Once you’ve learned barefoot massage and have practiced, sometimes the biggest challenge is how the heck you get your clients to try it. Let’s talk about the transition to ashiatsu barefoot massage.

The question recently came up in our FB alumni group, so we thought this might be a question that others have as well.

First off, you must practice and accept feedback from non-paying clients about your newfound barefoot skills. Why non-paying? Because if you are fantastic at hands-on massage but only mediocre, at best, from having recently learned ashiatsu, your clients will not love your new skills.

They’ll say, “Thanks, but I’ll stick with what I know and love” or some similar jargon that will deflate you and make you wonder what you’re doing wrong.

Here’s what you’re doing wrong (aren’t we helpful?): you need to be realllllyyyy good before you transition your clients to barefoot massage.

Your paying clients are not there to be your practice dummy-they are there to receive your skilled massage. So practice on people who can’t afford you normally and will give you feedback or on people who are amazing natural marketers (like your hairstylist or your neighbor who’s like Mrs. Kravitz from Bewitched.)

Read this if you want more info on that.

Back to the subject at hand. We are going to assume that you’ve practiced and are good enough that more than just your mom and Cousin Eddy will pay you.

Here’s how I did it:

I made the determination that I would stop doing deep tissue with my hands.

It’s one thing to think that you’ll do it, but another entirely to say with absolute certainty to a client that you cannot do deep tissue with your hands.

If you’re still killing yourself doing hands-on massage, let that sink in for a moment.

You must be willing to lose clients over it.

Yeah, that stinks, I know.

Here’s how my first marketing approach worked when I decided that I was DONE with deep hands-on massage:

Client (6’6″, 270): What are those bars on the ceiling for?

Me: Ooh, they’re for barefoot massage. The surface of the foot is so much softer and broader than pointy thumbs and elbows, so barefoot massage feels much better for the client. And it’s deeper than hands-on massage too. Want to try it?

Client (looking at me like I’m an alien suggesting a rectal probe): Umm, no thanks. Let’s do hands-on.

Me (sighing and thinking I obviously needed to work with my spiel): OK, I’ll check in with you to see how you’re doing.

10 minutes later, once my left pisiform and right elbow started making themselves known…

Me: How’s the pressure?

Client: Oh, you can go way deeper.

Me: Not with my hands, I can’t. But I can with my feet.

Client, clearly weighing his options: Oh, ok. You can try that barefoot thing.

That feeling of empowerment that swept over me that day was unreal. Because almost all of us have worked to our detriment and one time or another (or until we give up the dream and go back to our pre-massage job).

So that determination to want to do barefoot massage is of utmost importance.

When I still offered hands-on massage (but wouldn’t go deep), I’d get a lot of big guys who thought they’d be fine with a “medium pressure” massage.

Working to give a 5’10”, 210 man (never mind the big ones!) what he felt was medium pressure would be actually me still doing deep work. It just woudn’t feel deep to him.

With that in mind, I’d actually tell them they wouldn’t like my hands-on massage because it wouldn’t be deep enough.

“However,” I’d continue, “if you’re willing to try barefoot massage and you don’t like it, I’ll be happy to hop off the table at any time-no hurt feelings.”

I’ve been doing ashiatsu barefoot treatments since 2002-not one person in all that time ever asked me to stop doing barefoot massage and continue with my hands.

So why was I still doing hands-on massage at all?

1. Having had 8 babies, I had a massive love affair with receiving prenatal massage. That was the first class I took out of massage school, and I still offer that (although rarely work on pregnant woman) becuase I know how much better it feels after having gotten a pregnancy massage.
2. At the time, I was still doing a lot of detail work in the neck with my hands. I thought people who needed neck / TMJ work could still benefit from my hands-on massage.  I currently do neck work primarily with my feet.
3. Frankly, I was a little bit scared. Ohio is not exactly the hippest city on the planet, and barefoot massage was still off the beaten path. I was worried I wouldn’t have any clients if I didn’t offer any hands-on at all.
4. My hands and wrists still worked fine. Or so I thought.

Transitioning your deep tissue clients into barefoot massage is really not terribly difficult.

↬ You must be good at it.
↬ They must be healthy enough and big enough to receive it.
↬ You must be confident in your skills.
↬ You must LOVE doing it. We can easily market what we love.
↬ You must be willing to turn down clients so you don’t break yourself.

Here’s another blog post we wrote on the subject.

Success story continued…not only did that 1st “I-am-NOT-doing-hands-on-deep-tissue-massage” client LOVE ashiatsu, he convinced his wife to come in to get a massage. She had been thinking of going to massage school.

After graduation, she came and took a class from me.

A few years later, her husband came in to me with his head hung down like a dog who knows he shouldn’t have eated your new heels.

He confessed, “I cheated on you.”

Me, internally laughing but in mock horror: “What. Did. You. Do???”

It came spilling out in a rush. “I thought I was missing something by not getting hands-on massage, but I knew you wouldn’t do it, so I went to see another therapist.”

“And was it worth it?” I chided him.

“Nooooo,” he wailed. “I’m sorry. It’ll never happen again.”

😉

Barefoot therapists: we’d love to hear your story! Comment below on how you transitioned your clients.

Or even let us know what you’re perceived issues are with getting those healthy people to try fasciashi barefoot massage.