We are going to experience a Tibetan-inspired approach to Tummo, designed to enable everyone to reconnect with nature and commune with the living world. In essence, this age-old practice comes to us from the yogis of the Himalayas and the Tibetan yogis, and the life of a yogi is not that of a Westerner. For indeed, we are not chaste, very few of us are vegetarian, we do not hold ourselves apart from consumerism and we are not sages. So our approach will not be one of total surrender to the universal consciousness, but rather an approach focused on wellness whose effects today demonstrate that stimulating the body and mind has many benefits. Nonetheless, we owe it to ourselves to practice with a certain intensity in order to trigger the mechanisms of transformation (tapas) and thus free ourselves from certain neuroses. I’ll come back to these different aspects at the end of this text. In the meantime, I’m going to give you a few basic points to make your experience a success and enable you to enjoy yourself without any danger.

Don’t take a hot shower after the practice, bring warm clothes, make sure it is three hours since your last meal or herbal drink, have shoes that are easy to put back on when you come out of the river, and prepare a thermos of hot water to hydrate yourself afterwards.

My more than twenty years of practice with Maurice Daubard and my thirty or so trips to the Himalayas (Nepal, Tibet, Kirgistan, Ladak, Himachal, Kashmir, northern India, etc.) and the many encounters I’ve had with some of the masters who live there, have given me a wealth of experience that today enables me to work with all kinds of people in this intense communion, according to each individual’s profile and desire for transformation. We will adapt the experience in the knowledge that, despite everything remaining absolutely optional, we will ensure that it can be a truly yogic and existential rite of passage.

In Zinal, we’re lucky enough to be able to enjoy the fresh, clean air and immerse ourselves in crystal-clear water, charged with the memory of the glaciers and the purity of the mountain’s Prana. We are going to be given the opportunity to rejuvenate ourselves. We cannot separate the practice of Tummo from that of Yoga, so apart from potentially being therapeutic it is first and foremost a tool for awakening awareness and preventing possible pathologies. The natural setting is a gift which you are going to make the most of, because this age-old practice cannot be experienced using ice cubes produced by nuclear electricity, in plastic tubs filled with chlorinated water where each person in turn deposits their tension and their traumas… allowing, if I may say so, the ones who go last to reap more harm than good.

As for us, we’ll have the pleasure of being immersed in water that is full of life, and that will stimulate your own life. We will feel exhilarated by a still-preserved environment where living water will act as a healing agent on all levels. Of course, we will warm up with Pranayama practices and regular awareness practices. I’ll take the time to get to know you and observe you, so that I can support you as best I can and help you determine your limits. If you suffer from heart problems or psychological pathologies (bipolarity, schizophrenia, borderline…), please inform me before the beginning of the practices.

In the world of Yoga, I’m known as an intense Yogi who wants to take his time without wasting it, in order to get to the heart of the matter which creates some distance with our modern lives and at the same time holds back our process of liberation. During this week together, we will give ourselves the opportunity to come together joyfully.

After reading these recommendations, I suggest that you start to take cold showers and start exposing yourself to cold air, so that you arrive in Zinal already feeling adapted and confident. You can also visualise your upcoming immersions in a gentle, comfortable context and then start talking to your cells.