Thai Yoga Massage Chamonix

03/04/2018

I am away until the end of april to visit friends and family and also to teach yoga at a meditation retreat in Portugal with my dear teacher Hamid and so will be unavailable this month for massage.

For those of you who are interested in meditation, Hamid explains the practice well and shared the below ahead of our retreat this month:

"This practice has no object and is not meant to be a means towards some end, it is not meant to take you from here to anywhere in particular. If anything it is meant to help you realize that ultimately there is no getting from here and going to there for there is no coming and going. Or if there is, there is no one doing the coming and going.

There is clearly a paradox at the heart of Zen practice and Zen meditation.

The sitting that is nothing other than the sitting is what this practice is about. The Japanese name for it is Shikantaza : just sitting. The emphasis here is on the word just. Just being wholeheartedly in full awareness of body, mind and breath, present to the unfolding of this practice of moment to moment of just sitting. Encountering the resistances and discomforts that inevitably arise as we sit in the openness of just this moment, just this sitting, just this being.

Slowly becoming intimate with the resistances. Noticing the arising of our cravings and aversions and the tensions they create inside. Then the next moment, in the next awareness of body-mind-breath presence to this moment returning to the just sitting. Returning to the release and ease of this just sitting.

Zazen is the practice of paying one’s full attention to just this moment in its arising and falling as silence and stillness come upon you.

When there is justness in the just of sitting, being simply here present to this moment, time and space collapse, all mental categories collapse. In the absence of mental construes I face the timeless, the boundless in the sheer openness of this moment that is nothing other than this moment of : here I am, me voici!

As we inquire further into this experience we begin to get a deeper intimation of what the great Master Dogen thaught throughout his life: practice and realization are one, one doesn’t come after the other. There is no beginning to one nor end to the other, what we practice is the deep realization of our intimacy with what another great, Master Eckhart, called: the eternal now.

The just sitting strips you of whatever it is you think you need to realize, attain, work through in order to enlighten your existence.

Zazen is the art of just sitting beyond the projections of the mind, or not being disturbed by the mind's projections.

When I can just sit, just breathe, just be the being that I am, then I return quite effortlessly to a simplicity where whatever I encouter is just the being or thing that it is.

What I find compelling in the Zen way of looking at things is how we slowly begin to lose interest in projects, noble as they may be, such as enlightenment or self-realization, the more we move into experiences of immediacy, the more we sense with our pores what intimacy means. Intimacy is letting go of goals, drives and strivings.

Intimacy with ourselves, intimacy with others, intimacy with the world.

When we deeply experience intimacy we become part of what Merlou-Ponty, the French philosopher, calls, la chair du monde, the flesh of the world.

The flesh of the world is being part of the silence that opens us to intimacy, resonance and co-responding with all phenomena and beings.

To show up to this, to be here to this, hineni, is to say here I am to this moment of intimacy. To be this moment of intimacy. To become one with the spirit and flesh of just.......

If you are coming then be an expression of the intimacy of the moment of ; here I am, hineni, me voici, I am just coming....I am the coming....the sitting...the breathing...the breath....the just....the thus....

He or she who realizes justness, thusness, things are they are, things just as they are, is called in sanskrit a tathagata......

Tathagata is one of the names of Buddha"

25/01/2018

This is why you shouldn't put weight through your head in a 'head stand' - it's in fact all in the arms!

Ok, so I wanted to show you the actual picture of my CAT scan from when I squashed a disc in my neck attempting headstand, but it seems to have been mislaid in the move to Straya. So, here’s a picture of some other poor sod who acquired the same injury. That thing that the bulge is pressing on is the spinal cord... aka this is NOT FUN!
How did I manage this? Well, shortly after discovering yoga, having seen far more experienced people effortlessly floating up to a headstand with straight legs, I thought I’d give it a go. At home. Alone. With a whole 6 months of yoga practice under my belt. 🙄 Yes, di****ad, and it’s safe to say I was in no way practising yoga in that moment!!! I dumped all my weight into my head and kicked up like a flailing donkey, and this was the result.
The pain, interestingly, was not so much in the neck as the arm and hand, as the nerves in this part of the spinal cord serve your arms. And it’s agony. I do not recommend doing this to yourself. It healed in time - a long time - but I will probably never regain feeling in my left index finger.
So you can see why I’m a bit bossy about headstands and learning them safely, and properly, and with extreme caution, and understanding that THEY ARE AN ARM BALANCE.
Rant over. As you were. 😉

19/01/2018

😂😂😂

16/01/2018

Take a pause and tune into your breathing....Notice - are you breathing more into your chest or your belly? Many of us go round sucking in our bellies all day, forcing our breath up into our chest and causing all sort of problems including stress, stiff shoulders and neck.

Here's my lovely yoga therapist friend Becky - RocknRoll Yogi, perfectly describing the benefits of diaphragmatic breathing. Go on and treat yourself to 5 minutes breathing into your belly - just don't fall asleep if you've got work to do 😴😴😴

This week we’re talking about the mechanics of simple breathing techniques which you can use to profoundly influence your own nervous system! Yesterday I showed you belly breathing, and if you tried it you probably found yourself feeling calmer almost instantly. But why?

The conversation between your breathing and your nervous system is a two way street: your NS dictates how you automatically breathe, but if you feel stressed you can take control over your breathing to override that, and send the message to your NS that everything is fine and it can relax.

Belly breathing does that for 3 reasons..

1 - When you are relaxed, you naturally breathe low in the abdomen with a soft belly. So when you mimic that, the NS gets the message to relax.

2 - There is a long nerve, called the vagus nerve, that meanders through many of your organs. This nerve connects to the Relaxation Response part of your NS - which is the opposite of Fight/Flight. Belly breathing stimulates this nerve.

3 - Your lower lungs have more capacity than your upper lungs due to their shape. When you breath fully, you don’t need to breathe rapidly. And when you breathe slowly, you are once again mimicking that relaxed state, so your NS chills out.

It’s easiest to get the hang of belly breathing - proper name ‘diaphragmatic breathing’ - when you have some physical contact there. You can do like yesterday and put your hands on your lower belly and breathe ‘into’ them, or lie in Crocodile pose like this and feel your belly expand against the mat / bed and then soften as you fully exhale. It’s a pretty great way to get yourself to sleep! What’s good for anxiety and stress is also good for insomnia - it’s all about becoming the lord and master of your own nervous system!

10/01/2018

A good friend of mine shared this and I have to agree with her, the most meaningful thing you'll click on Facebook for a while ♥️

I haven’t started this ‘note before I die’ so that death is feared - I like the fact that we are mostly ignorant to it’s inevitability..... I just want people to stop worrying so much about the small, meaningless stresses in life and try to remember that we all have the same fate after it al...

08/01/2018

First Yin Yoga class tonight at studio 128 in les houches.

This class is suitable to everyone from complete beginners to more experienced practitioners, I am also able to adapt this class to pregnant people or those with injuries.

Unlike other styles of yoga, in yin we hold each position for several minutes or more in order to go deeper into the posture. Yin yoga focuses on the ‘yin’ tissues of the body such as the tendons, fascia, and ligaments in order to increase circulation to the joints and improve flexibility.

Bring along a warm jumper for the relaxation at the end and a pillow if you can. Yoga Matt's provided. Hope to see you there! 😊

30/10/2017

A few photos from our intensive zen meditation retreat at the beautiful Karuna retreat centre in Portugal last week.

It was a challenging, meaningful and heart opening experience shared with amazing new friends. Our next retreat will be 9-16 April next year if anyone is interested or wants to learn more :)

7 day intensive sesshin in Portugal

25/09/2017

Keep moving 🤘

15/08/2017

Back in Chamonix with some lovely new hip and shoulder opening techniques.

Get in touch if you want to get your chill on =)

28/07/2017

Away for a couple of weeks to catch up with family and for some advanced thai massage training with my awesome teachers in the UK - looking forward to sharing some new techniques with you all =)

10/07/2017

Hi all! Now my IML exam is done with I'm back in the valley and available for thai massage appointments!

60 euros for 1h 30 massage and 75 euros for 2 hours.

Great for sport recovery, relaxation and flexibility.

Drop me a message if you or a friend are interested or just have some questions about what a thai massage is

Jen =)