Topanga Canyon Retreat 

Bernhard Guenther's home studio is a peaceful retreat in Topanga Canyon. Surrounded by trees and twittering birds, the space vibrates with positive spiritual energy. After getting comfortable on the heated massage table in his cozy treatment room, we could already feel our tension seeping away. Feeling so relaxed before the session even begins is always a good sign of what’s to come, and Bernhard's massage more than lived up to the promise.

Bernhard takes a holistic mind, body and spirit approach to bodywork, specializing in deep tissue, craniosacral, sensory repatterning, Thai massage, Swedish massage and energy work/chakra balancing. For our treatment, he used a combination of therapies. He began with slow and steady deep tissue work to target areas of tension, and then moved on to Thai massage, stretching the arms, shoulders, neck and legs. He also used gentle kneading motions to awaken and relax the muscles and promote better circulation. After an hour on Bernhard's table we had completely forgotten our problems and drifted into a dreamlike state of total relaxation. Bernhard is also available for house calls, but the sense of peace we felt at his Topanga studio was more than worth the drive.

Review originally published 11/1/2007.