Bodywork · East London
Felt — holistic massage and bodywork in Leytonstone, East London. Slow, attuned massage for the nervous system. David Darch.
Let your body be heard.
Slow, attuned bodywork that calms
your nervous system and gently
encourages you to let go.
What are you carrying?
A session with me is lead by what you bring to the table. There are no routines. I move between deep and barely-there, dynamic movement and total stillness.
Perhaps you’ve been longing for…
- ▸ A renewed memory of what deep rest feels like
- ▸ A release of something your body had forgotten it held
- ▸ A rest from an over-stimulated and dysregulated mind
- ▸ An experience of stillness and spaciousness
- ▸ The feeling that, here and now, everything is OK
Twenty years learning to heal myself
I found myself with no choice but to learn how to heal myself from chronic pain. I tried everything I could find. Much later I came to understand that my nervous system had locked into a high-alert state.
I learnt to accept and become curious. I learnt to listen.
Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water.
Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible, nothing can surpass it.
The soft overcomes the hard;
the gentle overcomes the rigid.Everyone knows this is true,
but few can put it into practice.
Now when I work I experience the body's resistance and tension as if I'm working on my own body. Through years of trial and painful error I came to the conclusion that, more often than not, the most effective way to release tension in the body is to calm, to soothe, to acknowledge with gratitude and to gently encourage letting go.
A conversation with your body
It's important for me to understand what you’re bringing to our session, and what you want to leave behind. Then I work slowly, with curiosity - discovering, instead of performing a set routine. I use a wide range of pressure and technique, depending on what your body needs to feel safe and let go.
My approach is to have a conversation with each muscle and its connective tissue through my fingertips — to hold the muscle, to thank it for its intention to protect you, and to gently let it know it can relax now. That energy returned back to the body becomes part of your vital, alive self.
As a musician with a love for improvising, I've learned to listen carefully, and respond intuitively.
Why so slow?
There's a reason the pace is slow. The skin has a set of nerve fibres that respond to one thing only: gentle, unhurried touch, at the speed a parent uses with a child.
They don't report pressure or position. They send a single message, to the part of the brain that handles feeling rather than thinking: you're safe.
How I work
I use two main massage styles when I work: Trigger Point Therapy for releasing muscular and nervous system tension precisely, alongside Dan Joy's Lomi Lohi - a slowed down version of the Hawaiian Lomi Lomi style - holistic soothing and calming of the whole muscular and nervous system.
I work intuitively but I highly value your input. At any point I encourage you to communicate verbally or non-verbally and direct me to what your body is directly telling you that it needs.
At the same time you're also very welcome to drop deeply into your experience and let me work with what I'm hearing.
I strive to work the big picture and the fine detail.
But it's the same message at both ends of the scale:
It’s OK,
Here, it’s safe for you to let go.
This might not be for you if…
- ▸ You want your muscles systematically ironed out
- ▸ You believe massage needs to hurt to do you any good
- ▸ You're not ready to hear what your body has been trying to tell you
- ▸ You want a garage-style service: drop the body off, collect it later
This IS for you if… you're ready to let go
Our session together is an opportunity
for your entire system to expand
and experience more spaciousness.
It's an opportunity for you to feel
as deeply as is right for you, right now.
To feel seen, heard, and held.
What people say
“The experience today has shifted something inside me — brought me closer into connection with the path I want to align to. I'm grateful beyond words that can be expressed. I'm blessed to be a recipient of your heart's magic.”
“My first session with Dave was ninety minutes of depth, presence and letting go in massage form. Dave was incredibly attuned to what was going on with my body that day, and I had complete trust in his ability to give me the reset I needed. This is what massage should be like — a personal experience with care at its heart. I need more of this in my life and couldn't recommend it more.”
60 minutes £75
A full session, for maintenance once we know each other.
Who this is for
- Regular clients
- A reset for a busy week
- More regular support through a challenging or stressful period
What you get
An hour together, with a short check-in at the start and a few minutes to come back into yourself at the end. For your first few visits, the 75 gives us the time to talk first.
75 minutes £95
Time to go slow, because the nervous system needs time to feel safe.
Who this is for
- First visits, so we have time to talk properly before the work starts
- Anyone who finds an hour ends just as they're starting to let go
- Most people, most of the time
What you get
Still the sweet spot for many, even highly experienced meditators and yoga teachers. We also get time to pause, still in contact, to feel those moments of stillness. This is often where the body feels it can open up and tell us what we haven't yet been able to hear.
90 minutes £110
Time for the whole body, and for more focused work.
Who this is for
- Chronic tension in more than one place, and the patterns a body has been slowly reinforcing over many years
- The focused work: RSI, sciatica, a frozen shoulder
- People who know their nervous system needs time to let go into safety
What you get
90 minutes gives us the time to ease in and ease out of the session, allowing you to drop into a deeper state of relaxation and take more of that with you back into your daily life. We have time for more detailed, specific release as well as the holistic whole body and whole nervous system work.
120 minutes £140
The whole ritual at its fullest. Perhaps a gift to your future self or someone you love.
Who this is for
- Someone whose schedule doesn't allow for regular sessions with me
- As a gift for someone special to you
- When you want to experience the whole ritual at its fullest
- When you want to drop in as deeply as you can
What you get
A longer arrival, more stillness, greater depth. Two hours of uninterrupted time to be guided out of your head and into your body.
Leytonstone home studio · by appointment. Not sure which length? Say hello and we'll work it out.