Renita and George Braganza have been sharing their skills as massage therapists, or bodyworkers (a term that they prefer) for more than three seasons with us here in Goa. For the 3-, 6-, and 10-day detoxification programs that we are offering at Healthy Healing Center through end of March 2011, their input is even crucial as good bodywork plays an integral part in the cleanse process that we are working to achieve for the client. Their services are also immensely popular. Almost everyone who has taken a treatment from either Renita or George asks for more treatments. We were wondering, why - and thus asked Renita a few questions.
HH-BLOG: What does bodywork mean to you?
RENITA: “Bodywork is the most amazing thing that ever happened to me.
People need to breathe, eat and drink. They need to go to the toilet. And they feel compelled to listen to the many different concepts and judgments that they have in their heads. But usually people do NOT even conceive that they might need to listen to their bodies, feel how they breathe, enjoy their being here and now in this and no other world – right on the spot. I love bodywork because it makes me listen to the body. Makes me listen to life. Gives peace of mind, too.”
HH-BLOG: Your life? The client’s life? What’s the point that you are trying to make?
RENITA: “To all intents and purposes these are two separate entities, my life and the client’s life. But they meet, right? The client and I, we do actually meet, isn’t it? The client on the table and the therapist at the side of the table, for the duration of the treatment they become one continuum. If the massage is any good it goes beyond the level of the client being an object to the subject’s, or therapist’s intervention. It becomes a process where life energy is allowed to flow. Then we can listen to it, feel it. Then the treatment, no matter what type of massage it might be, can be truly relaxing, refreshing and rejuvenating for the client. That is the level everyone wants to achieve or experience, isn’t it? The Flow Experience, as one author called it, and even wrote a bestselling book about the subject”
HH-BLOG: Sounds somewhat esoteric. For my understanding massage therapy requires a thorough understanding of human anatomy, plus a good portion of emotional intelligence on the part of the therapist, or in other words: sensitivity.
RENITA: “Precisely. Only that you are you are using different words to say the same thing.”
HH-BLOG: How long have you been treating people? What did you do before?
RENITA: “I was a pre-school teacher. I have a degree in education. But that seemed limiting, not so much in the sense of being with the kids, which is different every day, but being subordinate to an organization. I did not like so much to be a mere cog in the wheel.”
HH-BLOG: This is quite a shift, from pre-schoolteacher to therapist.
RENITA: Not really. It also happened slowly over time. I attended my first bodywork training in 2001, started to practice and had my first clients in my spare time at home, then did more trainings and assisted my instructor in subsequent training modules. It all grew over time over several years, while I was still working at the school. Together, with my husband I now have my own therapy center in Hubli, in Karnataka, and during the season December through March, we work in Goa at Healthy Healing as well as at some high-end boutique hotels, like Presa di Goa. Sometimes he is here. More often it is I who comes to Goa.
HH-BLOG: Has your understanding of bodywork evolved over time? And does it continue to evolve even now, after 10 years of practice?
RENITA: “One ancient philosopher once remarked that we never step in the same river twice. Yes, definitely, it is continually evolving. Everything starts with the body. You have to know your anatomy, where the muscles attach to the bone, and how they attach. The flow of your treatments needs to honor the structure and workings of the body that you are treating. And especially in the initial stages of your career as a bodyworker it is necessary to follow and stick to a tried and trusted protocol.”
HH-BLOG: Which is what I was trying to refer to in the beginning.
RENITA: I am actually still doing just that. I still follow the protocols of the different types of massages because a sloppy massage without inherent logic that also follows the body’s logic is a disgrace. You make the client pay for something that he or she cannot really enjoy. The only aspect that has changed and keeps evolving for me even now is my ability to immediately read a body, to hone in on specific areas of tension, you could say: I am learning more and more to allow the treatment to flow with the client’s needs. This latter ability still keeps evolving. There is no end to it. As I said in the beginning, it is quite an amazing journey.
HH-BLOG: Thank you for sharing. May we take up our conversation at a later point to elucidate some specific areas, like the therapeutic effect of your treatments?
RENITA: "Absolutely. It will be my pleasure."