You too can be an acrobat

It’s probably one of the oddest healing treatments you’ve ever had. You surrender all self-control to a foreigner, and he’s going to twist you inside out and hang you upside down.

Still game? You have two weeks to book a date with English osteopath Alexander Hickman, who’s brought his “inversion therapy” to the Oriental Spa at the Mandarin Oriental Bangkok.

Hickman describes inversion therapy as “acrobatic massage”. He does the juggling. You’re the ball. The idea is that hanging upside down lowers the heart and breathing rate, drains the lymph glands and stretches the body so your joint articulation improves.

Hickman turns gravity around, using it to decompress the spine, which he says fosters complete emotional release. As you’re gently lifted off the ground with eyes closed – relying entirely on someone else’s senses for orientation – your consciousness expands. The sensation of floating and liberation is wonderful.

“It’s good for your clarity because you stop thinking,” Hickman says. “When you feel balanced and confident and you’re relaxed, that’s more about the heart, not the head. It’s the feeling of human being, not human doing.”

Once he has a client topsy-turvy, he directs her awareness to different parts of the body and especially the spine, all the while instructing her to breathe and release, let go and relax.

“As you start feeling your body, you relax and become more aware of it. Often people don’t even know they’re tensing some parts of their body.”

A student of yoga as well as “neuro-linguistics”, “quantum touch” and “matrix energies”, Hickman manipulates his suspended client’s abdomen, lower back and pelvis, encouraging them to let go physically and emotionally.

How much you let go and yield to his command depends on you, but just being upside down puts you in a different state of mind.

It’s not like you become unconscious – the jolting shifts in position make sure of that. There’s no real danger of being dropped, although the fear tends to linger – until Hickman reminds you again to breathe and relax.

Inversion therapy tackles a problem of everyday life. Most people go about in a semiconscious daze, unaware that they’re labouring unnecessarily under damaging physical or mental baggage. They sit and stand the same way every day, even if their posture is leading to injury.

Hickman believes holding onto painful memories and emotions is a major reason people feel physical pain. He can read the inner anguish in their breathing pattern.

“After this therapy your body feels light, calm, happy and usually energetic,” he says. “It’s great for neurosis, depression, back pain, headaches – and for facing your fears.

“For some people it’s like a rebirth experience, because you’re floating upside down, being held and supported, and for most people, it’s the first time since they were in their mother’s womb.”

RIGHT SIDE UP
<< Book a session with Alexander Hickman at the Mandarin Oriental Spa any day until April 15 except Monday. Call (02) 659 0444.
<< A 90-minute osteopathy consultation costs Bt7,500 and the follow-up Bt4500.
<< An hour’s inversion therapy is Bt5,500.
<< An hour of quantum touch and Reiki is Bt4,500.
<< An hour’s “matrix energetic” therapy is also Bt4,500.
<< Inversion therapy is not recommended for anyone with heart disease, high blood pressure or gastro-oesophageal reflux syndrome. Learn more about it at www.InversionTherapyUK.com.