The careful dance of getting massaged by four hands at a Santa Monica spa

At the Proper Hotel in Santa Monica, an employee in a white polo and khaki slacks guides me from the hotel concierge through the vaulted-ceiling lobby, circumvents the restaurant’s chicly-dressed midday diners, past the outdoor eating terrace, and stops at a curved entryway. There he opens the door to Surya Wellness Spa and a friendly face greets me. I’m right on time.

The aroma immediately strikes me. It smells like a kitchen — earthen, dry, airy with a hint of spice and pepper. I’m guided down a wood-flanked hallway, an array of around 80 spices and herbs displayed in large jars at its end. Some are filled nearly to the brim, others almost empty, conveying use over decor. In the meditation/waiting room, I’m delivered a cup of cumin-coriander-fennel tea while I look over the OMG (Oh My Goddess) clarity oracle cards, their gimmicky aura out of place in the grounding environment. They must be working, though — I’m describing cards as having an aura.

I’ve been wanting to come to Surya since it opened in the bleary-eyed re-emergence of 2021 as a beacon of peace and calm. Martha Soffer, the owner, is considered the western leader in modern Ayurveda — taking 10,000-year-old Indian practices for physical, emotional and spiritual harmony and wrapping them in a California sensibility. Touted by luxe wellness royalty like Gwyneth Paltrow and the Kardashians, Surya has garnered a desirous following. Its Instagram-ready design (by none other than Kelly Wearstler) is as envy-inducing as its offerings, especially the Panchakarma series consisting of about four hours of daily services (massages, cleanses, enemas, yoga, meditations and cuisine) for three to 28 days straight. I’m here for their signature Abhyanga service: a four-handed, light-touch massage with lots of warm herbalized oils that have been steeped overnight (the final destination for those large jars).

I’ve recently begun my own training as a massage therapist, wanting to learn a skill that has nothing to do with a computer but everything to do with people. I’m curious about this type of massage, the kind that combines pampering with ancient knowledge — escapism meets medicine. At $350, the 60-minute Abhyanga is also the cheapest gateway into Surya’s world (and my chance to steal as many techniques as I can). I’m eager to discover the massage that will finally allow me to fully yield, because whenever I’m the one on the massage table, I have this strange sense that I’m not “doing it right.” I find it incredibly difficult to relax. Since beginning to learn the practice, I recognize how noticeable this is. The more I take in the science of strokes, the systems of the body and ways of listening to muscle tissue, the clearer it is that I give resistance. There are times you have to coax a body into trusting you so that you can treat it.

After a few minutes with the oracle cards (Divine Timing and Divine Feminine Energy), one of my massage therapists comes to get me. We make small talk as I’m escorted with my tea. Yes, this is my first time here. No, I’ve never had an Ayurvedic massage before. Mmmhmm, I am excited to experience relaxation in this way. My second massage therapist is waiting to greet us at the end of a small hallway. I get butterflies of welcome anticipation. Four hands massaging me is imminent.

The two practitioners walk me through what to expect, taking care to highlight that they will accommodate my comfort level but recommend I’m nude with a small towel covering my nether regions to avoid oil damaging clothing and allow better lymphatic techniques around the chest. They leave me to prepare myself in the attached full bathroom, with walls and heated floor tiles in a dusty cobalt reminiscent of the sky just before dawn in spring.

My body sinks into the cushioned platform more like it’s a good couch than a massage table. One practitioner wraps hot, damp towels around my feet while the other is at my head, fumbling a bit with my loc’d hair before getting it in the right position for the work. I inhale essential oils through a sheet, a subtle but impactful way to signal the beginning of the experience to my nervous system. A soft hand takes the place of the towels at my feet and calves while warm oils are simultaneously dripped onto my hair and massaged into my scalp. I quickly forgive the follicular fumble. As my extremities are warmed and touched in synchronicity, I surrender. The scent of my chosen oil swirls around me: a pitta-kapha blend, relating to two of the three Ayurvedic “doshas” or governing life energies. I chose pitta for its transformative, cooling properties, and kapha for its stabilizing, anti-inflammatory ones.

I’m afraid that, even in this sanctuary of submission, I’ll do it “wrong” again. I focus on my breathing and inhale the pitta-kapha elements. I seek out that in-between limbo conscience that a massage can so deliciously lull you into. I vow to store the trail of their hands somewhere in the back of my mind while it also constructs abstract dream images, signaling some degree of letting go. Soft chants playing from a speaker somewhere in the room cheer me on into release and I am hopeful to achieve it.

Warm oil is being poured all over my body and four hands run over my entire length in unison, one pair on each side, before returning to the center of my back to begin the crux of the Abhyanga choreography. It’s a careful dance of mirroring one another, not only in movement but in pressure, speed and intention. When the hands are focused on my back, I’m awash in a full-body buzz of calm, as if my entire nervous system were a purring cat. The tips of one hand are gently pressing at the nape of my neck, the other at the very top of my sacrum — close to the two ends of my spine — while two other hands criss-cross in between. It is never overstimulating, only multiple, soothing touch points. I feel my guard drop as four hands rhythmically circulate above my lungs, heart and digestive organs. This is it. My entire body is elongating. A pulse emanates from inside me that is deep and slow as if my heart is an eighth count, my lungs a fourth, and this new tempo is the true conductor that I’m typically too distracted to notice.

Massage can be a disarmingly profound practice. It honors the fact that we can heal each other, take care of one another with little more than focused attention. I think the presence of four hands, rather than the usual two, doubles down on this intention — the way bodies can successfully signal to one another to loosen up, unclench, allow flow. This particular massage, with its copious use of oil, is less about targeting muscle groups than gliding through the inner workings of the body, without friction. It reminds the body of itself.

Warm towels on my feet again signal the end of my 60 minutes that felt like only 20. I’m softly given instructions to use as many of the towels as I want in the bathroom to pat myself dry. But I’m also encouraged to leave some oil on — If possible, they say. When I hear the door close from their exit, I peel myself up from the warm table and marvel at the oily outline my body has left on the sheet.

My body retains the warmth from the two others even when I am alone and off the heated table. I can feel the surface of my skin tingling, as if searching for the company of those four hands again. My joints feel lighter. I feel like I’ve lost five pounds from my frame as I remark on my more graceful, flowing motions. Less like I’m maneuvering my body through life and more like it is carrying me through it. I feel like a vessel for a soul rather than a corpus burdened by physics and gravity. I did it, I realize — with the help of four hands.

Nereya Otieno is a writer focused on intercultural spaces and the ways in which music, food and the arts are forms of storytelling. She co-founded the Rising Artist Foundation nonprofit and currently lives in Koreatown.