Hadrien Aujoulat-Mendez
Massage practitioner in Marseille: Thai massage and Osteothai, yoga, meditation, movement and breath workshops.
The path to touch
Since my childhood in Provence and Marseille, body arts have been part of my life: I grew up watching my mother teach Tai Chi. At 20, I discovered yoga, a practice that struck me with its philosophy centred on the quality of movement rather than performance.
After a rather intellectual academic path, it took me several years to realise that the sense of incompleteness I felt came from a disconnection from my body. My physical activities had always been geared towards performance, ignoring their sensory or poetic side.
In 2019, I fell in love with Thai massage during a training in Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand. It was a turning point. Touch, listening and sharing Thai massage then took a central place in my life.
Towards the body
Look at children : their bodies seem naturally fluid and free. This innate suppleness stiffens over the years spent sitting at school desks, where the intellect takes precedence over the body. Our culture carries a mechanistic view that treats the body (and nature) as a machine to exploit. As a result, the body is often neglected, and the harmony between body and mind is broken.
The practices I offer are not about performance. They focus on listening to yourself and on the quality of movement. The real aim is to learn to fully inhabit your body and to reconnect with it gently. This bodily presence brings a deep sense of joy, visible in the eyes of the people I guide.