Younger in 90 minutes
Lucy Vickery
The price is jaw-dropping — a whopping £188 for a massage. But once I’ve re-arranged my flustered features to resemble those of one who is perfectly at home in the A-list spas of the world, I start to get quite excited. For this is no ordinary massage that I’ve just booked, but a ‘rejuvenation session’; and if it costs that much, it must be good.
‘It is not a massage but you are massaged,’ it says in the brochure. ‘It’s not a lesson but you learn.’ I’m totally taken in by the pseudo-Confucian sales pitch and by the serene receptionist and her starched white lab-coat-style uniform. In fact, I could well be on the brink of unlocking the secret of night after night of deep, refreshing sleep and perpetual inner calm; of reversing the fatal effects of daily bombardment with free radicals.
The venue for my 90-minute metamor phosis is the Energy Clinic, ‘London’s premier rejuvenation centre’, a few streets away from Hawksmoor’s Christ Church in the East End. Given the exorbitant cost, I feel obliged to make the most of everything on offer, so even though I’m not thirsty I gulp down a complimentary glass of mineral water before being ushered into a lowceilinged rectangular room to change. It’s Zen meets Philippe Starck, a canny blend of ancient and modern that characterises the clinic. Its treatments promise to combine the wisdom of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) with cutting-edge science, a cocktail guaranteed to appeal to the target market of wealthy, stressed urban professionals seeking longevity and the meaning of life.
Music drifts down from wall-mounted Wharfedale speakers. I give my face a quick wipe with the free expensive cleanser provided, and a few minutes later my personal energy expert, whose name I can’t quite catch but who will play a key role in my rejuvenation, arrives to escort me to the rejuvenation chamber. I shuffle after him in my white robe and a pair of paper flip-flops that are quite difficult to walk in, past huge plate-glass windows beyond which Sundaymorning Spitalfields is swarming with strungout crowds. Immortality, here I come.
The chamber is Hammer Horror red and like the changing area it has low ceilings. I lower myself into one of three black leather Mastermind-style chairs. The other two are occupied: an expectant-looking man in one, his white-robed wife in the other. Seated opposite all three of us, flanked by flickering tea lights, is Matt, our black-silk-suited ‘life consultant’, who reminds me of the magician David Copperfield. He will provide a running commentary on the session, and let us in on some of the ancient Chinese secrets of rejuvenation. I half expect to be presented with a vial containing the elixir of life, but instead there is a choice of three rejuvenating teas — jasmine, to detox; chrysanthemum for calm; rose for inner beauty. I could do with all three but opt for jasmine. On a small side table sits a rejuvenating meal of strawberries, mango and succulent black grapes.
Matt gives a brief introduction. In 2003, it seems, the Energy Clinic was given an award by Vogue magazine for the best massage in the world. Wow! Not content with this accolade, though, it has been striving ever since to come up with something even better, and the rejuvenation session that we are about to enjoy is the result. Drawing on the theories of TCM, it is designed to boost life energy (qi).
On cue, our trio of personal energy experts files in. These young, vital, qiboosting men and women with middle or northern European accents exude health and wellbeing. They invite us to move on to the small black leather footstool opposite each of our chairs before taking up their positions behind us for the ‘meridian treatment’, which involves tapping our spines firmly with long-handled wooden Chinese hammers, up and down and across the shoulders, as though we were glockenspiels. The three are perfectly synchronised, which apparently creates a powerful energy field. These are not, we are told, indiscriminate blows but precisely calibrated to stimulate our energy points and release blockages.
Matt compares us to cars, a disappointingly mundane analogy. Energy is our fuel, he says. We need to keep it topped up to maintain efficient functioning. The image of a clapped-out Ford Cortina spluttering up the M1 floats into my mind. By now, the hammering seems to have been going on for quite a while and my back is beginning to ache. My expert did ask me to let him know if it got uncomfortable but, mesmerised by the master of ceremonies’ low, accented tones, I can’t summon up the energy to speak. The drummers turn their collective attention to our lower bodies as Matt gives us a crash course in the principles of Chinese medicine. It’s quite hard to concentrate on what he’s saying. The hammers beat a relentless path to the soles of the feet, prompting a lesson in the basics of reflexology. ‘Your whole body is contained in your foot,’ Matt explains.
At last the drumming stops. My energy expert slips on a pair of latex gloves and embarks on a foot and lower leg massage using a special Chinese red-flower oil designed to boost the circulation. This bit could go on for ever, for all I care, but all too soon it’s over.
I can’t believe we’re only halfway through; I feel as though we’ve been here for hours. I don’t know if it’s because it was such a welcome respite from the hammers, but the massage was glorious and I’m ready to surrender myself completely to the black leather chair, to Matt’s broken English and to the slightly suffocating hot towel that has been draped over my face to prepare the way for a Tibetan herbal facial mask containing 20 rejuvenating herbs. Now that I’m enjoying myself so much, time starts to speed up and the rest of the treatment zips by in a deeply pleasurable blur. As the rigid muscles of my upper body soften under my expert’s skilled fingers, the disembodied voice becomes slower and more hypnotic. ‘Your energy expert is here to make you feel safe and relaxed,’ it says. And I do.
It is with great reluctance, then, that I heave myself out of the leather chair at the end of the session and bid farewell to this Feng Shui’d haven. And as I elbow my way through the bustle of grey, rainy E1, hanging on for dear life to my newly found sense of tranquillity, I ask myself whether I’m worth it: would I again shell out nearly 200 quid for 90 minutes’ worth of undivided pampering? There is a touch of the Stepfords about the preternaturally calm staff of the Energy Clinic, and, as they explain to you on your way out that the true benefits come only with repeated treatments, you sense that not far beneath the veneer of concern for your wellbeing is a ruthless selling machine. But I’d go along with Dawn, one of my fellow-rejuvenatees and a veteran of luxury spas, who said to me enthusiastically as we were getting dressed afterwards, ‘Well, I’ve never experienced anything quite like that.’ And, let’s face it, it’s not everywhere you get the best massage in the world.
Energy Clinic, 132 Commercial Street, London E1 (www.energyclinicuk.com). Tel: 020 7650 0718.
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