Harold Dull

Harold Dull (born 1935) is an American aquatic bodyworker and poet best known as the creator of Watsu, originally developed in the early 1980s at Harbin Hot Springs, California. He is also known for his poetry, as founder of the Worldwide Aquatic Bodywork Association (WABA), and as creator of Tantsu and Tantsuyoga. Watsu is a form of aquatic bodywork in which a practitioner or therapist gently cradles, moves, stretches, and massages a receiver in chest-deep warm water for deep relaxation and aquatic therapy.

Harold Dull was born in 1935 in Seattle, Washington.

Harold Dull received his BA and MA degrees at the University of Washington. Dull also gained proficiency in several languages.

Dull began writing poetry in 1955, while a student of Stanley Kunitz and Theodore Roethke at the University of Washington. After graduation in 1957 he participated in regular meetings of poets with Jack Spicer and Robert Duncan in San Francisco, and published several small books of poetry with the San Francisco Renaissance presses Open Space and White Rabbit Press.

Starting in 1976, Dull studied in Zen Shiatsu in America and in Japan, where he studied with Shizuto Masunaga, the original creator of Shiatsu. He also studied with Reuho Yamada and Wataru Ohashi, the teachers who first introduced Shiatsu to the United States.

In the early 1980s, while teaching at the School of Shiatsu and Massage at Harbin Hot Springs, California, Harold Dull began adapting Zen Shiatsu for water. He experimented with floating people in the warm water natural springs, incorporating breathing patterns, meditative presence, and meridian stretches in sessions. He called this new form of aquatic bodywork Watsu, a contraction of Water Shiatsu. Dull discovered that Watsu induced deep relaxation, with profound physical and emotional effects.

Dull, with his background in creative arts, poetry, and English teaching, originally focused on Watsu as a meditative and nurturing practice, and emphasized "heart connection". In the 1980s Dull practiced and developed the techniques with various volunteers from the Harbin community, primarily massage therapists and yoga practitioners. Originally Watsu was developed for everybody – adolescents, young and old adults, pregnant women, athletes, and those suffering from stress. A wide variety of providers now offer Watsu, including psychologists, psychiatrists, physical therapists, massage therapists, and lay people.

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