Welcome to MELTING THE DRAGON!

With over 3 decades in the healing arts, Tonia Hafter has developed an eclectic approach to massage and healing. Her early explorations in Asian medicine led her to study Shiatsu, Chinese Medicine, Thai Massage, Chi Nei Tsang and Taoist Medicinal Nutrition and Cooking. Tonia received her certification as a Tui Na Medical Massage Therapist from the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine in 2001. Soon thereafter, she began her studies of Wuji Gong and Qigong healing with Grandmaster Fu Wei Zhong in California. The next year, she went to Thailand to study Thai Massage and study Reiki. Tonia continued her Reiki studies in India and in 2006, she was accredited as a Reiki Master in Granada, Spain.

A dedication and passion to the healing arts has taken her far and wide to experience other modalities that she integrates into her healing sessions. Travels, studies and personal experiences in Mexico, India, Europe and Thailand have provided her a travelers wisdom and a deeper understanding of the human psyche. Her healing approach is culled from Taoist meditations, shamanic healing sounds and visualizations, TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) theory, Energy Healing and Qigong practices that help to unify the physical body with the mind and spirit. She now fuses these tools with her innate intuitive healing gifts and light energy into a holistic approach that she calls MELTING THE DRAGON.

Melting the Dragon is a holistic approach encompassing physical therapy, energy healing, massage, breathwork and sounding. Tonia works with you to treat chronic and acute pain and discomfort due to accidents, sports injuries, repetitive stress, emotional pain, trauma and overwork. Tonia strives to provide you with a proper and complete healing approach in accordance with your needs and personal preferences. Treatments may be done in English, Spanish and French.

Customized Classes in Qigong, Massage and Reiki are available on request for groups based on specific needs.

Personal coaching to support your healing may include:

• Customized Qigong and Yoga exercises
• Self Massage techniques
• Personalized guided meditations
• TCM nutritional counseling for healing
• Reprogramming Breathwork

Make an agreement with yourself to pay attention to your intuition, to your body sensations, and to your own antenna. As you go through the exciting and emotional process of casting off layers, you will change and you will find your needs will change. It is a journey of learning to trust your own intuition.

The beginning of ones healing process starts with your decision to embark on the journey. Meet someone in whose presence you can grow and heal. You may seek different helpers along the way towards the light. We find our truth through that inner knowing, not necessarily through logic. Trust your intuition, trust your guts. And you will find your helper.

Rates:

• 90 minute session: $160- $180. Series of 5 sessions: $700.
• All sessions include personalized coaching.

* My preference is to do 90 min sessions. Feel free to call to discuss your situation.
* All of my sessions include Reiki and Energy Healing unless otherwise specified by you.

Traditional Chinese Medicine Nutritional Counseling

TCM Nutritional Counseling empowers you to find a good balance for your own constitution and your present condition, so you can do something to be as healthy as you wish. Based on Taoist nutritional theory, yin yang theory and food energetics, I assist you with the tools to make your own choices for your own situation.

TCM nutrition is an approach to using food as fuel or in the case of humans, medicine. Meats, vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds and grains all have different energetic properties. Sugars, spices, herbs, even different alcoholic drinks have different energetics. Depending on your constitution, your activities, your environment, the time you sleep and if you are exercising, your nutritional needs will vary and it’s good to be aware of how your decisions affect how you are feeling mentally and physically.

You may come to see me for chronic shoulder pain or for belly discomfort, or for sciatica, which may be treated with bodywork. When appropriate, I often help you to explore what the source of the pain may be offering a complete treatment approach to bring you more comfort and energy. This may take changing your morning routine or reviewing your shopping list. Your treatment will be far more effective if I can offer you something to help you make informed decisions about how you nourish yourself. People tend to eat exactly what is exacerbating their problem.

Common scenarios:
A young woman complains of feeling cold all the time, especially at night. She also suffers from feeling bloated and lacking energy, but she is so happy to be keeping her weight low she eats lots of salads and yogurt and cold vegetarian fare. I may suggest adding in more spice to her diet, more cooked foods, and less dairy products.

Someone with sciatica for instance may realize during our session that they are in fact a little angry about one thing or another. They might find that decreasing their intake of coffee and other dehydrating foods and increasing a green leafy dish to their menu might be helpful to reduce tension and tightness in their tendons.

The body and mind find a harmony between pure yang and pure yin. This state of equilibrium can be balanced with food and drink when we understand more about food energetics which traditional chinese medicine offers.

Qigong

Qigong literally means the practice of cultivating life force energy. The word Qi is interpreted as energy or life force. Qi is the same as Universal energy, Prana in Hindi, and Ruach in Hebrew. Gong refers to working at something, or practicing something, which is then cultivated by that practice. The word Qigong is also found written as: Qi gong, Chi Kung or Chi Gung. Qigong is practiced traditionally in China for three different intentions:

• Qigong for martial arts training
• Spiritual Qigong
• Medical Qigong

Qigong for martial arts training builds concentration, force and the ability to manipulate qi.

Spiritual Qigong prepares a person for enlightenment. These practices are more internal.

Medical Qigong is practiced to prevent dis-ease, strengthen the organs, enhance protective qi, calm the mind and heal the body from dis-ease, bringing it into a state of balance. Medical Qigong is not only used for treatment of dis-harmony. It is also useful for longevity and prevention. Preventive treatment is often seen as more important in ancient Chinese philosophy. Traditional Chinese Medicine views health as a balanced state of yin and yang in the mind, body, and spirit, known as Shen.

Medical Qigong is employed to:

• Eliminate or balance excessive negative emotions like anger, grief, worry, and fear, which would harm the body if left untreated.
• Balance external pathogens coming from the environment, such as Cold, Heat, Dryness, and Dampness, to purify the human body.
• Balance a person’s Qi by either increasing their Qi or decreasing the influences of pathogens to counteract the imbalanced condition within the internal organs and channels.
• Regulate and balance the client’s Yin and Yang energy, bringing it back into harmony.
• Relieve pain
• Detoxification
• Correct internal organ dysfunctions
• Strengthen bodily resistance
• Promote circulation of Qi, Blood and Shen

Medical Qigong therapy includes different modalities:

Distance Healing requires the Qigong practitioner to manipulate a client’s Qi by focusing on the energetic properties of the client’s channels, collaterals, and points, as well as internal organs. This is done from a distance of several inches, several feet or even several miles away.

Self-Healing Qigong, also called Qigong Prescriptions and Client Homework, are Qigong exercises. They consist of postures, movements, sound vibrations, and visualizations. They are given to clients by a practitioner. Clients use these Qigong techniques to regulate their own health in support of the treatment, using various lying, sitting, moving and standing postures. The clients may also use meditation techniques or their own spiritual belief system as a healing tool.

Qigong Bodywork Therapy or Energy healing is a soft-tissue regulation technique. It differs from Anmo or Tuina, the Chinese External Bodywork Therapy, in that the practitioner’s hand skims the client’s energy body with a very light touch. The light skimming action is used to dredge the client’s external channel Qi, causing energy to be released from the internal channels themselves which serve as pathways for Qi transference.

Sound Resonation Therapy or sound healing, can be used in Medical Qigong for breaking up energetic stagnations. It requires the practitioner to project sound vibration deep into the client’s tissues. When the resonate sound penetrates the client’s body it causes massive chaotic vibrational patterns that disrupt the body’s normal energetic flow. This energetic disruption softens and liquefies the client’s stagnant Qi and is the primary reason why clients are given healing sound therapy homework prescriptions.

Invisible Needle Therapy involves the visualization of imaginary needles of light being inserted into specific points on the client’s body. This can also be achieved by inserting actual needles into a model of a human being at particular acupoints. This is done with the same intention that one would have in doing an actual acupuncture session on the person’s body. The actual needles or the needles of light are used to stimulate and direct the client’s Qi. Although this sounds very similar to a technique used in voodoo, invisible needle therapy is done to heal without any other confusing intentions.

Shen Gong Therapy offers patients a safe and effective way to rid themselves of years of painful toxic emotions that otherwise can cause mental and physical illness.

Dao Yin Therapy combines breathing techniques with physical movement, and creative visualization to improve the patient’s health. These specific energetic techniques use the knowledge of the body’s internal organ systems as well as internal and external energy fields to:

• Purge: Remove excess conditions, break up stagnations and remove toxins
• Tonify: Strengthen deficient conditions and weak organs
• Regulate: Balance and harmonize the body’s Jing, Qi, Blood, Body Fluids, and Shen

Medical Qigong is often combined with other techniques, such as acupuncture and herbal treatments. in addition, Medical Qigong can include counseling and consulting. Through the conversation, a Qigong practitioner works on clients with his tone, his voice and his energy.

The Medical Qigong classes include energetic anatomy and physiology, diagnosis and symptomology, energetic psychology, Qigong pathology, Medical Qigong therapy, as well as a survey of other related medical modalities. The other related modalities include a comprehensive understanding of herbal medicine, acupuncture therapy, Chinese massage, Asian dietary therapy, and Western Medicine anatomy and physiology.

Medical Qigong Massage

Depending on the strength and direction of hand, the power sinking into the body differs. Consequently some reach only the skin, some to the pulses, muscle and even marrow. The effects of medical Qigong massage have been affirmed by people who have experienced it. They report the relieving of the bones and muscles, detumescence, acesodyne, adjusting dislocation of the joints, and removal of muscle spasms.

Besides massages for healing the body, there are also massages for keeping fit. Kneading the acupoints around eyes can give you good eyesight. Massaging simply and exactly on the three acupoints of head can quickly relax yourself. Massaging the feet, known as reflexology in the west, can reflect the effects on all parts of the human body. The feet have a close relationship with the whole body and are known as the ‘second heart’.

Biography

Tonia Hafter is a holistic intuitive massage therapist practicing an integrative approach to healing. MELTING THE DRAGON MASSAGE integrates bodywork and physical therapy with energy work to relieve pain and distress. The work is based on Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) principles with formal and intuitive healing methods that include Tui Na medical massage and other forms of clothed body therapies, including Qigong healing and Reiki healing. Tonia offers her students and clients nutritional counseling and personalized coaching for self care. Her intention is to empower her students and patients by offering them the tools they can call upon to participate in their healing.

Formal Training

• Graduate of American College of Chinese Medicine, Médical Tui Na program, 2002 with Dr. Rocky Wang, San Francisco, Calif.
• Shiatsu & Thai massage studies at Shiatsu Institute, SF 1991.
• Practitioner of Oriental Massage since 1992.
• Chi Nei Tsang studies with Gilles Marin, Berkeley, CA. 1991-2006.
• Cosmic Healing & Chi Nei Tsang with Mantak Chia, Taoist Garden & Calif 2009.
• Medical Qigong, Tui Na and Wuji Gong studies with Grandmaster Fu Wei Zhong, of the school of Da Dao Chan Gong in 2001. Certified Wuji Gong Instructor
• Reiki Master since 2006
• Initiated into Green Tara by Lama Kunga Thartse Rinpoche in Kensington, California 2006
• California Certified Massage Therapist certificate #36001

Tonia’s specialties include Tui Na Therapeutic Massage, Shiatsu, Thai Massage, Chi Nei Tsang (abdominal massage), Cranial Sacral, breathwork, toning, guided meditation and other personally evolved practices. She includes customized self healing exercises and nutritional counseling to support your healing process, taking into consideration your personality and lifestyle.

Assists her students and patients to:

• Reduce inflammation and pain in the joints
• Recover faster from injuries and surgeries ; especially hip and pelvic pain
• Recover from repetitive stress injuries like frozen shoulder, tennis elbow,
  carpal tunnel syndrome and neck and shoulder pain
• Regain better circulation and increase energy
• Increase their range of motion
• Increath their breath capacity
• Open their voices
• Reduce anxiety and nervousness
• Find relief from abdominal “knots” and stress
• Work with post traumatic stress symptoms
• Learn Self Healing techniques
• Personalize their diets to achieve maximum health

Tonia worked in a post traumatic stress clinic serving victims of the war in Bosnia served to help develop her personalized MELTING THE DRAGON approach to healing. She’s collaborated with Karma Clinic and the Berkeley Acupuncture Project and has been in private practice since 2002 seeing all different kind of patients in northern California, Switzerland, the Virgin Islands France and Spain.

She has studied and practiced various forms of Yoga since her youth and Qigong since 1991. She holds a yoga teaching certificate from Shivananda School of Yoga in Trivanderum, India, and has studied and practiced different Daoist forms of meditation and qigong since the early 90’s with various teachers and masters in the U.S. and in Thailand.

Tonia’s qigong, self healing and Reiki classes have taken place in Harbin Hot Springs, Women at Risk programs in Marin, Oklahoma City, St. Johns Island, Arriege, France, Bordeaux, France, Barcelona, Spain and soon in Jalapa, Veracruz and Mexico City. She has traveled extensively in Asia, Europe and Mexico and is fluent in Spanish and French.