Tag Archives: massage classes

The Path to Progress

The footpath from the subway to my university led up the Boston Commons through the State House and down to the other side of Beacon Hill. I took the path often, going to the right side cut-through of the State House to avoid the somber figure sitting on a stone bench in front of the left wing.

It was just a statue: a pretty woman, dressed plainly, sitting on a bench. Sorrow and determination etched in her face; she leaned forward. The statue’s never-changing sadness gave me the creeps. Besides, when I took the right-wing entrance of the Massachusetts State House, I could grab a bagel before class.

Curiously, I never looked to see who the woman was. I was too busy getting an education and planning my career. For something that should have whetted my curiosity, I had none. It took me away from my goals.

I am a massage therapist now, and have been for almost 20 years. As such, I am a micro-business owner. I have dealt with snickers of people who viewed massage therapists as women offering something else. As my own boss, I am free to work plenty of overtime, nights, weekends, etc., if it takes that to be successful. Massage is largely an occupation of women, and it is one of the few businesses that can be started with little capital and much elbow grease.

Not that I took any of these things for granted, no, but I missed a few pieces of history along the way.

We took a trip to my hometown earlier this year. My spouse grew up in Los Angeles and was fascinated by the history and old buildings. We stayed a few nights in Salem, its damp streets dotted by witches museums and attractions. The lore of witchery in Salem is much more attractive than the reality. The local residents suspected devil’s work in everyday life. In the 1690s courts convicted several women of witchery and hanged them. The evidence? Friends and neighbors who claimed the witches flew through the air and cast spells.

At the home of author Nathaniel Hawthorne, we saw the family tree written on the wall. The Hawthorne’s surname was amended to avoid association with the hanging judge at the witches’ trials. The family was ashamed of that history.

In Boston, we took the open-air tourist trolley to avoid the stress of driving and parking. It stopped at the State House steps. Right in front of that darned statue.

Our tour guide/bus driver gave us the spiel: “That’s Mary Dyer, the Quaker hung from a tree near Boston Common for her heretical beliefs. The Pilgrims came here for religious freedom, but just for their own religious freedom. No one else was welcome. They wanted to make a Pilgrim Utopia so in 1660 they hung an innocent woman for being a Quaker.”

The state court had the statue erected in 1959 to remind lawmakers and judges of the folly of requiring every citizen to have the same beliefs. The early state of Massachusetts was a tyrannical state: Everyone had to support the ministers’ teachings or face court penalties. They were locked into stocks, whipped, had ears cut off, and banished. If they did not publicly repent, the government, one and the same as the church, took away rights to vote, own land, own businesses, and confiscated their weapons.

Mary Dyer had been sentenced to death a year before her hanging, and was saved from the gallows by her husband. He was still a Pilgrim, and though the family had moved to Rhode Island to get away from persecution he still had some influence with the court judge. He promised that she would stay away from Pilgrim settlements and took her home.

A year later Dyer returned and asked that the authorities reverse their unjust laws. Instead, they decided to enforce the sentence of death. She and two other Quakers who refused to be compliant with Pilgrim law were hanged on the same day. She held hands with the men as she walked to the hanging tree, and people in the crowd criticized her for touching unrelated men. Neither men nor women were free in the Utopian state of the New World.

Well, my education continues. I now see why Mary Dyer sits so sadly, and why so many of the Pilgrims descendants who crafted our Constitution vowed to separate church beliefs from state laws. I think those formative steps taken so many years ago have led to our freedoms today. To be free to touch others and to massage, to live, to educate our children and ourselves. Mary Dyer was a very brave woman, in deed.

(For more information about Mary Dyer’s life and death, and her influence in history, let me recommend Wikipedia’s listing. Also, “Mary Dyer: Biography of a Rebel Quaker” by Plimpton, Ruth, 1994.)

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Touching the Masses

Chair massage is a great way to deliver massage services – and it offers independence for many therapists who don’t want to be limited to table services.

This new era of chair massage is a big step forward. When it started more than 25 years ago, chair was seen by some traditional massage therapists as a Cinderella stepchild.

Chair was viewed solely as a marketing introduction for table service. Interesting, some massage therapists felt the need to label chair massage as fluff, non-therapeutic, even gulp, recreational – and let me say this fuddy-duddy crowd gave the chair pioneers some grief.

All is forgiven now as chair massage has garnered respect as both therapeutic and a regular form of massage. Chair is found in airports, conventions, employee health fairs, malls and at my local car wash.

For the massage therapist, chair offers some freedoms. Most chair massage at workplaces has the advantage of being held during working hours. A chair therapist can get home in time to pick up the kids from school. They can take nights and weekends off!

Some of the barriers to male therapists melt on the chair squad. Male therapists often have to endure bruised egos in spas when men and women clients refuse them. But male therapists are very accepted in chair massage. They even have an advantage with a bit more upper-body strength, which helps in chair techniques.

Chair also lets therapists do more invigorating techniques such as tapotement. By the way, how many kinds of tapotement are there?

I’ve seen at least five, and there are probably more. I can do two of them without looking like an industrial accident.

Check out some of the leaders in this field: David Palmer, founder of TouchPro, offers many online and in person courses in chair massage, as does Boris Prilutsky. Another chair pioneer, Ralph Stephens, offers a medical chair massage class.

Sure, you can watch these folks and their video how-to chair massage, but you will not know how to do chair massage from a video any more than it will teach you to play the violin.

Take some classes.

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If This Bicep Could Sing….

When a massage therapist has been working for a while, it can seem as if some body parts are talking during the session. Well, not verbally, of course, but spinning a yarn, letting it hang, somehow bringing their troubles up on the table.

Hey, we touch folks know verbiage and the written word are not the only ways we communicate, and the muscles sometimes give me what almost sounds like a wail. Kind of like the people who can hear colors instead of just seeing them.

Well, sometimes a client is bliss-unaware of what the muscle is saying and in me finds an audience. Like a good therapist, I listen. Last week this bicep had a certain ring to it, like it had been overworked, wrung and pressed. It had a field of adhesions running the length right past the inner elbow. This muscle was hot, thread-y and tired.

I was doing my best to open up the circulation, which created some good faces on my client. I mentioned to my client that what I “heard” was almost like a song.

Hyperextension Blues, by Bi-Cep.

I woke up this morning,

Ba-da-da-dum (Muddy Waters?)

Elbow extended again.

Bad-da-da-dum

No hope of performing,

Ba-da-da-dum

Feeling totally un-Zen….

Now both my heads are twitchy,

Bad-da-da-dum

I don’t know how I can move.

Bad-da-da-dum

It makes my throws off pitchy,

Bad-da-da-dum

And my body hates to lose.

I got the hyperextension blues

Hyperextension blues

I got the hyperextension blues

Hyperextension blues.

Well, I fixed the rhymes a bit, but you get the idea. My client and I had a good laugh about the bicep blues, and she told me not to quit my day job. Isn’t it fun when the body tells its own story?

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Thumb Scrum

Massage therapists may think they are immune to injury, even though many of us came to do massage after recovering from injury. We’re helping people, after all, so that should be a win-win. We win, the clients win, all is right.

Oh, and then that little thumb screams tingle-tingle in the middle of the night.

The problem with bad thumbing is that it doesn’t tell you that it is hurting while you are doing the hurting thing. It tells you much later in the day, usually just before your deepest sleep cycle, by waking you up to a tingle party.

Oh, and it can take months of babying to get better. I know. I did it recently, as in earlier this year. Many soaks, rubs, deep cross-friction and MSM lotions later, I can say my thumb has returned as fit as ever. Of course, I know how not to hurt my thumb, I just suffered some sort of temporary delusional amnesia associated with getting that last knot out from under the cranial vault.

For the record, let’s go over thumb health. The thumb is a wimp, unable to go outside without his brothers and sisters. Thus the thumb is always stuck to its neighboring fingers when applying any pressure or other massage stroke.

Do not drag the thumb behind its family, keep it close – as in stuck – to its protectors.

Do not lead with the thumb unless it is stuck completely to the other thumb – that is both hands together at the thumb creating one seamless stroke.

If your thumb is able to bend backwards at the first joint, you will get away with disobeying all these thumb rules, but then the day will come when the thumb quits altogether. This is the curse of the hyper-mobile thumb.

As someone who occasionally forgets to practice safe thumb, I admit to being less than perfect while on trigger point hunts. But I know my thumb will remind me later of what I forgot earlier in the day. Zap!

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Offering Reassurance and Hope to Your Clients

When will this get better? When will my pain be gone? When can I do what I want to do – when I want to?

Tough questions for us massage therapists to handle. Truth, we don’t usually know. Massage does marvelous things for the mind, body and soul – but what it does is often entirely up to the person receiving the massage – and the intent and skill of the person giving the massage.

The timeline? That may be set by many other things – perhaps even a higher authority.

When clients drop these questions on me I look them right in the eye and tell them all I can do is try to help them feel better. As pain drops, function returns. One can’t predict the time involved in healing.

It’s not a very satisfactory answer for some clients impatient to going back to doing the exact thing that brought them in feeling wounded. With as soft a tread as possible, as we develop a therapeutic relationship, I have a few ways to explain further. These come in handy with sticky troubles such as fibromyalgia or other conditions that vary day by day.

Answer # 1: You will turn the corner, but you may not realize it. Often you realize it afterward. You will discover that some pain or restriction has been gone for a while.

The body really heals itself in its own time. All we can do is try to make it easier to get there.

Is that fair to clients? I think so. I have rarely ever seen someone making no progress from massage. But I have often observed one factor in common with the impatient client: A chronic problem has often been ignored for so long it takes time to create an awareness of how to heal and avoid re-injury.

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Effleurage & the Flaming Snowplow

Most massage therapists make a habit of getting massages, as do I. A good massage is always appreciated, but at times it is hard not to be a “back-seat” massage therapist.

Recently I was looking forward to some relief for a strained deltoid when the effleurage began on my forearm. It started as a delicate, slow Swedish stroke. It treaded middle depth along the bicep and suddenly plunged head-on into a flaming snowplow of death over the coracoid process.

Oh my. My therapist made eye contact, I suspected to see if I was impressed. I writhed. Another effleurage. I cringed.

“Are you okay?”

“Well, no. The stroke feels really good on the arm, but then it feels like the pressure suddenly increases and it is very painful,” I said.

My therapist suggested skipping the area. As delicately as I could, I explained that shoulder soreness was what really brought me in for a massage.

My therapist looked perplexed. I offered that perhaps less pressure on the sorest area would work better. More perplexed look.

As a bad stroke, the flaming snowplow does double duty. First, it is very uncomfortable for the client. Second, as the therapist increases pressure away from his or her body, the stroke goes beyond the ergonomic zone. That places more strain on the therapist’s neck, back, wrist and arms. The pressure is produced from the upper body, instead of the feet, creating strain.

I don’t know where the flaming snowplow effleurage comes from. As a student I committed it once and got roundly screamed at by my instructor.

Effleurages feel best with constant, comfortable pressure along an effleurage. They are often the first stroke to be used and set the tone for other techniques such as MFR or trigger point. If I can effleurage without pain, I can usually treat the sore spot with other means. A win for the massage therapist, a win for the client.

Now, about the time I got the flaming snowplow effleurage up the arm followed by the Reverse Flaming Snowplow down the arm….

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The Bottom Line

Well, it wasn’t the most pleasant story I saw on TV news last night: A report about multiple incidents of women receiving massages from male therapists and complaining of sexual touch.

It’s tough to talk about what’s an ugly truth in the massage therapy field. Some people in our field may not be doing massages because they want to relieve pain and stress. They may be getting sexual satisfaction from massaging clients.

I don’t believe in bashing male therapists – Some of the best therapists I have met are men. But in 20 years all of the therapists I know whom have expressed sexual aggression in massage have been men.

Well, there it is.

What should we as a profession do? What should employers do? Not hire men? Not get massages from men? Prohibit cross-gender massage? (Some states do.) I’m not comfortable with any of those ideas. I don’t know.

But I do know if we are to have a public perception as the only healing profession that involves vulnerability and touch we have to be careful about who does massage.

The TV news story was a bit grim. The clinics where the men worked did fire them, but their statewide practice credentials were not affected. Technically, these men could find jobs at other massage clinics fairly easily. At least one did.

No criminal charges resulted from the incidents, which, of course, means that these workers had no opportunity to defend themselves or be found not guilty or guilty. No convictions, no revoked credentials, no closure.

Is unwanted sexual touch a gender issue? I hope not. But many male therapists tell me how hard it is to get hired on at a spa or clinic. Many places seem to want one, only one, male therapist on staff.

And those men had better be thick-skinned. They have all had clients suddenly back out of a massage when they find out their therapist is male. When the front desk asks for gender preference when booking massages, the men lose income and feel discriminated against. And if the front desk does not ask, the spa loses money and suffers schedule nightmares as clients back out of appointments at the last minute.

I’m not offering solutions here, just a heads-up. I don’t want people to be afraid to get a massage at any spa or clinic. Ideas anyone?

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Seated and Ready

A regular table massage client loves to two-time this massage therapist every chance she gets. I do not mind at all. My client has fibromyalgia, travels frequently and loves to get chair massages.

The service she uses most often is at an airport near her employer’s national headquarters. She looks forward, especially on a day-hopper trip, to stopping in for 20 minutes of relief.

Initially I was scared to use them, she said, worried they might not understand someone like me. But I just did it one day when I was desperate – and it really was very good.

There are two therapists at the terminal chair massage shop she loves to get – and so far most of the ones she doesn’t know have been pretty good, too.

Given the opportunity, I’ll ask questions. Market research? Perhaps. So what’s good about a good chair massage?

I like that they look at me and talk to me before I sit down, checking in on what I want and don’t want, she said. My name is in their computer so they can check on what I’ve had done before.

Most of the time I need firm pressure, especially to relieve the burning spots in my shoulder. They know that too much pressure increases my pain, but just the right amount helps.

The good ones seem to know the pressure, but they always ask me if it’s right. I like being asked.

The only time I didn’t like the chair massage, I think it was this guy’s first day. Probably his last. He wouldn’t look me in the eye and didn’t ask me anything. I had to tell him I have fibro and pointed at my left shoulder burner. He just nailed me with the point of his elbow, no warm up or rocking in. My shoulder went off like a flare gun.

When I told him it was too painful, he switched to super-light and annoying. I finally just got up from the chair and left. The receptionist said I didn’t have to pay, which was good because it was a one-minute torture massage. Aargh.

I still go there, and I love my regular massage therapists. I make sure I give them good tips, so they will be there when I am in town, she said.

You can’t beat the relief after a bunch of meetings. I can tell them I want my arms, neck and back, or focus on neck and shoulders and less time on the other areas. It helps keep me sane, she said.

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Playground Moves

We massage therapists see a lot of people seeking relief. If it isn’t the upper back and neck, it is the lower back and legs. I’m a fan of giving people something they can do, on their own, to loosen up.

Most people go from doing a lot of movement in their salad days to increasingly stiffening marathons of driving, sitting or standing as they grow into their occupations. My loosen-up moves are an attempt to get some wiggle back into the muscles and joints we freeze up with age.

Like most massage therapists, I freely steal moves – giving credit of course – to multiple disciplines. My go-to sources range from Tai Chi Ch’uan, Yoga, Pilates and Hula to Islam. Give a girl credit for observation.

The ground rules are: everything in slow motion, no pain, exhale with effort and keep breathing normally. I practice with my clients so they get the rules in their head and can mirror me. This is also my secret way to get some stretches in for myself between massages.

For example, the hula roll-about allows people to balance abdominal, oblique and back muscles. Standing in neutral, use the tummy, then the side muscles and then back muscles to rotate the hips in a slow circle. The shoulders stay still and the breathing relaxed. If you can do the slow hula, you can swing a golf club.

I like to frame warming moves and stretches not as work, but an opportunity to revive our latent desire to play. Hula hip circles are a blast. When you get a bunch of serious golfers laughing while rotating their hips, you get a serious jolt of fun. And when those scores drop, the golf guys keep coming back….

The back flexion warm-up borrows from Yoga and Islam – start out on your knees on a soft surface like a bed or mat. Lean forward and extend your arms on the surface in front of you, slowly lowering your upper body into a stretch. Just like the Moslem prayer position, and a bit like the yoga child pose. To stretch the QLs, move one hand to the left, while aiming the hips back to the right. Then reverse hands and hips to stretch the other QL.

Heck, that’s a very good thing to do three times a day for your back. Funny how a move associated with a religious ritual can be so good for the body.

What about Tai Chi? My go-to is “Wave Hands Like Clouds.” This move helps people with balance and fluidity as well as peripheral vision and coordination. All you do is hold your palm in front of your face and look at it as you turn from center to one side. As you turn to reverse, you raise your other palm and look at it as you turn back to center and to the opposite side.

Simple yet complex, this move builds core and balance. Hmmmm. Who thought goofing around and playing could be so liberating and healthy?

Please send me some of your go-to play moves in the blog comments section. I’ll steal it, and give you credit, of course. Hula!

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History at Your Hands

We had a wonderful time picking out decorations for my mother-in-law’s 90^th birthday party.

Pink table-covers, birthday lawn signs, a banner and bubble-making bottles, clean fun for all of us youngin’s. We’ll also be running around next weekend picking up a vanilla cake with white and pink frosting, tamales, sandwiches and the “Happy 90^th” balloon. (Surprisingly popular, our cashier volunteered.)

All of which led me to ask Mom Mary the big question: To what to you attribute your long life?

Mom Mary looked at me quite surprised. “I have no idea. I’m just glad to be alive. I wish I felt better, though.”

Ooh-yaah. Hey, with a massage therapist in the family, many people would assume Mom Mary has the feel-good covered. Well, other than the occasional emergency neck or shoulder massage, Mom Mary has begged off the family discount. (Double for blood relatives and spouse, Mom Mary free.)

Yet thinking about it, I have had several older folks who come in for massage regularly. And I am impressed. My oldest client was 103, a World War I veteran. I have given massage services to many people aged 70s to upper 90s.

As a member of the second coddled generation, the lucky ones who grew up with food, dental care, schools and an expectation of college, I get a good sampling of how my elders got into their golden years.

Wars. Prison Camps. D-Day. Epidemics. No food, no heat. No air conditioning. Religious genocide. Ethnic genocide. Is longevity produced by adversity? Or, to put it another way, does that which does not kill you make you stronger?

It makes me wonder how my generation through the much-too-much millennials will fare. Will we prick our fingers on our computers and die? Could we ever be tough enough to skip a gluten-free meal?

I think a massage certificate for Mom Mary is in order, perhaps a pedicure as well. You should get some credit for living long, well and in good humor.

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