Interview with Michelle Alva: the ‘pleasure tutor’ rejuvinating women’s sex lives

Michelle Alva is not your average yoga teacher. She hasn’t just diversified her range of products and courses to include gong baths, hypnosis and meditation. She’s branched out into an altogether bolder, braver and (we think!) more ground-breaking space: the very art of giving and receiving pleasure.Anyone who’s ever had an awkward, unpleasurable or anti-climatic encounter can vouch for the ripple effects it can have on your self-esteem and outlook on life. But Michelle’s brave and daring courses, one to one sessions and online training are bringing the unmentionable out of the closet and giving women the tools to get the pleasure and sense of confidence they deserve.

Michelle is part of Skirt Club’s exclusive line up at the ‘Le Weekend’ retreat in Miami, where she will lead workshops in healing and sexual empowerment. Michelle talks to ‘The Inside Slip’ about what’s in store for Le Weekend - and spills the beans on pelvic power, kundalini and yoni massage.

Tell us a bit about your business - how did you become associated with Skirt Club?
I was at a Sex Summit and met Skirt Club founder Genevieve there - I love what she has created for women to explore their sexuality through Skirt Club and wanted to share my passions of Sound Healing, Sexual Healing and Sensual and Sexual empowerment with the ladies.

Can you give us a flavour of what session participants can expect from you at Le Weekend in Miami?
Yes! I will be teaching Tantra Yoga which will be a series of sensual conscious movements and energetic breathing exercises to awaken our Kundalini/Sexual/creative energy. The class will end with a sensual sound healing with crystal bowls.

Ladies will become more aware of their Pelvic Power and feel light and clear after class. I will also be guiding a class Saturday called Awaken your Sensual body which will get us out of our heads and into bodies. Ladies will also learn about the science of pleasure and how to raise our libido so we can be more easily aroused and sensual lovers.

You are a 'Yoni specialist' - for the uninitiated what exactly is a yoni and what is the main ethos of 'Guide to Awaken Sensual Body' ?
“Yoni” is a Sanskrit word for the female genitalia that means “sacred space.” In Hindu it means “the vulva, especially as a symbol of divine procreative energy conventionally represented by a circular stone” Awakening our sensual body creates an optimal state for conscious sex, sacred intimacy and erotic pleasure.

Word on the street is that 'Yoni massages' are becoming an increasingly popular thing - can anyone do it? How does it differ to a good old fashioned fingering?Yoni massage is all about a woman receiving pleasure and loving touch to her sacred sexual parts for her to experience herself sensually and connect to her body, mind and energy/chakras. There is nothing that has to happen such as an orgasm at the end of the massage. The purpose of it is for a woman to experience her sexual/creative energy.

There is an awareness of the breath, her energy moving throughout her body and she is fully aware as opposed to fingering which is done in order to get someone to be aroused or to orgasm. In Yoni Massage there is no end goal in mind, it is done to explore and discover one’s self.

There's a whole industry telling women to wax and perfume their intimate areas - and now that we should be sticking jade eggs up there as well. What's your advice on how we should be looking after our yonis?
I highly recommend to get a mirror and look at your yoni/vagina. And allow yourself to be with what is there. Be authentic with yourself and ask yourself, How Do I feel about my yoni/vagina?

I recommend all women create a self-pleasure practice. Light candles, take a warm bath and touch yourself with loving kindness and great appreciation for who you are and for your amazing feminine body. Give yourself the nurturing touch that so many of us look for outside ourselves. Treat yourself as a queen, goddess and empress.

Choose to honor and respect yourself and especially your Yoni, exactly as she is. Self-acceptance is empowerment. Do daily self appreciation and feeling grateful for your whole body and notice how great this feels for all of yourself. Celebrate your femininity-your intuition, your sensual body, your ability to receive and the fact that you are a woman who feels. Remember that your body is the temple of your soul and treat yourself with the highest degree of respect and love.

For some Skirt Club members, their involvement in Skirt Club can be almost therapeutic - for some there is unfortunately still a lot of stigma in terms of body shame and even trauma with our yonis and our bodies in general - how can we overcome this?First step is to make time to hold space and be with what is truly there. You can breathe and expand awareness into your sexual body parts and whole body and notice how you feel inside. Has anything ever happened to you that caused you to feel trauma, or hurt? Notice what arises.

I’d encourage members to contact me to schedule a free 15 minute clarity call, and I also have a Yoni Healing Audio Course which teaches women how to process and release the trapped traumas and held emotions in the body.Many of our members have a passing interest in tantra - another of your specialities, we believe? How can people apply the key learnings to their own sex lives?Practice daily breathing exercises and feel more through your five senses, allow yourself to feel everything and welcome all your emotions into your life. Any time we suppress emotions, we lose experiencing the richness of our human experience.

Tantra is not just about sex, it is about embracing and experiencing all of who we are.

What main message would you give to people who are interested in coming to Le Weekend or trying Skirt Club for the first time?
If you would like to learn key elements of how to enjoy your life and body more, how to feel deeply connected and integrated from the inside out, how to feel more fulfilled in your relationships and how to experience more pleasure and satisfaction, fun and playfulness, come to Le weekend!

If ladies wish to experience a one-on-one Tantra Session, they can contact me as this is a life-changing experience. It is especially helpful for women who are control freaks, type A and want to learn how to be better at “receiving.” The sessions are a sacred intimate experience where we learn to release and surrender.

The whole experience of ‘Le Weekend’ will be a chance to connect in sisterhood and meet amazing women to practice expanding our energy with which is so much fun! Doesn’t everybody want that?

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Michelle Alva is passionate about educating and empowering women to heal themselves, using a mindset-energy approach. She guides women to connect with their bodies and feminine essence, while embracing spirituality, balance and sensuality, helping them to feel empowered to let go of crippling past emotions, and live more fulfilling lives. She does this by integrating the latest in science with ancient wisdom modalities such as energy healing, NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), hypnosis, shamanic based rituals, sound healing, Yoga, and mindfulness-based meditation. http://www.michellealva.com/