Sauna Master and Aufguss Training
Sauna heat is a commodity. Sauna experience isn't.
We train sauna and Aufguss practitioners and venue teams at your sauna. From a first foundations workshop, to a signature ritual built for your venue, and taught to your team until it's theirs.
About
Our founder, Yana, pioneered Aufguss in Singapore and Hong Kong in 2025. She created Sauna Academy to train Aufguss and sauna masters, and bathing-ritual teams for operators across Singapore and South East Asia. Yana grew up inside Finnish, Kazakhstani and Eastern European sauna culture, surrounded by the art of steam, löyly and the birch whisk. She trained under Aufguss champions in Japan: Hiroyuki Okami, Riku Suzuki and Tetsuya Nagai. Yana built her residency at The Ice Bath Club, Duxton, shaping the first Aufguss movement in Southeast Asia.
The Academy's approach is built on sauna craft standards: rituals design and choreography, heat and steam control, scent sequencing, sauna tools and the full arc of sauna sessions.
We exist to preserve the sauna traditions, and to train the next generation of practitioners to carry them forward.
“Aufguss with Yana has created its own family at Duxton, serving as a catalyst for newcomers to be introduced to contrast therapy and an occasion for regulars to connect as a community. ‘When is her next session?’ is what guests always ask me. Magical would be the one word description — it's hard to put a word to the impact she has brought to our community.”— Kenny, TIBC Duxton Club Manager
“What an experience! I have never been in a room so hot, and I certainly felt my toxins leaving my body with every sweat. I loved how Yana had explained the why, and origins and how it would help my body so clearly and with passion. Wow, this is certainly a session to remember.”— Nina D., TIBC founding member
Sauna Training
We keep the offer simple. Tell us what you need.
Train your whole team to host safely and confidently in the sauna.
Training focused on sauna safety, etiquette, benefits, heat control, contrast therapy and wood preservation. Theoretical introduction to the sauna rituals: Aufguss, whisking and parenie.
SGD 980half-day session, up to 10 staff (price per cohort)
A signature Aufguss ritual built for your brand: scent, sound and rhythm, designed around your space.
Aufguss team training, scent, music and routine design. Additional: parenie and whisking.
Custom quote
Sauna and Aufguss fundamentals, built for anyone curious where this could lead. No experience needed.
Waving Foundations and Control: posture, towel grip and the basics of waving.
SGD 4801-day session, maximum 8 per cohort (price per person)
Aufguss training, built to take you from enthusiast to a master practitioner. No experience needed.
Day 1: Waving Foundations and Control: posture, towel grip and the basics of waving. Day 2: Advanced Aufguss movements, flow, spins and transitions.
SGD 8902-day course, maximum 5 per cohort (price per person)
Whisking and Parenie techniques, to become a well-rounded sauna master.
Birch whisk handling, craft of whisking and art of parenie.
SGD 4801-day session, maximum 5 per cohort (price per person)
Private Events
A full Aufguss ritual, performed just for your group, wherever you're gathering.
Full Aufguss ritual led by Yana, scent and music suited to your event, flexible group size, date and venue.
Custom quoteDepends on group size, duration and event specifics
For sauna & bath houses
A sauna master is the reason sauna visitors stay, come back, and bring their friends. It's the role, shaped over centuries.
Heat, steam and löyly, done right, create a relaxing, and safe environment.
Promotes the health benefits of sauna, turning them into your venue's own signature ritual.
A person the regulars trust with their health-building time, and want to come back to.
Sauna, decoded
Sauna is one of the oldest continuous bathing traditions in the world: a small, heated room for dry heat and controlled steam, always followed by a deliberate cool-down, practiced across Finland, the Baltics and Eastern Europe for thousands of years — long before it became a spa amenity.
It's one of the few Finnish words used worldwide unchanged, meaning both the room and the ritual bathing act — which is why the practice is called sauna bathing. It traces to an ancient Finnic root, savńa: a heated earth or snow-stone pit used for bathing.
Traditional saunas run 70–100°C, but at low humidity. That dryness is what makes those temperatures survivable at all.
Traditional practice moves through several short rounds, roughly 8–15 minutes each, with a cool-down between.
Species like aspen and spruce are common because they stay cooler to the touch and hold up in humid heat, not because of grain or colour.
A well-built sauna has a fresh-air inlet near the stove and an outlet elsewhere in the room; without it, air quality drops even as temperature climbs.
The reddened skin in a sauna is vasodilation: vessels near the surface widen to move heat outward. A circulation response, not pore-cleaning.
A hot session raises heart rate to roughly what a brisk walk would, without the joint load of physical exertion.
Physiologists describe sauna bathing as hormesis: a brief, controlled stress the body adapts to over time — the same broad category as exercise-induced adaptation.
General guidance, not medical advice — for sauna etiquette by country, see Sauna Society Singapore.
FAQ
An Aufguss master creates aroma-infused steam, through various techniques, then uses a towel to sculpt and circulate the resulting heat wave through the room in a choreographed sequence, building intensity, then release. Done well, it is craft, ritual, performance and a multi-sensory experience at once.
Löyly is the Finnish word for the burst of steam released when water is poured onto hot sauna stones — and, more broadly, for the spirit and atmosphere of the sauna itself.
Because a sauna is only as good as the person running the session. Heat alone doesn't bring guests back — a trained host does. Team training gives your staff the craft, safety and choreography standards to run consistent, memorable sessions from day one, instead of learning by trial and error in front of paying guests.
Start with Aufguss Master 1 or Sauna Foundations — both are introductions to the craft with no experience required, one built for individuals and one for venue teams.
Trained practitioners go on to work as resident sauna masters at hotels, spas and clubs, run freelance Aufguss sessions across venues, or lead team training of their own. It's a specialised, in-demand craft — our Aufguss Master 2 — Full Steam programme is built to take you from enthusiast to someone venues actively want to hire.
Yes, we train both. Sauna Foundations and Bespoke In-Sauna Ritual Design are built specifically for venues, on site. Our individual programs are designed for those who aspire to become sauna masters, or simply want to learn more about sauna craft and traditions.
We provide training on Aufguss, löyly, whisking and parenie.
Aufguss is where we started, but the craft we teach spans the wider sauna and banya tradition — including whisking, parenie and löyly.
For venues that want their in-house teams to build real sauna expertise and the ability to host Aufguss rituals. For individuals — wellness practitioners or sauna aficionados — who want to add sauna practice to their portfolio of services.
If you don't enjoy sweating, or have a low tolerance for heat, this isn't for you. It's also not a medical or clinical wellness credential, and it isn't remote. This is hands-on, in-person craft training.
Yes — a Sauna Academy certificate, verified by Sauna Society Singapore.
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