Tantra massage in a quiet Schiphol hotel room

Tantra massage is slow, breath-led work that takes its pace from the guest rather than from the clock. In an airport hotel room it has one great advantage: it is almost silent. There is no gel, no running water and very little conversation, only breathing, warm oil and a long unbroken rhythm, which makes it well suited to a building where the walls are thin and the corridor is quiet after eleven. It suits a particular kind of tiredness, the kind where the body is exhausted and the mind refuses to switch off. After a long-haul flight that state is common. The mind is still running on the time zone it left, rehearsing the meeting, replaying the delay. Tantra draws attention out of that loop and into the room. Ninety minutes is where it starts to make sense, and two hours is where it settles.

Where it comes from

Tantra is a family of spiritual traditions from medieval India, in which breath, attention and the body are treated as one system rather than three. The massage offered in Western cities borrows a small part of that inheritance: the emphasis on breathing, the slow pace and the idea that stillness is part of the work rather than an interruption of it. It is a modern practice with old roots, and it has spread wherever people have found that ordinary massage relaxes the body but leaves the mind running.

The technique

Breathing sets the tempo. She breathes slowly and audibly at the start so that the guest can follow, and her strokes run with the out-breath rather than across it. The hands move in long passes that connect distant parts of the body, from the shoulders to the feet, so the whole body is felt as one surface. Pressure is light to moderate. Pauses are deliberate, with her hands resting still for several breaths before moving on.

What to expect

She begins by changing the room: one low light, the heating up, the curtains closed properly, the phone put face down somewhere out of reach. Before any touch she talks briefly about the breathing and sets out her limits, which hold for the whole session. The first part is slow and may feel almost too slow. Her hands move in long, even passes while she keeps the breathing steady, and the pace gradually pulls yours into line with it. There are pauses in which nothing much happens, and those pauses are part of the work. Towards the end the pace slows again, and the session closes in stillness.

Who it suits

The guest whose mind is racing when the body is spent. The long-haul arrival who has tried sleeping and failed. Someone preparing for a difficult meeting who needs the rehearsal to stop. And anyone who has had conventional massage many times and wants something that works on attention as much as on muscle.

Benefits

Guests describe a quiet head more often than loose muscles, though both happen. For a traveller whose body clock is several hours adrift, the breathing is often what finally makes sleep possible. The evening loses its sense of being between two flights and becomes simply an evening.

Length

Ninety minutes at 270 euros is the shortest length at which tantra has room to work. Two hours at 360 is where most guests settle. An hour at 180 is possible but tends to end just as the pace has taken hold. Three hours at 540 suits an evening with nothing at its far end.

In the room you have

Tantra massage in airport hotel rooms at Schiphol, Schiphol-Rijk and Schiphol-Oost by arrangement and across central Amsterdam, outcall only, ninety minutes and longer.

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