentle enough for children, frail elderly, people who are convalescing, during pregnancy. And for all manner of nervous disorders.

Yoga

YOGA FUNDAMENTALS - A balanced introduction to the lifestyle of Yoga

In the West we have been led to believe that the exercises are yoga. However they comprise one of three essential activities that create the flexibility, grace and fluidity of true yoga. Therefore in fundamentals we will give equal weight to the breathing and to meditation.

• proper relaxation

• proper exercise (asanas)

• proper breathing

• proper diet

• proper thinking (meditation)

Yoga is a way of life. I have practised yoga for over thirty years now. Not perhaps as regularly or as fully as I might, but it is one of those things that I simply keep coming back to the practice of and appreciating it all over again.

Over the years I have used many different routines, read many books, attended various classes. My personal yoga practice is continually growing and changing as I learn more. I am now at a stage where I can offer guidance and support to people who are in the process of making yoga a part of their lives.

Meditation

(for relaxation)

Let me assure you that there are many different types of meditation, and some are so simple and so easy to learn that you will not realise you are actually meditating... until you start feeling rather better and calmer. In fact meditation is a little like an art form - take drawings. There are huge detailed drawings and simple unfinished ones, large ones, small ones,... but each has its own message and its own value and its own place. So too with meditation. And you may find, as I have, that you find that one method of meditating is very comfortable and easy for you to use regularly in your life, and that a couple of other ones are particularly helpful in certain situations.

Even if you meditate only rarely, the sense of calm that you feel is cumulative and stays with you even in times of high tension. And of course if you do some sort of meditation more regularly, it will change the way you handle stress. This is helpful to anyone who worries, suffers from anxiety or depression. And a calm mind does have a knock on physical effect.

The link between a healthy body and a healthy mind should be obvious to us all, but we do not have to accept the holistic point of view on faith or good sense alone. There are countless studies being done to prove that meditation is helpful for people with chronic illness - from heart problems to eczema, and this has come about because the western medical establishment is coming to accept that attitude of mind is very important to health.

Reiki Attunements

Reiki attunements are quite unlike any other type of training. This is because there is nothing intellectual about the process, but intuitive. Essentially what you are shown is your own potential for healing and how to begin working with it.

Reiki 1

I normally offer Reiki 1 attunements in a weekend, two days that run from 10 to 5. This level is open to anyone who expresses an interest in Reiki. I would prefer that each person at the Reiki 1 weekend have already experienced Reiki at least once before, as this gives all participants a suitable starting point. During the weekend we discuss briefly the history of Reiki, its development, and why each person attending wishes to be attuned. There is opportunity for each participant to receive Reiki from each other, and also to give themselves Reiki - self treatment is at the heart of the Usui Reiki tradition. Primarily it is a weekend for sharing our expectations and understanding about what Reiki is and its potential - in a comfortable and welcoming atmosphere. £140

Reiki 2

I offer Reiki 2 to those people who feel strongly that they wish to go on to this level. The attunement itself is done in a single full day and includes the traditional three symbols and their use. I also give a follow up meeting to the group or each individual, as usually there are issues and questions that arise when first working with the symbols. £210