Why I teach groups of six
August 2026 · 4 min read · By Vanessa Chugani
I cap every training group at six. Not five, not six on a good day and twelve if people ask: six. It is the largest number I can still watch closely enough to teach properly, and watching closely is most of what teaching a Reiki attunement actually is.
Why six and not sixteen
When you attune someone, you stand near them for several minutes while their face does whatever it is going to do. Some people cry. Some feel heat in their hands and look faintly alarmed. Some feel nothing at all and go very still, waiting for someone to tell them what that means. In a room of six I can see all of that happen, for each person, in real time. In a room of twenty I could not, and I have sat in rooms that size as a student, so I know exactly what gets missed.
A weekend course that processes forty people through a single attunement afternoon is not doing something wrong exactly. It is doing something different: teaching a manual and a technique to a crowd. What it cannot do is notice the student at the back who felt nothing and is quietly deciding the whole thing is not real for her, or the student in front trying not to cry because there is no space for that in a room this size.
Feeling nothing is normal, and it needs saying out loud
I tell every group before we start that feeling nothing during an attunement is common and does not mean anything went wrong. It is one sentence. It only does its job if I can see the face it is landing on and adjust what I say next depending on whether that face relaxes or does not. You cannot make that adjustment from a stage, and you can barely make it in a room of fifteen. There is more on what to actually expect, felt or not, in preparing for a Reiki attunement.
No fixed calendar, because the group has to fit the students
I do not run Reiki training on a set date that people book into. There is no calendar with seats filling up. A group happens when six people, or three, or one, are ready, and we arrange it around them. That is slower than posting a date and taking bookings until the room is full, and it means I sometimes wait weeks for a group to come together. I would rather wait than fill a room with people who do not yet belong in it together.
It also means every session is taught live, by me, in the room or on the same video call as you. Never a recording played to a new intake. Never an attunement done by proxy while I am somewhere else. If I am not present for it, I do not consider it taught.
Who this actually suits
Most of the women who train with me are not in their twenties and travelling. They are in their forties, fifties or sixties, often stepping into this after a career, after raising children, after a divorce or a loss, thinking seriously about becoming a practitioner rather than collecting a certificate. That kind of decision deserves a teacher who knows your name by the second day and can tell you honestly whether this suits you, not a name badge and a workbook. You can read more about my own training and background on the about page if you want to know who you would actually be learning from.
Training is EUR 488 a level, the same whether you are sitting across from me in Canggu or joining live online, and it includes the manual, the attunement and support afterwards, not a certificate and a goodbye. I would rather teach six people properly than eighteen adequately. It costs me time I could otherwise spend on more students. I have made my peace with that trade.
A certification factory can hand you a document. It cannot sit with you while your hands go warm for the first time and tell you, honestly, whether you are ready to hold that experience for someone else. That is the part I am not willing to teach at scale.