Mention the Grinberg Method and chances are you'll get an inquisitive look. That's because while the method does has a small international following, it is one of the black sheep in the world of alternative healing.
So what are the roots of this enigmatic technique?
Founded in the late 1980s by Israeli Avi Grinberg, the Grinberg Method is a curious amalgam of his various inspirations from yoga, the Alexander Technique, Chinese Medicine and reflexology to Sufi dancing, martial arts, massage and traditional tribal healing.
Fuelled by an enquiring mind, the visionary Grinberg started his apprenticeship of learning at a young age and was ready to launch his own technique in his thirties.
Orrit Mardor, a practitioner who studied with Avi Grinberg, remembers the no-nonsense intensity of her former teacher.
"I think he's a magician as a practitioner. He's got electricity in his hands," she says. "He's also very total. When he's soft and delicate, you can cry. When he's direct, he's direct as an arrow."
One of the distinguishing characteristics of the Grinberg Method is that it claims to act as a teaching tool rather than a therapy.
Through a series of one-on-one sessions with practitioners, clients gradually learn to change their chronic negative patterns (such as physical pain, depression or stress) by listening to and understanding their bodies.
This is done through a range of techniques including discussion, touch, movement, breathing exercises and even homework for the client. Sessions are roughly one hour and are usually conducted on a large wooden table.
Unlike some other therapies which aim to restore well-being through relaxation, the opposite can be true of the Grinberg Method.
The practitioner may deliberately intensify the specific tension or discomfort clients have identified as their "problem" to heighten their awareness of it.
The theory is that by doing so, clients will slowly learn to short-circuit these patterns, initially in the controlled environment of the treatment space and then later in all situations of the "real world."
This courage to dig deep internally, says Orrit, is at the very heart of the Method and sets the responsibility for vitality squarely on the client's shoulders. In fact, she believes it is even more important to have a cooperative and committed client than a good practitioner.
"People who come to the method are generally those who are interested in growing and who feel the greyness of life," she says. "They know they are going into a process and dare to make changes."
"The practitioner simply acts as a clear mirror, showing clients how they repeatedly follow a personal pattern that leads to 'problems' in their life. This clarity that they offer usually has a deep impact on the client who can no longer hide from themselves or in the belief that things are beyond their control."
Take the example of a shy person with hunched shoulders - their protective shell from the world.
During a session, they can be asked to contract, expand, resist or expand into that posture in order to dissect that pattern from every possible angle.
They might experience in that session, perhaps for the first time in a long time, the limitations of having a constricted chest. Or alternately they might experience the freedom of breathing with an open and expanded chest.
"Since we are very young, we are taught not to follow our bodies and not to listen to its needs. You'd be surprised at the difference in someone's life if they allow themselves to breathe more deeply, even for just a few minutes a day," Orrit says.
"It can affect almost every aspect of their life - their way of communication, of moving their body, the digestion system, sleep, mood, sex life, their vitality and clarity of thought."
Traditionally, the first session focuses on diagnosis through a foot analysis, which reveals the client's main behavioral, mental and emotional patterns. During the analysis, the practitioner and client agree on the focus of the sessions and importantly, the measurable yardsticks through which change can be seen.
After just one intensely grueling and sometimes painful session focusing on my neck, I was left intrigued and curious for more. It was definitely not a "feel-good" or comfortable experience in the sense that I wasn't able to just relax and let the practitioner do the work.
But somehow in the weeks following the session, I thought more about what I was doing with my neck, how I was using it and what it felt like when I did so. In a way the work I did during the session only started to drip-feed through after the session in the form of awareness. To me, that was one of the gifts of the Grinberg Method.
"Our memories and history of our life live in us and move us. So if we change just one of our body habits, then the whole structure of our automatic pattern will also change and we will experience a new way of grasping this world and ourselves," Orrit explains.
"This basic assumption is what guides me to work with people through their bodies and not through the stories they tell themselves and me. Working through the body basically allows us to sidestep complex psychological beliefs. It points directly to the truth and creates magic."