Category Archives: Why FasciAshi?

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FASCIAnate your Ashiatsu Barefoot Massage: Part 2

How can existing Ashiatsu therapists learn FasciAshi?

If you are a Myofascial Ashiatsu Barefoot Massage therapist, the Center for Barefoot Massage wants you and your Ashiatsu skill level to continue to grow.  We want you to continually be self-aware and conscious of how you are applying barefoot massage daily. We want you to question and expand your approach, but check back into the foundations of its body mechanics and intentions. We want you to grow to understand the aspects of the work that you didn’t quite “get” during class – and we want you to continually discover new aspects of the material that you never noticed before. We have FOUR ways for you to support your advancement in this style of massage, and blend the new strokes in with the old, to dive deeper into the material we present, to know it inside and out. These retraining opportunities allow you to revisit your Ashiatsu technique and biomechanics, while infusing it with FasciAshi’s innovative myofascial approaches to how you apply pressure through your feet.

Today we’ll discuss the REVITALIZE classes and what they entail – in the following weeks we’ll cover all options to step up your Ashiatsu game!

If you want to be a Jedi Master at Ashiatsu, training and retraining is key.

ashiatsu-refresher-classes

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Tuesday Toesday – using a meditation pillow

Having an electric massage table solves a lot of problems for barefoot massage therapists, one of which is the ability to use only one stool instead of two. You simply raise or lower the table according to your needs. When using a portable massage table, ashiatsu therapists typically need 2 stools–that is, until now, for we’ve got a meditation pillow to the rescue.

Typically when an Ashiatsu therapists does work while the client is on the table and she’s seated, she will need a taller stool. Proper alignment calls for the therapist’s hips to be about the level of the client’s back when she’s doing seated work.

However, we don’t recommend standing on the tall stool because the higher you go, the more unstable your stool will be. Plus, you end up with crummy body mechanics-you’ll end up hurting yourself or tipping the stool forward onto the client’s head. I’ve been on the receiving end of that and definitely don’t recommend that.

Having an electric table resolves the need for a taller stool because you just raise and lower your table as needed. Doing seated work, lower your table. Standing? Raise it. Jeni’s got a quick video explanation of how she does it using a bamboo stick.

The problems with having to switch out stools in the middle of your session are:

  • you have to pick up or slide the stool out of the way and then
  • pick up / slide the other stool into place

The difficulty lies in that the client’s head is only a couple of inches from your stool. If you’re not extremely careful, you’ll either hit the wall with one of the stools, which makes a big “clunk” or you’ll hit the face cradle.

Add into the time involved in switching out your stools, and the client may wonder what’s going on.

Using a meditation bolster completely resolves this issue. Now, the ashiatsu therapist can just use the short stool. When she needs to be higher, she quickly and quietly can simply place the bolster onto the short stool.

I’ve tried a couple of different kinds-one was filled with flax seed (or maybe buckwheat hull) and is squishy. It made a lot of noise when I sat on it, and it wasn’t terribly stable.

The kind that I’m using now are filled with cotton, are 6″ thick and are super stable and quiet.

An added bonus is that my SITS bones aren’t sore from sitting on a hard surface.

I tell you where I got this bolster in the video. They have lots of different colors. I simply chose paisley because I figured it would help disguise any random ashiatsu cream or oil drips. Students tend to be a little messy sometimes. 😉

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FASCIAnate your Ashiatsu Massage

How can existing Ashiatsu therapists learn FasciAshi?

If you are a massage therapist who already has formal Ashiatsu training, the Center for Barefoot Massage wants you and your Ashiatsu skill level to continue to grow.  We have FOUR ways for you to support your advancement in this style of massage, and blend the new strokes in with the old. These retraining opportunities allow you to revisit your Ashiatsu technique and body mechanics, while infusing it with FasciAshi’s innovative myofascial approaches to how you apply pressure through your feet.

Today we’ll discuss the Converge classes and what they entail – in the following weeks we’ll cover all options to step up your Ashiatsu game!

Advancing-Ashiatsu-with-FasciAshi

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Tuesday Toesday–fix your stool tip

Just when you think that you’ve got a grip on your ashiatsu barefoot massage session, your body tilts just a teensy bit the wrong way, and CLUNK! Your stool at the head of the table slams into the wall. Today we’ll show you how to eliminate that issue so your client’s not terrified you’re about to fall on his head, and you feel a little more stable.

Problem:  caused by your baseboard that juts out from the wall, and the top of your stool often comes several inches from the wall itself. When you’re not quite centered on your stool as your using your other foot to massage, the stool tilts backwards.

Solution: costs under $1 and takes less than one minute.

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Bolstering for Ashiatsu

To give your client a safe, comfortable and effective barefoot massage, it’s important to support them with specific bolstering for Ashiatsu where needed. We do this in many unique ways, from how we use a flat pillow for ankle and knee support while prone or supine, to what tools we use to position their body to best absorb and distribute gravitational forces and our weight.

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Bolster #1: The Boob Pillow.

The purpose of a breast support pillow, when it comes to Ashiatsu, is to position “the girls” while supporting the sternum, clavicle, ribs and cervical spine when under pressure. Keep in mind that the table below the client is resisting your weight, and pushes back into the client’s body.

This “Oreo” of pressure coming from above and below your female client’s torso can translate into suffocating force in the chest, or a position of their head and neck that adds compression to the throat.  Having a cushion helps your client maintain thoracic, cervical and shoulder alignment so that she may comfortably absorb the pressure applied by your feet. Keep in mind that the breast recesses built into massage tables don’t always work well with Ashiatsu because the table is still there to push back on the throat – so give the girls some lift, and put an added level of padding underneath!

 

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What is Ashiatsu Massage?

Ashiatsu Barefoot Massage is a massage. That’s it, honestly. A licensed massage therapist will provide a professional, well educated massage service catered to a clients needs, and they just so happen to use their feet as the tools that deliver the technique, rather than hands. Why should a person try Ashiatsu?

Why_Ashiatsu

You can talk about it’s depth and consistency of pressure. You can go on and on about how you use 1 foot at a time unless the client happens to weigh more than pounds than you… you can talk about your overhead bars or your super sturdy massage table… you can explain your soft, smooth, clean feet…  you can mention how it saves your own body…. FOR REAL THOUGH!?

Do you go into that much detail when you explain a deep tissue massage that’s delivered from your upper limbs?! Not usually. Although ALL of this information is imperative to explain at some point during your client education, sometimes you are limited on time, so get to the point. Let them ask those questions instead, and you can come back to these key points while keeping them engaged in conversation.

 

How do YOU introduce this specialized technique to your clients or your surrounding community? Do you have a rehearsed elevator speech that explains the key benefits a person may experience when receiving an Ashiatsu massage from you? Sometimes an on-the-fly elevator speech seems intimidating, but it can be really fun and inspiring when you speak from your experience!

Instead of memorizing a script and repeating it back like a robot, aim to embody your own walking/talking advertisement so that when you need to, the words will roll off your tongue and fit the situation. Here are some tips to explain your work intuitively and fluently:

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Ashiatsu Strap: it’s got your back!

Tuesday TOESday for Ashiatsu Massage Therapists … here’s a new tip to make your Ashi more Awesome. (If you have questions about the support strap we use in our myofascial ashiatsu sessions, READ THIS LINK FIRST!)

fasciashi-ashiatsu-strap

fasciashi-ashiatsu-strap

Massage Therapists from across the country are asking me about my Ashiatsu straps and how to use them. These extra supports are something I’ve had in my practice since my first year practicing Ashiatsu back in 2003, and since then I’ve been influenced by Aerial Yoga, Slacklining, Chavutti Thai and my own pure laziness and love of hammocks to better utilize the assistance it offers.

When I broke my wrist in 2011 and still needed to teach Ashiatsu workshops in San Antonio, and provide the deep stretches from Ashi-Thai services to my clients while I was in a cast – my strap kept me working, kept me balanced, and offered the leverage I was missing from my hand that was stuck in a sling, so the straps helped me provide 1 handed, 2 footed massages!

Having a strap with your bars is a great tool to help you hoist yourself up onto your table anywhere in one easy step, rather than just at the head or foot ends of the table. It will help you to save your hands even further, by not needing to death grip the bars anytime you need to lean out.

A strap helps you avoid the temptation to hang like a monkey (which honestly causes you to drop out any potential pressure – so by hanging you are only working harder to go deep.) The creative angles that your strap will support you into really helps to give you smooth leverage during the FasciAshi strokes we’ll teach you in our courses. You can lean back into the strap at varying angles, and it’ll have your back like a hammock. You can use it like puppet strings to move your client around. You can even lay on it like a hammock!!! This tool is a staple to this new generation of Ashiatsu, and is just as necessary as the overhead bars.

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Training: Barefoot Ashiatsu Classes – In Person – Not online

We believe that barefoot ashiatsu classes require direct personal instruction with a live, qualified, caring instructor.  Not a cold – one size fits all approach to learning found in an online course or dvd.

Some companies are offering barefoot ashiatsu massage training via online classes or online streaming.  How foolish.  Some things are not to be removed from that personal person to person experience.  Barefoot massage training is one of them.

In this video Simon Sinek, known the world over as having codified certain aspects of the business to person relationship,  illustrates why some things will always be better when done live – in person – in the same room – touchable.  Not some vague, cold approach to learning a skill which requires human touch as the final product.

I would suggest, for those that don’t wish to watch the entire video (I would strongly recommend doing so however) to go to one of the many main points. (timestamp 9:38 to 11:00 –  great example of how the person to person relationship is unavoidably the best way to truly connect)

Our Barefoot classes will never be based online for the sake of safety and because we wish to have a personal connection with our attending therapists that will last beyond the training.

Join us for exceptional learning that you can bring back to your practice.  After all, you don’t give your clients online massages – do you?

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Everything is connected – but unplug for your Ashiatsu training.

Why did we break free and create FasciAshi classes? Our first wave of instructors have been team members for quite a while. The dedication to our craft and passion for the work, along with the intricate skills that our faculty possesses for teaching quality Ashiatsu is strong. We’ve wanted room for growth for years, but we were in a space that wasn’t expanding in ways that we felt supported the integrity and core principals of touch-based massage therapy education. Mainly: focus on high quality live, in person training, for the betterment of massage therapists careers.

Why did we Break Free?

Sometimes you have to separate yourself to produce what is needed

We honor the original barefoot massage innovators and would never ever copy-cat their material. We literally stand on the shoulders of greatness to bring you the new generation and the future of barefoot massage.  There has been a need for new ashiatsu material for a while. We’ve been eagerly awaiting the day when we would be valued and supported enough to be encouraged to share our innovative discoveries in the art of our favorite massage modality. The time was overdue for us to release this plethora of knowledge from our varied approaches and backgrounds – so in February 2017, FasciAshi and the Center for Barefoot Massage were born!

The years of experience that our company’s creative forces and instructor team at the Center for Barefoot Massage have under their feet validate the direction, focus and carefully cultivated content that this new company presents and promotes. We support the growing barefoot massage field as a whole and support massage therapists who work through their feet, whether they happen to use overhead support like us, underhand support, or practice on a massage table or on a floor mat. It’s not a competition, it’s education, and we’re here to raise your expectations on how barefoot massage is presented, practiced and performed. Read more about our point of view on the value of live training for massage therapists below.

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The Devil’s In The Details

I’m sure you’ve already noticed by now, but have you seen how the words “Fascia” and “Ashi” (short for Myofascial Ashiatsu) meet in the middle to create FasciAshi?! That’s the whole idea behind our work: making Ashiatsu training more applicable to the massage you are already doing – because we know you are all FASCIA-nated with not just muscles, but connective tissue and how you can impact that in your massages.

Some Companies Refuse To Change

We want to help support professional growth and talent in our alumni base. There is a collective consciousness “out there” that is wanting to specialize in barefoot massage. We are leading a movement that will offer massage therapists to opportunity to learn many styles of original barefoot massage, and learn details specifically within Ashiatsu Barefoot Massage, so that they can retire their hands, or at least use their feet as accurately as they do their hands.

We don’t want you to have to memorize a routine, only to break it apart years later to figure out how to effectively apply the material to your specific client base. That ability to see outside the box and read through the lines comes naturally for some, but not all. Our training gets you to the point NOW, and saves you years of figuring out what generations of Barefoot Massage Therapists before you have trudged through the mud over time to research and discover on their own. FasciAshi (Myofascial Ashiatsu Barefoot Massage) brings you to the point of catering and customizing your myofascial ashiatsu sessions to knead the needs of your clients in that moment. We teach trouble shooting, critical thinking, and theories involved with each protocol, stroke and application to help you work more intuitively with confidence.