A word of advice: If you're going to meet with Wendy Kanter, no matter the occasion, check your pessimism, cynicism, self-doubt—or your favorite self-defeating behavior du jour—at the door. Without a doubt a top contender for the title of Most Unabashedly Positive and Enthusiastic Nashvillian, Wendy might make you feel painfully aware of your own room for spiritual growth. But if she sensed you feeling guilty about that, she'd likely tell you to stop, because you're wonderful exactly the way you are, and in fact everything is perfect just the way it is. And you'll be convinced she's right.
A licensed massage therapist with a master's degree in exercise physiology, Wendy sports an impressive résumé, including being selected as a massage therapist for the medical support team for all aquatic events at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, as well as working with the USA Track and Field Team at the IAAF World Junior Championships in Sydney, Australia. In recent years, Wendy has expanded her practice to include Watsu, a type of bodywork performed in a warm-water pool. She calls her new enterprise "Watsu With Wendy K."
Watsu's evolution began in Northern California in 1980, when Harold Dull began floating his Zen Shiatsu students in a warm pool and applying some of that practice's stretches and moves. Whereas most massage therapies are based on touch, Watsu involves being held by the practitioner, almost like a mother cradles a child, and moved in the water through a variety of stretches, while also receiving Shiatsu massage techniques.
Awash in the barrage of dubious pseudo-psychology and self-help therapies trumpeted on TV and the Internet, I've become a bit of a skeptic. Determined to keep an open mind, I resolve to schedule a Watsu appointment with Wendy. I have no idea what to expect.
It's 12:30 pm on a Thursday, time for my 30-minute Watsu session at the Centennial Sportsplex. (Standard sessions are 60 minutes.) The water in the Sportsplex's exercise pool is a pleasant 89 degrees. (Typically, Wendy conducts Watsu sessions at a private pool or at the Tracy Caulkins Physiotherapy Center, where the water is between 90 and 95 degrees—close to human body temperature.) In the pool, Wendy gives me a few pointers, and puts floatation devices around my thighs. She asks if I am comfortable with my head being underwater, and I tell her I am. She lets me know that when she gives me two light taps with her hand, it means I am about to go completely under water, and I should take a breath and hold it. Wendy gives me nose plugs to wear for the under-water portion. The only other thing I need to do for the next 30 minutes is to let go, breathe and trust Wendy with the rest.
And while trust is elemental to all forms of medical and physical therapy, it is particularly essential to Watsu. Wendy's self-assured, nurturing disposition makes it quite easy to let go. For the next half-hour, I am moved gently yet firmly through the water, at times having my head completely submerged, at first for a couple seconds, gradually increasing to what seems like 30 or 45 seconds, though the entire event is so timeless that it's impossible to know for sure. One thing is sure—Wendy is carefully observing my breathing, and gauging how long I should be submerged according to my breath capacity. She only keeps me under as long as she can tell I'm at ease with it; at any time I am free to tap her and she will let me up, though I never need to do so.
I choose to keep my eyes closed for almost the entire experience, though Wendy says that decision is up to the recipient. From time to time my various limbs are stretched, and Wendy massages certain acupressure points. The sensation is unlike anything I have experienced—a combination of floating weightlessly through space, and a decidedly womblike sense of comfort and security. For portions of the Watsu session, I have no idea which way is up, nor do I feel any urgent need to know. At the end of the session, I'm propped against the pool wall, wearing such an enormous, goofy grin that the photographer covering the story starts laughing at me.
Perhaps even more so than other forms of massage therapy, the Watsu experience is an internal journey, a safe environment in which to explore "letting go" in every sense of the phrase. After several minutes, there is an otherworldly, altered-state sensation—Wendy's firm, attentive hold on me and the fluidity and warmth of the water begin to blur the lines between where my body ends and the outer world begins, leaving me to wonder whether such boundaries are really an illusion.
Wendy explains that working in water makes it particularly easy to adapt Watsu to whatever physical or emotional limitations a recipient may have. Watsu is appropriate for anyone, from the most able-bodied to the most physically challenged. "It's for anyone who embraces change and freedom of movement," Wendy says. "Needing to be fixed is not a requirement. You can come pre-happy. It's really about renewal, not fixing specific problems. It's a big-picture thing." The bottom line, according to Wendy, is shifting the focus from finite problems to infinite possibilities.
For information about Watsu With Wendy K, call 948-2051, e-mail WendyWatsu@aol.com, or visit www.wendywatsu.com. For general information about Watsu, visit www.waba.edu.
Water works
Ai Chi is another increasingly popular form of water-based bodywork. Performed in warm, shoulder-deep water, Ai Chi combines deep breathing and slow, broad movements of the arms, legs and torso. Developed in Japan in the 1990s by Jun Konno after he first witnessed Watsu, Ai Chi incorporates elements of Watsu, Shiatsu and T'ai Chi (though it is simpler than the last of these, involving significantly fewer movements).
According to Eileen Koesy, who teaches three weekly Ai Chi classes at the Tracy Caulkins Physiotherapy Center, benefits include relief of stress, pain management, relaxation, increased alertness and improved balance and mobility. The hydrostatic properties of water provide unique benefits that dry-land exercise can't.
Koesy says that anyone can benefit from Ai Chi; ability to swim is not a requirement. The practice has proven to be particularly beneficial for people with fibromyalgia, insomnia, panic attacks, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, scoliosis, hypertension and Parkinson's disease. Ai Chi is performed individually, making it suitable for people who are uncomfortable with physical contact with others.
For more information, contact Koesy at fluidmoves@yahoo.com or 415-5129.
