When we say that we are “anatomy based”, it’s not JUST that classes from the Center for Barefoot Massage will focus on your palpation skills, or that each stroke we teach has an intention aimed to achieve specific structural goals: it’s also because our instructors focus on making Barefoot Massage work for YOUR anatomy, so that you can specialize based on YOUR strengths.

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”

The Center for Barefoot Massage opened in February 2017, but the technique was in creation long before that. While teaching for the original westernized Ashiatsu Barefoot Massage continuing education company, our founders, Jeni Spring and Mary-Claire Fredette, saw that 22 years of the same routine of strokes wasn’t doing any of us any favors.

Mary-Claire saw it in herself: although teaching a routine for such a stylized technique does really help create consistency in the massage approach, allowing clients the ability to know what to expect when they got that type of massage anywhere across the nation – the predictability was causing mental burnout.

Jeni had been seeing it already for years in her team of Barefoot Massage Therapists that worked with her at the nation’s first “all Barefoot” specialty clinic, Heeling Sole… The same stroke didn’t work for all the folks underfoot and caused repetitive strain injury on the LMTs when they tried to do that routine of strokes all day, every day.

The thing most people don’t know is, that original westernized ashiatsu barefoot massage was not primarily intended for LMT’s to use 100% of the time: it was meant at first to just “plug-in” to your appointments for use on some clients, or to use just some of the technique, (like maybe the low back and hip work,) during a traditional massage when it was too difficult to do with hands. Heck, even the Anterior/Sidelying class for the original Ashiatsu company didn’t come out until about 8 years after the technique was launched. That kinda shows you how the original work was intended to be blended with hands-on techniques – which is great, and many of us do that anyway to best address our clients’ “kneads”… but if you want to go all-in, all Barefoot, if you wanted to geek out with your feet out, then something had to change.

When Jeni retired her hands-on massage modalities and niched down into Barefoot Massage work, even more-so when she started to bring Massage Therapists on staff – more and more they started to complain of injury, or notice discomfort, strain, and too much effort happening in the movements. Her staff of LMT’s were made up of people with all different body types, each with their own mobility/flexibility/strength variables, and the clients scheduling appointments with them had their own unique quirks to cater to – it was getting very frustrating to stay in a box at the expense of our own bodies just to properly represent the lineage of the massage technique.

Plus, in our collective years of experience providing & teaching barefoot massage, we found that as practitioners perform routines, they limit the creative & critical thinking processes within sessions & seem to prevent intuitive, centered, “in the moment”  sessions.

We realized that the technique hadn’t been allowed to evolve enough to support where the experienced practitioners wanted to take it. The hive-mind and the collective consciousness of other “old-school” Barefoot Massage therapists noticed it, too. We were realizing that doing the same massage strokes, the same routine, insisting every LMT look the same throughout the entirety of the movements, and expecting that trick to work for every session provided was like the quote above says, insanity. It wasn’t working for the long term. The clients were receiving nice, relaxing, deep massages, but we were getting bored, hurt, and losing inspiration… and clients who wanted more detail weren’t finding that in their Ashiatsu sessions.

Consistency is good, variability is better.

So when we started the Center for Barefoot Massage, we did so to help break the previously defined rules, so that creativity, critical thinking, and an awareness of personal strengths had their place within the technique. We wanted to empower Massage Therapists to think on their toes in every session. We want barefoot massage therapists to sequence a truly customized, informed session for each client, challenging their minds and “feeturing” their own professional interests and skills within their footwork. The anatomy based strokes and techniques we now teach in class are based on y-e-a-r-s of research and experience seeing and feeling what the act of Barefoot Massage does to a variety of bodies – both the giver and receiver – in each session.

The original presentation of Westernized Ashiatsu Barefoot Massage was based on how well it worked for one person and her specific strengths. The next wave of this idea that we are teaching is an evolving culmination of what is actually working well underfoot “out there” for all of us. FasciAshi techniques are based on a nations-worth of client feedback, rooted in long careers worth of experience from our Founders, our Instructors, and the teams of Barefoot Massage Therapists they mentor, teach and supervise.

When we say we offer anatomy based training, part of this idea includes how we are challenging our alumni to refine their palpation skills & recognition of anatomical structures. We want them to consider theory into the application of their strokes, to understand why each stroke is effective… So the idea is that FasciAshi-trained therapists are empowered & confident in the strengths of their own anatomy that they can choose which aspect of their foot to use, what angle to approach it at, & where to apply the most appropriate technique for the tissue-issue at “foot”.

Our instructors are maintaining active practices with their own clients: we are in the trenches right alongside our staff and students. We continue to use, (not just teach) this technique so that the future of barefoot massage can continue to stay curious, learn, grow and succeed.

The body-saving, anatomy based techniques we teach here at the Center for Barefoot Massage, like Myofascial Ashiatsu and Fijian Barefoot Massage, really can help extend and even revive Massage Therapists’ careers, preventing burn-out and repetitive strain injury. If you are an old-school Ashiatsu Therapist who’s been around the block, come try our training, and see if our take on the body mechanics and theory behind the strokes can help you refine your work, fall in love with barefoot massage all over again, and walk away with less pain.

We can help get you started on the right (or left) foot, just sign up for one of our classes here!