Sometimes when I am square in between someone’s shoulder blades, I find myself thinking about how some of these knots got there. Most are whiplashes and hard work – a traffic encounter followed by running a lathe at the machine shop, or writing some intensely detailed thesis. No fun involved. Once in a while somebody … Continue reading Therapist Notes from the Passenger Seat of a Low-Slung Sports Car
When busy, delegate, and that’s what I did. The book has been awfully busy in my therapeutic massage practice, so it was getting difficult to get all of the laundry done. Honey volunteered to help out by making sure the sheets were cleaned, dried and folded. Excellent idea, delegation. Takes the load off your shoulders, … Continue reading What these Suds?
I confess when I started massaging I didn’t believe in energy at all. I thought it was some kind of weird ESP-y woo-woo that some folks in my classes pretended to sense as a way of seeking attention. Piffle, poppycock and humbug. No one is more surprised at me than I to be writing about … Continue reading Where Did the Energy Go?
We like to think of ourselves as creative, don’t we, doing massage therapy and adapting to the moment, to the mood and the mode. I am fascinated by creativity is my hands (oh, old fascinating me) but it is outshone by the creativity I see in my clients. I have had two (count ‘em) two … Continue reading Creativity and Massage
Lots of massage therapists recommend use of Epsom salt soaks after massage, and I’m one of them. Trouble is I felt bad when older clients confessed the last thing they would do is “slip” into the tub. I did a bit of research (read the package) and it turns out that while Epsom salt soaks … Continue reading Muscle Relaxers after Massage
Those pesky on-line reviews came in handy last week when I tried to order new sets of sheets. The picture on the website looked like the flannel sheets I had come to like, but the reviews told a different story. ‘I ordered these sheets because I had bought them before and liked them. But the … Continue reading The Original Sheets
Sometimes I get a client who “can’t fog up a mirror.” No, not dead, this client just had no visible signs of breathing. Her presentation was odd stiffness on the right side of the spine at T-3, not pain, but not feeling right. I was thinking some sort of paraesthesia. She uses her right arm … Continue reading Take a Breather
K-not, K-not! Who’s there? Ok, it is a set-up for a silly joke, but the k-nots I see every day in my massage practice have always fascinated me. Some seem to have layers, sizzling through separate muscles, fascias and actions, seeming to head into the center of the person. … Continue reading K-not k-not
There are many reasons why I decided to become a massage therapist. In many ways I’ve been a body worker since I was quite young, exchanging back rubs with my younger brother, and training him to walk on my back, until he was much too big and unwieldy for it. When I first sought a … Continue reading Why we do what we do
Massage therapists often meet people who are stuck – stuck shoulders, stuck vertebrae, stuck glutes. And we see the pathology that stuck creates – abnormal gaits, painful bending, leaning torsos, migraines, etc. There’s nothing more satisfying for a massage therapist than to get the stuck out and restore normal function to muscles, joints and ultimately, … Continue reading From Stuck to Unstuck