Hot Stone Massage Workshop

Course: Hot Stone Massage Workshop - 1 days course

Time: 10am – 3pm

Cost: £95

About Hot Stone Massage

History: as a contemporary therapy, stone massage was introduced to the world of Spa treatments by Mary Nelson in 1993. The therapeutic use of stones and rocks has, however, been employed for thousands of years in various forms.

Today we are familiar with spas, although they are nothing new. They were originally used to improve health and well being – not just a luxury method of relaxation as they are today. Spas were about getting better, the hot pools, cold dips, plunge pools, saunas and steam rooms were designed to balance the body so it could heal. The same principles apply in Stone therapy – using alternating temperatures to heal. The term geothermotherapy is used because the Earth (geo) is used to deliver the temperature through the stones.

Energy Work:

The earth came about as a result of nature’s forces working together. As humans we tend to think we are in charge, every now and then Mother Nature and father sky decide to remind us of their strengths, we are put into our place very quickly.

A little too much rain and we have floods; a little too much sun and we get droughts. Stone therapy respects nature and uses its strengths to make the treatment the most wonderful and healing therapy that there is.

So who else realized how valuable stones are? Since the dawn of time, people have been drawn to the energies of the stones. You only have to look around to see the traces of this that we have left from centuries of walking on mother earth. We have carried monstrous stones unspeakable distances, to honor kings and gods. There exist many stone reminders of mysterious or forgotten people, for instance the statues on Easter Island, the Egyptian sphinx and pyramids, the Inca temples and Stonehenge.

Lava stones and basalt stone was used building alters for religious and magical practices.

There are myriad styles of employing stones in massage, any of which can be developed on an individual basis by a confident and experienced practitioner.

Rock – forming materials: Rocks and minerals are a fundamental part of the earth’s crust. Rocks are essential components of our planet and are in the main a mixture of, several minerals. Minerals are natural, solid non-living substances, and grow in regular shapes called crystals.

Rocks form in cycles. Underneath the Earth’s crust is a layer of incredibly hot, melted rock called Magna. When a volcano erupts it is the melted rock or Magma that flows from the inside of the lava as lava and as it cools down in the air or the sea it forms solid rock. Rocks formed this way are called igneous rocks (igneous means fiery).

Erosion and weather breaks down the rock into particles and these are transported by glaciers, rivers and the wind and deposited as sedimentary layers in lakes, river deltas, and dunes and on the sea bed.

Heat and pressure (by movement) change sedimentary and igneous rocks to metamorphic rocks. Granite is the most common rock and consists of the main of minerals of quartz, feldspar and mica.