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This page last updated:
Monday, January 15, 2007
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How to do... Indian head massage
Duncan Hall enjoys a massage from course tutor Karen Wilson. (7PF0106297) Picture: PAUL FRANKS
Each week, our entertainments reporter tries out a new activity. This time, Duncan Hall gets to grips with an Indian head massage taster session at Peterborough College of Adult Education.
A CHAIR and your own two hands are all you need to make someone putty in your hands for 40 minutes – and neither of you even have to take any clothes off!
Performing Indian head massage is a strange activity. You are laying your hands on someone in quite an intimate way, but once you are doing the massage, it feels quite natural, with the masseur getting as much benefit from it as their client.
Previous to this, the only people who got to touch my head or run their fingers through my hair were my girlfriend, my barber, my mum and the school nit nurse.
But on Saturday, as part of a taster day session at the Peterborough College of Adult Education, in Brook Street, Peterborough, I suddenly found myself in the situation of having not one, but two complete strangers rooting around in my hair.
And, although it felt strange and slightly uncomfortable at first to have strange hands touching my scalp, I have not felt so relaxed in a long time.
Course tutor Karen Wilson put it down to the very Western aversion to having anyone touch you that you don’t already know – a type of social conditioning that didn’t exist 5,000 years ago, when Indian head massage is first thought to have been practised.
The skill, which is based on the ancient art of Ayurvedic healing and was passed down through generations of Indian families, has both physical and psychological benefits.
At a physical level, it can increase blood circulation to the head, neck and shoulders, improve the condition of the skin and hair, promote sleep, relieve eye strain and tension, reduce stiffness in the neck and shoulder muscles and encourage hair growth.
Psychologically, it can help you relax, calm you down and promote a feeling of well-being. It can also be a way of showing affection within a close relationship.
Indian head massage can be performed with oils, traditionally coconut oil in southern India, which is good for dry and brittle hair and can relieve inflammation, and mustard oil in northern India, which can help ease tension in muscles, encourage hair growth and stimulate blood circulation to the scalp.
But the massage can also be carried out without any oils or creams – which was especially helpful for those of us planning to head out into town that afternoon.
A full massage – which works on the shoulders, arms, neck, head and face – only takes about 40 minutes, but as it was only a taster session we didn’t even have that long and so were shown some basic techniques to carry out in pairs.
We started out in the shoulders with a bit of effleurage – stroking in the soft area between the spine and the shoulder blades with the palm of your hand, which not only relaxed you and the client, but also got you used to touching them, if they were someone you didn’t know, as in my case.
From there, we ran our thumbs up and down the top part of the spine, before using the pads of our fingers to do soft circular movements in the soft part of the shoulders again.
As someone who occasionally suffers from stiffness in the shoulders, this was great – and instantly relaxed me.
And it was very relaxing to actually stand up and do it to someone else – once you had got over the strangeness of stroking someone you didn’t know.
From the shoulders, we moved onto the hair and scalp – where you really felt the difference.
Starting out with effleurage again, to get used to having foreign hands touching your head, we moved into raking – essentially running your hands through the whole length of the hair like a comb. I instantly felt sorry for my partner as I had, very stupidly, put wax in my hair that morning.
Probably the best move was shampooing – essentially carrying out the action you do every morning in the shower when you are trying to get the shampoo down to the roots of your hair. By now everyone’s hair was beginning to rise up with a life of its own – defying whatever style it had been forced into earlier that day.
And there was worse to come, with the three finger rub – where you essentially rubbed the scalp and mussed up hair even more with three fingers while keeping the clients head still with the other hand. That said it felt great as you felt the tension disappear. Everyone’s voice seemed to go much softer afterwards and everyone seemed to be much more relaxed as the class went on.
A little bit more effleurage and the class was over far too soon – I could have quite happily sat there and be massaged for another 20 minutes.
It was a similar experience which led Karen to complimentary therapy.
She said: “I got into it through a taster session in aromatherapy at the college. I had an interest in it, but I thought rather than commit myself to a proper course I would try it out first.”
One great experience later and she found herself signing up for a full course, and is now in the first year of a degree in Complimentary Approaches to Health Care at Grantham College.
She said: “About 300 years ago we had traditional healers and wise women who used complimentary medicine, but then we had the development of modern pharmaceuticals which took over from them. Most pills and drugs are based on the traditional plants and medicines used before.
“Now the medical profession is starting to realise the value and support complimentary medicine can give.”