This question of “how do I go deeper in a massage so I don’t hurt myself” recently came up in a massage group in which I belong. Of course, my obvious answer to learn barefoot massage and directed her to our website.
Sometimes it’s just not possible to take an ashiatsu class anytime soon. Maybe the kids are back in school, your rottweiler just had a hip replacement, or perhaps taking time off work and traveling simply isn’t an option at that moment.
Where do your start your massage? At the feet? Perhaps at the client’s initial complaint area? At their upper back or in their neck? With their breath?
There’s not a wrong answer here, it all has to do with the theory you choose to approach the massage with.
Having procedures and protocols can produce results – but every client and every condition is different. Learning a routine massage and always sticking to it is like being on autopilot: it might always produce the same results, but you may be bored, uninspired… and your clients progress may plateau.
Read a few of the ideas below, and see if changing up the sequencing of your next massage helps you and your client get the results you are looking for!
“I’d never get a massage,” a friend once confessed to me. “You’d see how fat I really am.” And “I’m SO SORRY! I didn’t shave my legs!” another confesses when you’re about to start the massage. Do massage therapists care about extra cush or stubble? What do we really think about your body?
Most massage therapists are honored that their clients trust them to touch them with healing intent. It doesn’t matter what color you are, if you’re bloated from that big burrito you ate during lunch (yes, gas happens. It’s ok.), if you broke your razor or if you’re chunky.
One of the benefits of teaching is that we learn every time we teach. It may be what NOT to do 😉 but sometimes it’s something cool. One of my students in my last class showed us this cool tip as to how to effectively (and we’re all about effective) cover their bits and parts when they get up off the massage table. This trick is good for any massage therapist!
Normally, they’d get up off the table when you’re not in the room. But say they need to go to the bathroom and time’s short, so they don’t want you to have to step out for them to get dressed or wrapped up.
OR you’re taking a massage class and you don’t feel comfortable being all butt nakedy in a room full of strangers when you get up off the table.
Read on (or save yourself some time and just watch the video)!
Voilà!
They have on the biggest cloth diaper you’ve ever seen, and all the private parts stay private.
As they say in the film biz, “It’s a wrap!” (Get it? A massage client wrap! 😉 )
Happy Tuesday TOESday!
Many of us niche down pretty well after we’ve been doing massage for a long time. All of our instructors specialize in Ashiatsu barefoot massage. Some add in a little this or that in addition (like Pillossage or cupping), but we are, in essence, barefoot therapists. Who’s your ideal client for your massage?
When we first start out, our answer is usually, “EVERYONE!”
Massage therapists have a tendency to massage the way they’d like to be worked on. Love cranial? That’s probably your jam. NMT? You’ve likely taken a lot of classes.
What clients do you want to have?
You can’t determine who your ideal client is if you don’t have a firm handle on what your business is and what it does best. -Stephen Sheinbaum, Founder, Bizfi
In 2006, at a massage convention, I ran into the author of the article that saved my back from pain, Richard Rossiter. I told him that I had been studying his work through his online website, DVDs, and books since discovering the powerful effect Rossiter had on my back. Since my wife, Mickey, was the only person who had worked on me thus far, I asked if I could sample the foot of the master.
Eager to grant my request, he invited me to hit the floor and proceeded to apply weight with much more authority. It was definitely more difficult to move through the stretches, but the effect was much more profound.
My back felt even better!
A year later, I was a Certified Rossiter Coach, and through continued advanced work on my legs, I experienced the ultimate back pain relief that continues to the writing of this article.
All Rossiter work (for my situation) was done on the inside of my thighs (adductors). The work was done in less than thirty minutes, and my reward was a back that felt like it did when I was in the prime of my dance career.
When people meet me and find out that I’m a manual therapist with a reputation for getting people out of pain very quickly, they want to know what it is I do and how do I do it. To keep it simple, I tell them that my work is nothing more than power stretching and that they should visit my website (DontFearTheFoot.com) to get the full picture on how it works.
This is Chuck. He does not fear the foot.
Here’s where the fun starts. They immediately want to know what does fearing a foot has to do with massage, stretching or getting out of pain?
I spent 20 years of my life professionally stretching, for I was a professional Broadway dancer for twenty years. And during my professional career, I probably stretched more in a day than most people stretch in a year (or a lifetime for that matter).
My flexibility served me well throughout my dance years and now, with the addition of mobility and stability training, it continues to be my preferred weapon in maintaining a “relatively” pain-free body. now help others in their quest to getting out of pain.
If you use your feet like your hands to massage, with intention, then your ashiatsu massage will not only be more therapeutic, but you’ll find your session time fly by faster. Getting specific in your barefoot massage and paying attention to details will make your ashiatsu session stand out from others’.
When I worked at a chiropractor’s office years ago, there were 2 other ashiatsu barefoot therapists there. Doc told me once that my barefoot massage was way deeper than the others’ – and it had nothing to do with our strength or size.
How could that be?
According to the AMTA industry fact sheet, it is estimated that there are 325,000 to 375,000 massage therapists and massage school students in the United States.*
So, how do we set ourselves apart and stand out from the sea of LMT’s in the field? It’s becoming more and more crucial to do so, as there are not only more massage therapists but also massage chains and franchises popping up everywhere.
If you’re an independent LMT like myself, it’s impossible to compete with a $39 massage from a franchise. Instead of contending with rock bottom rates, try and differentiate in distinct ways.
In 25 years of massage/bodywork, I’ve worked in several spas, a Physical Therapy clinic, two home offices, and four massage therapy offices including my current location, a commercial condo that I own. SO…. you could say I have a little experience with noise in different scenarios. Or should I say TRYING to reduce the effect of noise?!? I’m going to share some of my successes and not-so-much with soundproofing.
Over the years I’ve worked on several projects to help with reducing noise in the massage studio. I love decorating in my spare time, and I’m always looking to create a beautiful and functional space where the massage client’s comfort and experience is at the forefront.
A calm space that clients can appreciate when they walk in the door, encourages them to take a deep breath, RELAX and to focus on their bodywork goals without distractions.
No one wants to hear what’s going on in the treatment room next to them, the UPS man delivering a package, front door slamming or the office phone ringing.
When I purchased my commercial condo three years ago I had the opportunity (a difference of opinion between my husband and me 😉 ) to start from scratch within the four walls of the condo.
I tore down all the “beautiful” temporary office walls, pulled up old carpet, several layers of linoleum and designed my massage studio from the concrete floor, walls to the ceiling. I’m going to share a few material options I lucked out on choosing and some I wish I had known while I was in the planning stage. I’m starting off with the basics~ flooring, walls, and ceilings.
Installing cork flooring to help with soundproofing
While the flooring was actually the last thing to get installed in the building process it was the first and easiest choice that I had to make. As a massage therapist, I discovered that standing just a few hours on concrete floors with basic carpet was torturous on the feet.
Even with decent padding underneath, it wasn’t the best. And I hate carpet anyway. It’s difficult to keep clean, and the dust and crap it collects are awful for sinus sufferers. But it’s an excellent insulator(concrete floors are COLD) and sound absorber. So what do you do?
I chose cork floors! Cork is a very good insulator(temperature and sound), it’s ideal for standing on and easy to clean! They have been awesome to work on and they still look awesome.
Walls:
Drywall was a given, but I had the choice between wood studs (which were my outer walls) or metal studs. My building is over 30 years old, and there was a history of water damage from the building being empty for a few years. So I chose metal studs and the fact that my brother-in-law was the installer and recommended it for ease of installation.
Using metal studs in massage build out
What I didn’t know then and found out later when doing some more sound proofing research on was that “A steel-stud wall with insulation alone performs about the same as a wood-framed wall with insulation and resilient channel.” A plus for me… On the walls that got insulation… ugh! The budget got blown to smithereens when the city’s code got involved.
A $20,000 bill from the plumbing contractor forced me to pick and choose which inside walls I could insulate. Inside walls weren’t required for code, but the attic/ceiling WAS. So it came down to only putting insulation between kitchen/laundry room, the adjacent massage room and between my treatment room and the Ashiatsu training studio.
Of course, this would come back to bite me in the butt later. There’s a ton of info out there on the internet but here’s an article I found helpful on insulating walls – How to Soundproof a Room. It also has some great tips on caulking outlets that I did NOT do. Sometimes budget and time make the choices for you, and you just have to deal with it.
There is one issue with the metal studs that I didn’t realize until a year or so. They don’t seem to be as strong as wood studs. They seem to flex and creak just a little bit. In Ashiatsu massage there is a seated portion where the therapist sits on a stool with their back against the wall using their feet to massage the client’s upper back and shoulders.
I can hear the walls creak while the therapist in the next room is working against the wall and I think it has to do with the gauge of the studs. I’m not sure what gauge mine is but if I could have done it differently, I would have researched it more and gone with the heavier gauge. But it’s not a safety issue so it’s not a big deal.
My original ceiling was acoustic tiles. They were utterly destroyed. Did I mention this was a fixer-upper?!? Acoustic tiles are great sound insulators and generally cheaper to install than drywall. But since my family was helping me, I was able to get drywall ceilings for about the same price as acoustic tiles, and this was my preference as all my therapy rooms would have Ashiatsu bars in the ceiling. So this was one choice that I chose to NOT go with the best sound insulator because the bar installation had a higher priority. In a later blog, I’ll show you how I used soundboards on the ceiling and walls to help with sound absorption.
Custom built ashiatsu bars and a drywall ceiling
Remember the walls that I didn’t insulate? After a few months in the space, it was evident which walls had been insulated and which had not. So I came back a year later and tried to fix the problem without taking down the original drywall and insulating the walls. A few sources recommended I just add another layer of drywall.
Well, I did one treatment room. Several hundred $ later, paying a drywall person to put up another layer and repainting the wall… I barely could tell the difference. The more articles I read, the more confused and frustrated I got. Disgusted and frustrated I began looking at other options. Instead of tearing down the other walls I started focusing on controlling the sound within the rooms themselves.
In the next blog post, I’ll show you how I did that with rugs, fabric, soundboards, and other ideas. I’m not a soundproofing expert by any means, but I have tackled a TON of different projects. Some with a little $ and time investment and some more than I wanted to pay. And I’ve had success and failures with both.
Our guest post blog has been written by our Durham, NC instructor, Julie Marciniak. Julie’s a certified Rolfer with a husband who works full time in the NC National Guard, a son serving in the Army, and a daughter in high school.
Oh, and there are 2 adorable Daschunds, too. In her off time, she enjoys cooking, reading, gardening, decorating and creating beautiful and functional spaces.
