Category Archives: Tuesday Toesday

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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?

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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!)

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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.