My background
I followed the call of the heart to train as a complementary therapist in the Ayurveda therapy method. This led me on an unconventional path, filled with joy, doubt, great satisfaction and rich emotions, until I obtained my federal diploma. The journey continues, Ayurveda is a lifelong learning process. I had the joy of receiving and being surrounded by rigorous teachings where Ayurvedic philosophy, an art of living, was applied in daily life. This greatly enriched me. Ayurvedic principles are simple. They require consistency and commitment. That is why everyone is free to integrate them at their own pace and according to their own beliefs. This journey unfolded between Switzerland and Italy, shaped by meaningful encounters, demanding training, and deep personal exploration. Over the years, lasting connections have been formed, still nourishing my practice and supervision today.
Face-to-face training
- Over 700 hours of Ayurveda training
- 340 hours of common core training combining knowledge and skills from 3 basic areas: professional specific, socio-economic, medical.
- Ongoing Supervision
- 740 hours of training in Rio Abierto movement techniques
- 95 hours of Rio Abierto massage training.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank all the people who have marked my path through their presence, their teaching or their support:
Manuela, E., Emilie, Anna, Maria-Clotilde, Claudia, Enzo, Anita, Olga, Nuno, Brigitte, Alida, Gianluca, Carole, Neela, Monika, Rebekka, Sigrun, Dominique, Lorella, my loved ones, as well as all those I met along the way.
Thank you also to my clients for their daily trust, which allows me to practise this profession that I am passionate about and that gives me so much.
A special thought goes to the inspired teaching of Master Govindan, which transformed my vision of Ayurveda and massage.
Ayurveda: a living and profound approach
This deep vision guides every gesture, every treatment, far beyond mere technique.
Raffaella (Associazione Culturale Olistica Milva which hosts the Associazione Ayurvéda Monaci Erranti in Bosa) Moi-même et Alida Dal Degan
I lived in Ticino for over 17 years and I always return there with pleasure and emotion.
During one of my trips, I met Alida, who gave a new direction to my Ayurvedic journey.
The simplicity and authenticity of her approach deeply moved me.
It is both a practical and theoretical approach, based on major Ayurvedic references such as the Charaka Samhita, from which she quotes certain passages in her book.
Alida Dal Degan and Master Govindan
“The teaching I received gave me much more than techniques: an inner posture. Preparing a treatment also means preparing oneself mentally, emotionally, spiritually.”
It is this posture that gives massage its true therapeutic power.
It becomes an act of creation, a space where the body, mind, and soul can transform.
This ancestral art, deeply rooted in the Indian tradition, was taught to me with respect for its original richness.
Rio Abierto
Directors and founders of the Rio Abierto Centre in Italy
Before Ayurveda, I discovered the Rio Abierto movement in Ticino.
During the weekly classes, I experienced a new relationship with the body, movement, and emotion. It was during a seminar that I met Enzo (Vincenzo), one of the founders of Rio Abierto Italy.
This meeting was the starting point of a long journey. First, a week of discovery in Umbria, then an intensive training lasting over four years, with monthly trips to Italy. It was an unforgettable human experience.
What is the Rio Abierto movement?
Rio Abierto: “Open river” which represents free energy to circulate. It is a bodily movement from Argentina. Rio Abierto is a journey of self-discovery. It is a way of realizing this inner drive that each human being has, of living more harmoniously and of expressing daily his power of love, intelligence and energy.
A Rio Abierto movement lesson takes place with music. Music is a main instrument of the work; participants work in a circle. During my training I learned to guide a group, that is to say in the language of Rio Abierto, to be an instructor. The instructor inspired by different types of music, as well as the energy of the group, accompanies the participants on a journey of energy and emotional transformation. The movement of the body according to the Rio Abierto System produces a muscular tone, promotes the harmonization of postures and determines a release of stress with the joyful awakening of vitality.
The specific work on the energy centers also leads to the interior presence and the integration of all our levels: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. This leads to relaxation and meditation.
The Rio Abierto massage:
Here is a paragraph from the book “Massaggio Evolutivo ed. Valtrendeditore p.42 “from Anita Marianna Dragonetti who was my Rio Abierto massage trainer, and who I think represents the spirit of massage.
The body contains needs, impulses, emotions that may have been silently trapped for a long time in the connective tissue and muscle fibers. Contact with the hands restores the fluidity and circularity of the emotional world. An emotion, in its natural course, can be felt, expressed, implemented.
When it emerges undifferentiated, it must accompany the person to circumscribe it and give it a useful meaning, which can also size his thoughts.
Listening, welcoming, confining and accepting a part of the other product, first repressed or forgotten in the person, deals with satisfaction and well-being both physically and psychologically.
A sentence that Enzo said to me, and which continues to guide me 20 years later:
If life doesn’t smile at you, you smile at life.