Benefits of Mayan Abdominal Massage
Rosita Arvigo and Don Elijio
How Arvigo Maya Massage developed
In 1983, Chicago native Rosita Arvigo, a doctor of naturopathy (D.N.) began an intensive 12-year apprenticeship with one of the last living Maya shamans in Central America. Don Elijio Panti was already 90 years old when Arvigo began to study with him in his tiny, remote village of San Antonio in Western Belize, not far from the Guatemalan border.
The Maya abdominal massage Arvigo learned from Elijio is performed in a slow, deep, penetrating manner which releases deep muscle tissue spasms in the entire abdominal area, prevents and corrects the fallen, tilted uterus, and facilitates the normal flow of blood, lymph, nerves and chi throughout the entire body.
Based on over thirty years of training and experience in massage, naprapathy, herbology, and spiritual healing, Dr. Rosita Arvigo developed these techniques which now bear her name. This modality incorporates a holistic approach to health care which includes massage, anatomy and physiology, herbology, nutrition, and emotional and spiritual healing. Dr. Arvigo believes that with any natural healing technique, these areas must be simultaneously addressed to promote optimal health.
Don Elijio believed that a woman’s center is her uterus. “If a woman’s uterus is out of balance, so is she,” he would say. Midwives and healers of Central America agree that most female troubles are caused by the wandering womb. Don Elijio passed away in 1996 at the age of 103. Rosita also studied with Hortence Robinson, a 73 year old herbal midwife of Belize who has been delivering babies since she was 13.
Arvigo says the uterus is a woman’s “second brain” and comprises the spiritual center of her being.
Arvigo calls her apprentices “the womb savers.” She has now trained nearly 200 practitioners in the United States, Italy, Belize and Barbados. This core of students, made up mostly of women, are creating for themselves an entirely new profession based on these healing modalities of the ancient Maya.
“We are finding that about 30% of female infertility is due to a misplaced uterus which can be corrected,” says Arvigo. “It is certainly worth a try before resorting to invasive and expensive medical procedures. My teacher used to say it is only natural for people to seek out the help of medical doctors, after natural remedies have not been able to alleviate their suffering. So for heaven’s sake, why not try a natural, non-invasive, inexpensive and safe treatment before resorting to drastic measures like in vitro fertilization or surgery. It just makes so much more sense to me”.
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