First, what Reiki Level 1 actually is
Reiki is a Japanese energy healing practice, passed from teacher to student in the Usui lineage. Level 1 is the first degree, and it has one focus: learning to give reiki to yourself. That surprises people. Many arrive expecting to leave qualified to treat friends and family right away, but working on others is Level 2. Level 1 is quieter, and honestly more important. You learn to put your own hands on your own body and let your system remember what settled feels like. Everything else builds on that foundation.
Day one: arriving, lineage, and your first attunements
We gather in the late morning and start slow: tea, introductions, what brought each person into the room. We cap the training at eight students, so there is no back row to hide in and nothing to perform. From there we walk through where reiki comes from, the history of Mikao Usui and the lineage that carries this practice, told plainly and without mystique for its own sake.
The center of day one is your first attunements. An attunement is a quiet ceremony where a reiki master opens the channel that has been in you all along. Some people feel heat in their hands. Others go very still, or find themselves tearing up without quite knowing why. Every response is a right response. The rest of the day belongs to your own two hands: you learn the self-treatment hand positions and practice them right there, with both of us in the room to guide you.
Day two: going deeper, then certification
The second day goes a layer deeper. You receive a second set of attunements and settle further into the hand positions. Somewhere in there, most students start to notice where their own energy asks for attention. This is also the practical day: a practice only matters if it survives contact with your actual life, so we spend real time on how to keep a daily self-reiki practice alive next to a full schedule and a phone that never stops asking for you. By the end of day two you are certified in Reiki Level 1.
What you take home
The certificate matters less than what it stands for. Here is what you actually leave with:
- A daily self-treatment practice you can do in bed, or in a parked car before something hard
- All four traditional Level 1 attunements, received in person over the two days
- A training manual with the hand positions and course content, yours to keep
- Access to our student community, so the weekend has somewhere to continue
- The foundation for Level 2, if offering reiki to others ever calls you
Who this weekend is for
You do not need any experience with energy work. Some of our steadiest students walked in skeptical, and that is welcome here. If you are the sensitive one, the person who absorbs the mood of every room you enter, Level 1 gives you something concrete to do with that sensitivity instead of just feeling tired from it. Reiki is not a religion. It sits comfortably alongside whatever faith you hold, or none.
"Over two magical Sundays, I had the honor of learning from these luminous teachers in their beautiful home sanctuary. The experience has been nothing short of life-changing."
Reiki Level 1 graduate
The practical details
Training runs over one weekend, in person, near Melrose in West Hollywood. Class size is capped at eight students so everyone gets real attention from both of us, and payment plans are available on request. Our Reiki Level 1 certification page has current dates and investment, and our reiki training page gives an overview of every level, from Level 1 through Reiki Master.
If this has been circling you
Some people read a page like this and feel a quiet yes. If that is you, reach out and ask us anything first, including whatever you are still unsure about. A real person answers, and it is one of us.
Jaime & Yonatan Elkayam are certified Usui Reiki Master Teachers and the founders of Word of Mouth Integrative Wellness in West Hollywood.
