Earth Essence - An Exploration of Zenthai Shiatsu and the Earth Element

Zenthai Shiatsu: Exploring the Earth Element 🌎

Come home to the qualities of the Earth Element — grounding, stillness, nourishment, presence and connection.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, Earth is associated with stability, nourishment, digestion, care and a sense of belonging. Earth invites us to slow down, settle, receive and reconnect with what supports us.

In this immersive workshop, we’ll explore the Spleen and Stomach meridians, associated with the Earth Element. Through mindful sensing, acupressure points, movement and therapeutic touch, you’ll discover these meridian pathways and explore how Zenthai Shiatsu can support a deeper sense of grounding and embodied presence.

We’ll weave together yoga, mindful movement, assisted stretching and Zenthai Shiatsu bodywork, creating an opportunity to both give and receive nourishing touch. Rather than striving or doing, this is an invitation to soften, listen and experience the body from a place of greater stillness and awareness.

What you’ll experience

• Grounding and nourishment through the qualities and wisdom of the Earth Element.

• Somatic exploration of the Spleen & Stomach meridians, including mindful sensing, acupressure points and therapeutic movement.

• Gentle, conscious touch through Zenthai Shiatsu, exploring assisted stretching, rhythmic movement and bodywork.

• An Earth-inspired yoga practice, weaving together breath, slow movement and embodied awareness.

• Space to receive and restore, allowing the body and nervous system to settle into greater ease.

• Journaling and reflection, creating an opportunity to explore presence, nourishment and what helps you feel grounded and supported.

• Seasonal nourishment, with a beautiful Earth Element-inspired afternoon tea included.

No previous experience with Zenthai Shiatsu is required. Come ready to slow down, connect, explore and receive.

Led by Michelle Freeman & Christine Rossouw

Michelle Freeman

Michelle Freeman is a yoga teacher with over 30 years of experience in movement, mindfulness and embodied practice. Based on the Sunshine Coast, she is the owner of Nambour Yoga Centre, where she leads teacher trainings, workshops and retreats both locally and internationally.

Michelle’s teaching weaves together vinyasa, yin, breathwork and meditation, grounded in a deep respect for traditional yoga philosophy and modern understanding. She creates warm, inclusive spaces that invite connection, self-inquiry and a return to simplicity, supporting students to move, breathe and live with greater awareness and ease.

Her teaching is rooted in a deep reverence for traditional yoga practices and the cultivation of a calm and peaceful state of mind. Michelle makes annual trips to India to study with her primary yoga teacher, Dr. Vidwan Vijaya Kumar, and also has a background in Exercise Physiology and yoga therapy.

Michelle is a qualified Zenthai Shiatsu therapist and Zenthai Flow teacher, having completed her training in 2017. She brings together the ancient wisdom of yoga with contemporary movement and bodywork practices to help people feel more free, embodied and connected.

Christine Rossouw

Christine Rossouw is a yoga teacher, storyteller and Zenthai Shiatsu therapist. Her journey with yoga began two decades ago, and through years as both student and teacher, she has developed a deep reverence for the rich traditions, philosophy and teachings of yoga.

A lifelong seeker, Christine’s inquiry into the human experience has led her into the study of mythology, astrology, neuroscience, eco-somatics and bodywork. Her classes invite students into a felt inquiry and exploration of inner and outer relationality — weaving new somatic fluencies with the natural rhythms of action and surrender, gathering and dispersing, expansion and contraction.

Christine creates spaces that honour curiosity and reciprocity, where breath and movement become medicine, and belonging becomes a pathway back to connection with ourselves, each other and the living world around us.

Her teaching invites a soft return, again and again, to our sense of home, presence and wholeness.

Christine bows deeply to her many teachers — both on and off the mat — including the great teacher that is Life itself, the teachers that arrive through emotions and experiences, and those found in the winds, the natural world and the unbound spaces of wonder.