Panchakarma

Panchakarma is an ayurvedic way of cleansing the body, similar to a detox. There are many different ways to receive panchakarma as they base your treatment on the dosha that you are. There are three major doshas in ayruveda; Pitta, Vata and Kapha.
They have an entire system based on the doshas from what you should and shouldn’t eat, to how much exercise someone should have. It can get quite complicated, and people to go school to study this and earn degrees.
I am considered Vata, so I’m going to go through the details of what they did to me during the treatment. Remember that people go through different treatments. Daren is a Kapha and so talking to him about his treatments, they were sometimes similar and sometimes completely different.
Panchakarma can last from one week up to a total of 53 days or about 2 months. It depends on how much time (and money) you have. The perfect world would be 53 days.
Each and every day starts with a massage. Now how does that sound every time you go to the doctor - a massage right off the bat! This is not quite the massage you are thinking of like back in the states. This massage is a foot massage, meaning the therapist uses his/her feet to give you the massage.
You start by sitting down on a stool and they give you a scalp, neck and shoulder massage using their hands. They breath a certain way over your head and make some unusual sounds with their hands while they are doing this. This part of the treatment lasts about 5 min.
Then they have you lie down, face down, on a large pad on the floor. The pad is made of vinyl, similar to the material they use to cover the seats and benches in a weight room. Then they literally pour oil all over your body. I’m not quite sure what kind of oil, but I think it is sesame oil or a blend of oils. It’s very thick, slick, and has been infused with herbs. When I say pour, I mean pour. I’m guessing that each time, they use at least 2 quarts of oil on just me. Not sure if this is a base for everyone, or if they use different oils for the different doshas. It has almost a rusty color to it, and just a faint smell of herbs.
While we are on the subject of herbs. In the states the spas, and homeopathic treatments seem to always include some kind of floral oil such as lavender or orange blossom. Here in India they use lots of spices, but the same ones that you cook with, so the center smells more like a kitchen than what we would think of as a spa or healing center.
There are ropes hanging above you attached to the ceiling, and after pouring the oil over you (in large quantities), they hold on to the ropes and begin to give you a massage using the souls of their feet. They use very large strokes that will cover say your arms and mid section or legs and midsection. Based on the way they massage you, it couldn’t be done on a table using just hands. When they are done with your back they turn you over and do the same thing to your front side.
Once the massage is over they allow you to rest for a time just laying there relaxing. I’m not sure how long they let you lay there, I’m thinking 5 or ten minutes. It’s amazing how good you feel after the massage and its very easy to almost fall asleep as your body absorbs the herbs and the oil.
Next, they put me up on a table face down again, and then began to rub what I think was an herb infused warm water onto my body. In my mind I called this the baste, like when you baste a turkey. That is what it felt like. I’m really not sure what the liquid was, but it looked like muddy water. However the smell was that of herbs, not pleasant, but didn’t smell bad in any way. At this point in time there were two therapists there one standing on each side of the table to baste you!
Then after the baste, came the rub. They had me get off the table and while one cleaned and dried the table, the other one cleaned and dried me off! Back onto the table I went, face down again, they they sprinkled me with some kind of brown powder. Once again, the powder was a plethora of different herbs all ground together. Once I was covered in this powder, using similar strokes, they pressed the powder into my skin. Starting at my feet and working all the way up to the head. Once they were done with my back side, I turned over they they did the front side.
After that it was off the table again and they brushed me off and sent me on my way for the day. This whole process takes about two hours each day. The powder was a rusty color as well, so it looked like I’d been playing in orange sand or something. Then once back at the room you showered really, really well, because the powder can and will stain any fabric it comes in contact with. At the beginning of your treatments they give you a lunghi (basically a large piece of cloth that you wrap around your self like a towel to go to and from the clinic).
They did this for the first two days of the treatment, then the process changed just a little, which I will write about soon. Remember that this is not the same process that Daren had. The only thing that was similar was the massage, and I’m not sure if it was the same kind of oil or not.