Why ancient therapies have become popular

Carol Njeri remembers how her search for deeper relaxation ushered her into a new world of touch therapies. She lay on a draped table, and the therapist started placing small round rocks on different parts of her body.

The therapist arranged the stones on her body for two hours, but Njeri says she felt like the time was shorter; perhaps 15 minutes or less. After the session, she felt a little dizzy followed soon after by a heightened sense of calmness. It was her first chakra balancing session in Parklands, Nairobi.

The face of exercising in Nairobi is slowly changing. A number of people are no longer aggressively pursuing a toned physique; instead, they are chasing stress reduction and improved health through mind-body exercises like chakra balancing, qigong, Bikram yoga, reiki and body talk.

Yoga has opened the door to more ancient Chinese exercises into Nairobi gyms and spas. With programmes like the Africa Yoga Project which has trained over 70 yoga teachers in Kenya, yoga is becoming the exercise of choice from upmarket areas to the slums. Reiki, an ancient Japanese practice is offered by individuals such as Kamal Tolia of the Lotus Healing Seva Group.

Qigong

Nairobi spas and gyms are now adding qigong— which involves combining slow movements with breathing to ensure flow of energy, or qi, in a kind of poised, fluid dance.

Offering qigong classes at Harlequins along Ngong Road, at Aromatics Spa in Westlands and at private residences, Burkley Barthel has eight classes in a week. He says on average, he signs up six new people ever month.

A typical session involves slow movement, such as knee bends, hip twists and arm motions, with deep breathing to take the fresh air across the body. One also does meditation and breathing exercises to relax the body— and all these Barthel says, allows you to take in natural light and heat up the toxins in your body, clearing up the energy channels and achieving a deeper feeling of rest and calmness.

But mastering this art of qigong takes months— there are many different exercises that one has to learn.

“On average, it takes about three months of classes before one can practice qigong by themselves at home,” says Barthel. A session of qigong costs Sh1,000.

Barthel works with an Ayurveda expert, Vaidya Varsani to show the difference in the energy balance in the body before and after one adopts qigong as part of their lifestyle.

Ayurveda is a natural healing system that originated from India that is said to be 5,000 years old. Blockages in the energy system were said to be the reason for falling ill, fatigued and stressed.

Sedentary

Varsani has been practicing Ayurved care for the last 18 years. He combines traditional Indian and Chinese medicine. At his practice in Parklands, he says 80 per cent of his clients come in with stomach and back pains and occasionally arthritic changes, which he attributes to a sedentary lifestyle; poor eating habits and constant sitting with little or no movement.

Using a machine known as an acugraph, Varsani diagnoses the imbalances in the body meridians (pulses) and comes up with a tailored treatment. The acugraph is made up of a small black box consisting of two probes, one held in the hand and the other placed at different points along the hands and feet to measure the health of the 12 organs in the body. The readings are shown on a laptop.

It costs Sh3,500 per session to get the body readings.

Graph

Once the test, which takes less than 10 minutes, is complete, the health graph of the patient is tabulated to show where there are deficiencies and excesses in the body as well as why. A low spleen meridian could be an indicator of over thinking and worry and can manifest itself as bloating, gas, poor appetite, chronic fatigue among other symptoms, he says.

Usually, an acupuncture session will begin with the practitioner using her senses and hands to check the eyes, tongue and skin and listen to the meridian pulses on the wrist, voice and even the colour of the skin so as to get a diagnosis.

However, many in Kenya still don’t even know how to pronounce qigong and they might not want to know; they believe these stress relief therapies , which are mainly from the East, are cults. Njeri says at first she was nervous about going for the chakra balancing session.

“I had been told it is cultic with some even suggesting it might be satanic,” she says.

Although still cautious, Njeri says she would do another session to give her the same ‘high’ she felt after her ‘energy healing’ session.

Open-minded

“Some people have suggested that it might be witchcraft because they really do not know much about it. In the 1970s when people were getting to know about yoga, if they were not open-minded about it, they would never have known that it is a relaxation exercise,” says Barthel who has been practising qigong for 20 years now.