Workshops

This workshop is a perfect opportunity for you to enjoy the natural beauty of Esalen’s land while gaining a foundation in Esalen® Massage. Senior teachers and staff will guide you in this experience of connection and presence translated to the massage table.

Through lecture, demonstration and practice with your fellow students, you  will be introduced to the essentials, including quality of touch, rapport, a respect for our natural impulse toward healing, and mindful body mechanics. You will listen to what is felt as well as what is said. You will learn how to comfortably drape and apply the foundational long, intentional strokes and gentle stretches. You will have plenty of time for guided practice and to effectively share your experience. At the end of the weekend, you will be able to give a simple massage to friends and family back home.

Esalen massage promotes feelings of wholeness and reconnects us with our natural state of being. Teaching tools include experiential exercises to awaken the senses, demonstrations, and tableside guidance appropriate for you. The class will enjoy an optional evening in the hot tubs, birthplace of Esalen® Massage. The class is appropriate for the new and curious as well as the professional who would like to rejuvenate their senses and the quality of their touch.

Brighten the winter solstice season and honor the turning of darkness back toward the light with this healing experience of Esalen® Massage — enhanced by the power of essential oils. In this workshop, two senior massage practitioners come together to share the foundational elements of Esalen Massage — compassionate presence, long, lengthening strokes made effortless through proper body mechanics, attentive care for muscle stress, and the joyful sense of reconnection.

By incorporating the intentional use of essential oils, we invite the powerful sense of smell to deepen the work. Scent has a unique ability to transport us into memory. When paired with massage, a potent alchemy unfolds to allow deep relaxation, open-heartedness, and the freeing of the breath.

Different aromas can promote calm, clarity, inner reflection, and deepening of the breath. Drawing from a range of essential oils, Daniela and Jessica will guide you in creating personalized blends that support your own vitality as well as the needs of others. Both workshop leaders bring a wealth of experience with therapeutic applications, the artistry of blending, and the soulful connection between aromatic essence and the spirit.

Through lectures, demonstrations, and shared peer practice with feedback, participants will be presented with the tools to re-inspire their practice. This workshop is appropriate for beginners as well as those who practice massage or healing arts and wish to develop new skills and approaches.

Participants will have plenty of time to immerse themselves in Esalen’s natural beauty and restful rhythms.

24 CE hours pending

This workshop includes a $15 materials fee.

Recommended reading: A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman

Deep Bodywork®, when applied with great sensitivity, is one of the most effective healing modalities available to the professional bodyworker. It combines the integrating qualities of flowing massage with therapeutic deep tissue work to promote relaxation, restore tissue health, and support long-term structural change. Developed by the Hollomans over the course of 40 years, the form emerged from the knowledge brought to and created at Esalen in the ’60s and ’70s by early bodywork masters.

Through Deep Bodywork techniques, practitioners can enter the deeper soft tissue layers, freeing previously dense, hardened areas that may be chronically painful due to a lack of fluid exchange and energy flow. As these areas soften and “re-organize,” chronic tension patterns release, revitalizing living tissues with blood, lymph, and “Chi” (life) energy.

With a clear curriculum and moves designed for easy integration into any current practice, we’ll focus on intermediate and advanced deep tissue techniques to enhance the therapeutic skills of practicing bodyworkers, including massage therapists, acupuncturists, physiotherapists, and chiropractors. Our primary intent is to deepen participants’ understanding of how to apply effective deep work on the back, hips, and shoulders, utilizing practical methods for treating acute and chronic pain in these areas.

Emphasis will be placed on proper body mechanics so practitioners can learn to work with a sense of inner ease and avoid placing unnecessary stress on their own bodies. We’ll also explore how these techniques can complement other healing modalities in the treatment of soft tissue pain for a multidisciplinary approach to pain relief and functional restoration. Previous massage experience is recommended for this workshop.

Recommended reading: Quantum Healing by Deepak Chopra

*30 CEU’s are available through the NCBTMB, provided by Deepbodywork® LLC for bodyworkers. There is an additional $50 fee for CEUs. Please contact johannaholloman@gmail.com or phollomanconsulting@gmail.com with any questions.

This workshop includes an additional $30 for materials.

How we sit, stand, move, and respond to our inner and outer world reflects deeply ingrained patterns wired into our nervous systems since childhood. They reflect our early solutions to physical survival in our family system. Out of awareness, these beliefs and strategies can still run our adult lives, limit our choices, and prevent physical ease and emotional healing.

If you still have pain or limitations from a past injury, it is usually because many other areas in your body had to overwork to protect and avoid using the injured area while you were recovering. These unconscious compensations can create an imbalanced workload and, eventually, new issues elsewhere in our body that prevent complete healing.

Using CFR®, we slowly explore and deeply sense small, gentle movements that bring these hidden patterns into awareness. When our genius nervous system becomes aware of a habit that is no longer useful, it extinguishes it. A greater experience of self-trust and self-worth is uncovered. A new sense of self-love, which comes from paying attention to your details without judgment, usually emerges.

This workshop is for the sedentary who want to become more active, the highly active who want to avoid injury and gain a competitive edge, and the chronically tired and stressed who want to improve breathing, posture, and flexibility. It is for those who have experienced physical injury or emotional trauma and those in helping professions who wish to enhance outcomes for clients and patients.  

You will leave equipped with simple yet effective tools for continued self-healing. Your discoveries will lead to a state of awe about what is possible in your body, your movement, and your life.

Recommended Reading: Somatics by Thomas Hanna and The Elusive Obvious by Moshé Feldenkrais

The mid-winter stars and sun-sparkled ocean waves—with glimpses of whale flumes—form a striking backdrop for exploring the renowned Esalen® Massage at its place of origin. This workshop offers an introduction to the foundational concepts and flow of the Esalen approach through a blend of experiential exercises, lecture-demonstrations, guided hands-on practice, and personal reflection.

Participants engage with key elements found in meaningful massage experiences: breath awareness, mindful centering, body mechanics, quality of touch, rapport, and integration. Long, flowing strokes and gentle stretches—hallmarks of Esalen bodywork—will be explored, alongside methods that may support the release of physical tension through an approach that emphasizes working with, rather than on, the body.

The workshop is open to a range of experience levels, from those encountering bodywork for the first time to professionals seeking fresh perspectives. Instruction includes at-the-table guidance, group discussion, and opportunities for participants to share and reflect on their own experiences.

The practice of Esalen Massage invites connection with one’s sense of wholeness and wonder. Teaching tools include music, charts, massage tables, and exercises designed to awaken the senses. The healing waters of the hot springs and the natural beauty of the Esalen grounds offer a supportive context for this immersive experience.

All levels of experience are welcome.

26 hours of continuing education provided by the faculty through Esalen Massage and Bodywork Association Teachers.

In this introductory workshop, couples, partners, and friends will refine their relationship with touch, our forgotten language. Participants will be encouraged to ask for what they want,  listen to each other, gain sensory skills in initiating and receiving touch, experience the felt sense of muscle release, and close with a balanced tenderness.

Seasoned instructors will offer exercises, massage demonstrations, and at-the-table guidance during paired practice. The simple principles of Esalen® massage – presence, attending rather than fixing, self-care, and slow-paced strokes encompassing the body – will build a heartfelt experience with our partner or friend, and perhaps most significantly, ourselves.

By the final session, participants will share and take home the basics of a classical Esalen massage. Experienced practitioners and caregivers may find it refreshing to apply the Esalen method and notice its effect as their rhythm slows and the mind becomes focused on compassionate contact rather than technique.

Touch soothes us and evokes an opening to spirit. Participants are invited to experience a healthy balance of body, mind, and the vast awe of this natural setting. The edgy wildness of Esalen’s grounds, canyons, hot springs, and mountain backdrop helps to sustain a deeper connection. All are welcome.

Matter is Energy … Energy is Light … We are all Light Beings — Albert Einstein

Each of us walks around within our own energy halo. When two people touch, they spark an energetic exchange. This felt relationship is the heart and soul of Esalen® Massage. With a spirit of gratitude, we invite you to learn and experience the massage that was developed here at the Institute and has since spread around the world. Esalen Massage is known for its flowing integrated strokes, offered from a grounded and centered place. The slow pace and detail provide entry to states of relaxation, connection, and balance.

This course expands the massage experience by incorporating an energetic awareness, allowing us access and interaction with the energy patterns that exist around and through our bodies. Meditation enriches the journey, lighting up a connection to our own deeper patterns. Two senior massage teachers will guide the class during this informative and fun experience. Teaching methods include experiential exercises, brief lecture demonstrations, lots of supervised hands-on practice with classmates, and shared self-reflection.

All levels of experience are welcome, including practitioners and caregivers seeking a fresh focus.

24 hours of continuing education authorized for these faculty members by the  NCBTMB, offered through Esalen Massage and Bodywork Association Teachers. Check with your local authorities regarding recognition of this continuing education.