Esalen Institute is open! However, Highway 1 to the south is closed — please review the current travel advisory.
Learn More.

Learn more.

Due to road closures along Highway 1 to our north and south, Esalen is closed through April 11.
Esalen Institute is open! However, Highway 1 to the south is closed — please review the current travel advisory.
past workshop

Introduction to Esalen® Massage: The Art of Healing Touch

May 2-4, 2025

Char Pias and Lori Lewis

This workshop invites you to enjoy Esalen in the springtime as you gain foundational skills in our famed massage modality. Char and Lori will guide you in this experience of mindful touch translated to the massage table. Through lectures, brief demonstrations, and supervised practice, they will introduce the basics: quality of touch, rapport, massage skills with “the listening hand” and effective body mechanics.

The slow-paced practice of Esalen massage sets the stage for a pleasurable natural healing process to emerge, rather than any focus on “fixing.”  You will learn how to drape and how to easily apply Esalen’s signature integrative strokes, detail,  gentle stretches, with a concluding pause. You will be encouraged to effectively share your experience. You may even enjoy giving a massage  as much as receiving one.

Classroom tools include exercises designed to awaken the senses and illuminate the value of boundaries in healing work, demonstrations, and tableside guidance tailored specifically for your experience level. The class is appropriate for the new and curious as well as the professional seeking to refresh their senses and the quality of their touch.

10 hours of continuing education provided by the faculty through Esalen Massage and Bodywork Association Teachers. For more information on CE email EMBA@esalen.org.

Char Pias

Char Pias: “My teaching of Esalen® Massage is based on awareness practice, principles of energetics, unlocking the nervous system, and an emphasis on self-care.” Char began teaching at Esalen in 1984; she also teaches throughout California and in Europe, Japan, and Canada.

Full Bio

Lori Lewis

Lori Lewis offers students a compassionate invitation to come fully into their sensory awareness–body, mind, and spirit. Certified since 2009, Lori teaches at Body Therapy Institute in Santa Barbara and volunteers with hospice, offering Esalen® massage to patients, families and staff.

Full Bio