What is Lomi Lomi Hawaiian Massage

What is Lomi Lomi Hawaiian massage and what makes it different from other styles of bodywork?

If you’ve followed me for a while, you know I talk about it often because Lomi is SO MUCH MORE than a massage!

It’s a way of being. Lomi is a lifestyle. It’s a set of specific and therapeutic massage techniques, intuitive guidance, and flow.

This week, I’m going to share with you the results of a recent poll I put out on social media with a simple question. Hundreds of Lomi practitioners and clients chimed in to share their answers and I’ve picked some of the best for you.

What is Lomi?

• Lomi Lomi is an ancient Hawaiian healing practice that is traditionally passed through families born of the islands and the people they nourished. It is a way of bringing balance to the body and the spirit. This intuitive work utilizes native plants, connection to spirit, knowledge of structures of the body and the wisdom of the bones. Lomi reaches through all different layers of the body and helps to spread the ancient teachings of those that come before us around the world with aloha. – Cassandra Hammond, LMT. Ho’omana Spa Maui.
  

• Lomi is to be connected to yourself, having so much love that you have an extra one to give to others. It is to love and care for one another with your hands. It’s to respect people’s bodies. The bodywork is just a fraction of it…Lomi and love work in symbiosis – flowing, expanding can open our hearts. One must be in deep understanding of the protocol and responsibility. Lomi is a kuleana, a responsibility to be a Pono representation of who you learned from and share it moving forward. – Miriam Quintero

• Lomi is an ancient traditional therapy that has a holistic approach. It includes a strong spiritual foundation based in unconditional love, systemic massage techniques, prayer and chants for raising one’s vibration. – Kela Yzeiraj, LMT. Ho’omana Spa.

• I usually say it’s a healing massage session passed down through the generations. It’s energetic, it’s emotional, and it focuses on talk story to help the client release negative or unneeded emotions. – Rebecca Zendell

• It’s an experience of aloha and connection to your ancestors, spirit, deep relaxation, which can give you insight in your thoughts and where you store tension in your body. Let your body drift away on the flow of the deep, long strokes. – Lau de la Via

• Lomi is not just a style of massage. It’s a way of life and honoring and respecting the teaching traditions and lineage of our kumu, Hawaii, and the Aloha spirit. – Renee Alohaliahokulani Hallet

• Lomi is a traditional form of Hawaiian touch medicine that embodies the word Aloha it’s loving, prayerful work that honors a person’s physical, spiritual, emotional nature. It works down to the level of the bones, releasing muscular tension, creating space within the body. It incorporates chanting, plant medicine, a connection to the land and awareness of the healing powers within each individual. It also honors and invokes the healing that comes from creator, God, Ke Akua, Source. Illah Folsom, LMT. Ho’omana Spa.

• Lomi Lomi is work done to make something new with loving intention. We use our hands, feet, forearms, elbows, stones…anything it takes! In Lomi, we allow spirit to guide us through shaping molding, creating a new reality for the person who’s lying on our table.  – Vicki Wood, LMT. Ho’omana Spa Maui.

• Salt. Love. And healing. – Ali Liupasco

When someone asks, what is lomi is, I’d say “Try it. You’ll like it.” – Patty

• Healing massage requires the practitioner to approach their work from a place of alignment and connection. Calling upon the spirit of Aloha and the strength of source to reach the client right, where they are at in that moment and show them a glimpse of peace. – Haley Tamea

• A traditional Hawaiian healing practice that works through the tension and trauma in the soft tissues with the intention of reaching down to the bones, tapping into the mana, which is our life force. The mana of our own unique journey and lineage promotes healing and alignment. – Tim Kiri

• Pure wellness through loving human touch and Aloha. – Tata Pellegrini

• Wait, I’ll try to explain it to you. “Aloha. So much love. Light work. Huna, which is the hidden, those things that are the unseen. Magic.” And I will be done in a few hours later. There’s too much to explain such a beautiful, magical experience. – Joyce Putts

• A prayerful flowing massage energy healing, like into waves flowing over the body that helps the body mind and spirit come into alignment. – Angel Hultz

• Coming home – Linzi Eason

What does Lomi Lomi mean to you? What would you say if someone asked you what is Lomi Lomi?

Well, Lomi Lomi is all of these things.

My Kumu, Aunty Mahilani Poepoe, told me the word originally comes from the act of lovingly massaging salt into the body, purifying their journey into the next place. Watch this video to learn more:

Lomi has roots in hula, our way of embodying the elements. Hula was a way of storytelling and connection with spirit to tell our history. A spiritual act.

It was very spiritual for us, a way of honoring the elements, the ancestors, and source spirit.

Lua, the Hawaiian martial art form, is another important foundation of Lomi Lomi. Auntie Mahi told me Lua was 99% spirituality and 1% fight.

Lua was a discipline. It was a way of harnessing your mana (life force) and harnessing the mana around you or the life force around you. 

The warriors were also the healers. They used the same points to disable the body and also to heal the body.

Hula, Lua, Lomi – all of these traditions have continued on through time.

In our Hawaiian philosophy, everything is aligned and has equal importance: body, mind, spirit, and emotional body. 

Health and wellness is assured when all of these come into alignment. We start to draw alignment in any one of these areas, whether it’s the emotional body through Ho’oponopono, the physical body through Lomi Lomi, the spiritual body through chants and prayers, or we ask the plants of the land to support in the healing

The final piece is the individual’s unique ability to bring healing to themselves. 

I believe healing comes from source and it comes when we’re ready to receive it. Healing comes from within by means of love.

When we as practitioners, hold a sacred space, drawing upon our guidance, angels, ancestors and great spirit to come and support us, I believe that healing can happen on any one of those levels. 

This is the magic and transformation of Lomi Lomi.

>>Now, it’s your turn…what is Lomi Lomi to you? I read every comment and it would really make my day to hear your thoughts.