USP Its athletic director and "body worker" Kingsley Ogedengbe. The house speciality is yogic massage, a combination of massage and yoga type stretches. "Ki" (pronounced key) originates from the Japanese word for energy, and "Mantra" refers to the word meaning "repetition" in Hindu.

Ambience While so many spas are in basements, cramped and with artificial light, Ki Mantra is built on feng shui principles, with the treatment rooms upstairs, filled with daylight. Neutral colours, wooden floors, leather sofas and adjustable reclining chairs for beauty treatments complete the calm atmosphere. Massage rooms are small and intimate with subdued colours and lighting and gentle background music.

Quality of experience Lying face down on a mattress straddled by a beautiful 6ft 3in black man isn’t something that happens to me every day. Nor am I used to kicking them in the bum. But as Kingsley Ogedengbe knelt over me to massage the backs of my thighs, he prompted a reflex that sent my foot flicking up in the air and landing squarely on his posterior.

Kingsley, a former 400m track athlete, is now director of Ki Mantra urban life spa in trendy Camden Passage in Islington. The usual beauty therapies are available and I had a neat pedicure to keep my toes in trim while they hibernate. But Ki Mantra’s speciality is yogic massage, a combination of massage and yoga type stretches.

When Kinglsey was a runner, sports massage was part of the job. But injury cut his career short, and he began to work as a personal trainer, travelling widely in Thailand and India, learning about eastern therapies. Now he is no mere masseur but a “body worker”, whose technique combines the deep-tissue style of sports and Thai massage with an awareness of the meridien lines of Chinese medicine and the stretch-and-relax techniques of yoga. Only he does the stretching for you.

The former runner’s feet, however, are still his stock in trade. Kingsley uses his to apply deep pressure on stubbornly knotted tissue. This is his own Chavutti-Thai technique, combining traditional Indian feet-instead-of hands massage (Chavutti) with Thai methods.

To help you cope as he gets stuck in to the really rock-hard bits, Kingsley teaches a breathing technique like the kind you learn to help in labour, inhaling and exhaling in short, rapid puffs as he “takes it further”. He suggests an imaginary pain level of 1 to 5 – four was about as much as I could stand. At one point my nose and sinuses – clear at the start – became temporarily completely blocked – not painful, but uncomfortable. This, he assured me, before magically clearing it all again, was my body trying to get rid of all the toxins released by the massage.

He read my body like a book – not just the aching neck and shoulders common to so many of us who sit in front of computer screens all day, but rightly pointing out that my calves and hamstrings were extremely tight. A recurring, nagging stiffness in my hips and pain down the back of my left leg was, he suggested, caused by a slight misalignment due to standing with my weight on one leg. I haven’t felt it since.

His touch, was, at times, excruciatingly painful – but the sweet pain of pressure that teases and untangles muscle fibre back to its smooth self. The effect on my brain was similar. I felt as spaced out afterwards as if I’d taken mind-altering drugs.

Food Complimentary water; tea and fresh juices with cleansing ingredients such as milk thistle and dandelion tincture made to order in the downstairs reception area.

In crowd City “stress heads” seeking inner peace in Islington.

Wallet watch Reasonable prices from £9 for an eyebrow shape to £80 for a 90-minute ki mantra yogic massage (it costs extra with Kingsley - £147.50). Chavutti-Thai “ the deepest massage experience ever performed with oil, foot, and rope” costs £190.

Need to know Ki Mantra Urban Life Spa, 5 Camden Passage, London N1 8EU (020 7226 8860; www.kimantra.com). Open Monday 12-8pm; Tuesday-Sat 10-8pm; Sunday 10-6pm

For more than 200 reviews of spas worldwide visit Times Online's Good Spa Guide

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