We structured our FasciAshi classes to incorporate a Mindfulness practice – so I’d like to challenge you to bring an element of mindfulness and attention to your massage practice this week.
Do you have a “Signature” stroke? That one stroke that, for some reason, you feel that you absolutely MUST find a way to sneak into every single session because you love it so much? I think we all have one. This week’s #AshiatsuChallenge is to help you find WHY you are doing what you are doing.
Barefoot Massage Therapists need a good amount of strength and flexibility in their hips – which is where mobility exercises that help to create a balance between the two concepts come into play. This week, it’s time to work on those hips! Resistance bands are a great way to strengthen muscles without causing too much stress, so grab your band and get started.
Here we are: 2 weeks into the second annual Barefoot Massage Open, a weekly massage challenge for ashiatsu therapists – this Friday we’ll step into WEEK 3! But lets not get ahead of ourselves…. lets focus on the now! Today is Tuesday, which means it’s #2sdayTOESday & also massage day in our #AshiatsuChallenge…
This year, for our SECOND ANNUAL ASHI-CHALLENGE (which coincides with the CrossFit Open) we bring you the BAREFOOT MASSAGE OPEN 2.0: with 2x the content!!!
On Fridays, our New York Instructor Dawn Dotson will be posting mobility/stability exercises and activities for your body…. And on Tuesdays, Jeni will post challenges to do while you massage!!!
Having knee pain? Need some mobility tips?
Here ya go! This week we focused on strengthening & mobilizing the knee ?
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•To start off, grab your lacrosse ball and place it behind the knee. •Grab your shin and PULL. •Point those toes straight up and create as much tension as possible.
Hold for a few seconds and release.
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• Attach a resistance band to a stable object and place behind the knee. • Keep your opposite leg straight.
• Fully extend the knee and use your quads to squeeze the lockout harder.
• Drive your knee out and don’t cave in.
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• With legs out straight, sit as tall as possible and point your toes towards you. • Keeping your quads together, turn them outward and continue tension in the legs.
• Try to lift your legs straight up without losing tension and keeping quads turned out.
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• Find a box or bench and slowly lower yourself keeping tension and control. • Reach your arms out for balance and look straight ahead .
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This year, for our SECOND ANNUAL #ASHICHALLENGE (which coincides with the CrossFit Open) we bring you the BAREFOOT MASSAGE OPEN 2.0: with 2x the content!!!
On Fridays, our New York Instructor Dawn Dotson will be posting mobility/stability exercises and activities for your body…. And on Tuesdays, Jeni Spring will post an #AshiatsuChallenge for you to do while you massage!!!
Do YOU have a great massage music playlist? Please share your link in the comments below! This is always such a frequently asked question with massage therapists, it’s sure to be helpful to another LMT!
This year, for our SECOND ANNUAL ASHI-CHALLENGE (which coincides with the CrossFit Open) we bring you the BAREFOOT MASSAGE OPEN 2.0: with 2x the content!!!
On Fridays, our New York Instructor Dawn Dotson will be posting mobility/stability exercises and activities for your body…. And on Tuesdays, Jeni will post challenges to do while you massage!!!
For those of you who know me – you know that I love the ashiatsu portable bars. I was originally trained in ashiatsu on a very old style of the portables, (that were new at the time) and they feel like home to me. Although I honestly couldn’t afford them back then, I put my first set on a credit card and made sure I got my money’s worth out of them ASAP. Ever since, I’ve used them regularly at local Farmers’ Markets, sporting/yoga events and massage conventions. I’ve taught on portable bars across the country and in Germany. I used ashiatsu portable bars daily for 6 months at one point because I wasn’t sure I wanted to stay in that location long enough to justify building permanent bars.
I just spent 3 solid days working on a set of portable bars that I own. Now that *anyone* can go buy a set of portables, I wanted to fill you in on all the things I don’t think anyone will actually tell you about them. HERE WE GO!
At the Center for Barefoot Massage, all of our manuals are designed with space for notes. Note-taking moves you from a passive to an active learner and allows you to better absorb and retain the information you’ll be processing during class.
1. HOW IT WORKS:First off, note-taking requires effort so it feels like something we just don’t want to do, but the very act of taking the notes helps to form new pathways in your brain which increases the likely hood it will be stored in your long-term memory.
Notes taken via words or pictures or even better, both, will be super beneficial for your long term memory of the material as well as giving you something in your own words to look back on after class.
Don’t be tempted to shorthand your notes or get lazy with them. It’s better for your retention if you write as much as possible. Take it all in and write it all down. You never know what little tid-bit will stir your memory when you get back to your office ready to practice.
Note taking is a skill and I know you are pressed for time, so I will leave you with a video to check out, as well as a link to a frequently used system called Cornell Notes . I’ve also added a video that explains a technique called sketchnoting that includes adding images to your notes. Which brings us to our 4th and final tip:
Adding images to your words helps to increase your retention.
See you in class!
Today’s guest post is brought to us by a past instructor on our team.
When massage therapists are first learning ashiatsu barefoot massage, it can be like starting massage school all over again. It’s especially humbling for therapists that have been doing massage with their hands for many years.
But the same learning concepts for learning traditional massage in massage school can be applied when first learning to massage with your feet.
It may feel strange at first but for the sake of proper body mechanics and improving your barefoot skills you have to learn to look up more. When you are first learning, once you get the stroke and go through the movements a couple of times, try closing your eyes or looking up as you massage with your feet. This will help develop the sensory pathways to the brain by taking the visual interpretation out and heightening the sensory awareness of the feet.
The brain can’t rely on what it SEES; it has to rely on what it FEELS. This concept is evident when training students to learn barefoot massage for the first time, and clients give feedback in our LIVE classes. It never fails that the client thinks a stroke feels better when the student isn’t directly looking at their feet. Of course, there’s always going be times when you need to look and make sure you’re in the right spot or avoiding areas that you need to avoid, but that’s where the next point comes into play.
There are familiar landmarks and bony prominences that are easy to find and we, as massage therapists, frequently use to orient ourselves to where we are and the muscle attachments.
Some examples may be the sacrum, the trochanter, the iliac crest, and the scapula — many of these landmarks we use to begin and end strokes. Being able to palpate and orientate yourself with your feet USING these landmarks will go a long way in developing your barefoot skills and allow you to utilize appropriate body mechanics like looking up more.
When first learning barefoot massage you have to slow down. While your feet have the CAPACITY to feel and palpate knots and tightness they usually aren’t sensitive enough to do it in the beginning.
You want to be able to feel the different textures and muscle layers so you can gauge the appropriate pressure and strokes to use. The neural pathways from your feet to your brain have to develop. It’s a process that comes with time, and there’s a natural progression of adaptability and sensory input from your feet.
It never fails for a student to say in class, “Wow, you make that look so easy!” Or, “You’re so graceful!” Well, I’ve only been practicing it for 18 years. That’s eight years longer than with my hands! So with practice, it will come. You have to be consistent.
If we made it look hard, why would you want to learn it?
Barefoot massage isn’t always about finding the perfect kind of “body” to work with. There will be clients who have contraindications that may not allow for the use of your feet, but that doesn’t mean you can use them somewhere else. 99% of my client base receives some form of barefoot bodywork.
For that 1%, I may still do barefoot bodywork, but I restrict it to the appropriate areas. So every day that I’m working with clients, I’m using my feet. By using my SOLES every day, they are JUST as sensitive as my hands.
When your clients start saying, “Wow I didn’t even have to tell you what was going on today and you figured it out!”, That’s a huge accomplishment and a high five moment for barefoot massage. Our soles are just as capable of providing safe, therapeutic and EFFECTIVE pain relief to our clients as our hands. We only have to put in the time and effort to develop them.
Today’s guest post is brought to us by our fantastic Durham, NC instructor, Julie.
You can find her Rolfing with her feet, teaching at and running her multi-therapist barefoot biz, Bull City Soles.
In Part 1 of Antibiotics, Viruses, and Barefoot Massage, I talked about 4 types of common viruses and when how long you should avoid contact with your massage clients who have these viruses. Today, it’s all about antibiotics.
Both viruses and bacteria can be spread by inhalation of microorganisms or spores via close personal contact, via sneezing, coughing, or even laughing.
Remember that antibiotics don’t work for viruses, but they’re instead used to fight the bacteria harmful to human health. We’ll go over bad bacteria types, different antibiotics, what they’re used for, and how this affects your barefoot massage.
While antibiotics may be taken preventively (say, prior to oral surgery), for the sake of this blog we’ll assume that your massage client is taking antibiotics to fight a systemic infection.
