Massage and Bodywork

[Travis_McHugh]

If everything works out, in January, I will be enrolling in an intensive instructional program for Massage Therapy. I know that there are some Massage and Bodywork professionals in the Tribe and was hoping I could get suggestions on research materials and/or "words of wisdom".

Thank you,

Travis McHugh

[Arluk]

In my massage training these books helped and continue to help me a great deal:

The Body of Life by Thomas Hanna. A philosophical look at the human form, in my opinion incredible.

Jobe's Body by Dean Juhan. A physiology book written from a bodyworkers perspective, the chapters about the connective tissues are amazing.

Trail Guide to the Body by Andrew Biel. A good guide to musculoskeletal system and areas of caution for bodyworkers.

Anatomy Trains by Thomas W. Myers, Leon Chaitow and Deane Juhan.

The art of Alex Gray, especially if you are into the energetic theories and aspects of the human form. Transfigurations and Sacred Mirrors are the books of his I'd recomend.


I think that the most difficult thing about learning to work on another human's body is getting over the anxiety about wheather you are doing it the right way. Confidence in your hands is imperitive, the mastery is already there just get out your own way and let your clients body communicate its needs to your hands, it will become instinctual. Focus on how you interact with the body, the subtleties of palpation are critical to any technique you learn. Concentrate on awareness of the connective tissues rate of plasticity, don't push beyond its subtle limitations until you know how to sculpt it the right way. The body knows best, it does not often need your directions just your presence and your patience, it will move the way it needs to if you apply yourself to its rate of release. A gentle touch can probe to the deepest levels of muscle and connective tissues without engaging responses that repel your initiatives and your presence.

When I decided I might want to become a bodyworker I asked my therapist to give me a lesson so I could decide if I truely wanted to do this with my time and money. He asked me "do you want to learn to give a massage or to heal?" I told him I want to heal. He taught me some of what I've said above and this technique: Do an abdominal hold on a person, one hand on thier stomach one under them on their lower back. Let your hands sink into the tissues comming to rest at the first layer of resistance you feel (very shallow at first), be present with the person, the space and yourself. You will feel the risistance of the tissues melt away into plasticity and your hands will sink deeper little by little. Feel the shape of the body let it instruct you as to how you should interact with it. The only thing you should be actively trying to do here is become aware of what you are experiencing, becomming more and more present with this person and not forcing yourself on their body. The goal of this exercise is to innitiate a communication between your hands and the person you are working on. After a while a type of repoir is built, your interactions with their body will flow with less and less hitches. It is possible to experience all kinds of strange and "impossible" phenomenon while doing this, sometimes your intuition will tell you where to work on their body, sometimes its more specific... Try this for about a half and hour the first time you work on someone, after that innitial session they will be much easier to work with.

One last thing, though you will be able to call yourself a healer or a worker in the healing arts, you cannot heal anyone but yourself, and neither can your clients. It is our job to hold a space that make healing easier for the people we interact with, to help them find the information and awareness that they need to reshape and heal themselves.

Also don't forget to take care of youself first, make sure your in your best form when working on others, we owe it to them to take care of ourselves. Oh yea and have fun, lots of it, its hard work but well worth it.

I hope I didn't go overboard, and I'm sure you already know a bunch of what I've said, I feel I owe the people who want to know the respect of the knowledge I think is most valuable.

[Dan Chomycia]

Marty,

Thank you for you words of experience, I will take them to heart when working with my friends and family. I will also take note of your book suggestions.

I suspect that there many people like me that aren't perhaps interested in becoming professional Body worker but would like to help there loved ones feel better from time to time.

Do you have any suggestions for these types of people?

[Travis_McHugh]

Marty,

Thank you so much for the resources and the professional guidance.

I really appreciate it!

[Arluk]

Working on my friends, relatives and significant others is an incredible learning experience, that is often very chalenging. When I work on a client there is a certain level of anonymity, knowing my clients on a professional level retains this to a degree. There are even suggested policies on how long after the last session given, a practitioner should wait before persuing even a friendship. To a certain degree I agree with these policy suggestions, but there are always acceptions to the rule. A responsible practitioner has to define their own boundaries in order to keep themselves and their clientele safe and comfortable.

I would recomend taking time to evaluate how you feel about working on people taking into account every person's individual emotions and their emotional effect on you. Ask the people who you work on to do the same for you. Open communication is extremely important in any relationship, a lot of very deep emotions can and do come up, it can lead to very fullfilling and educational experiences, but also very uncomfortable ones. These things are true with clients as well as close relations, but there comes a difference with personal relationships. You have much deeper emotional attachments to your friends and loved ones, and they to you. There are parts of peoples bodies that have not been touched or not in the way you may touch them, when its a client and things get uncomfortable its still a professional interaction. If either one of you is too uncomfortable about your interactions for any reason, the session and the relationship can be ended without to much trouble, unless of course there was questionable conduct. If an uncomfortable situation occurs with your sister, brother, best friend, spouse and so on, it can have much deeper and long lasting effects. I've worked on close friends and experienced very tense situations that took a lot of time and energy to come through with a positive outcome. Overall the experiences have been very educational and have brought me exponentially closer to my relations, but if any tension exists between the two of you (disputes, confussion, sexual interest) the possibility of it comming to light in a way that needs resolution is very real. I don't want to scare anyone away from using healing touch, but there are some very powerfull situations that can come about, and knowing about the possibilities in order to accept and work through them is imperative to healthy interactions.

The problems we help people deal with by touching them are very similar to those that a talk therapist would. The level of intimacy that you enter into is equally up to you and the person you are working on. Its very possible to just give someone a quick rubdown and neither of you will ever even think twice about how it felt to give or recieve that. On the other hand some situations can be very sensitive and require an active and mutual understanding of emotional vulnerability to be successful.

Have a good time working on your loved ones.

[Jay76]

All those books cost a lot of money. What are the main books needed? Thanks

[corey]

Good mornig tribe! I will add my 2 cents here.....

First, Marty has it right on. I could not say it any better.

Jay76, Dont worry about all those books at once. Pick one, read it, learn from it, and move on to another when you feel the time is right for you.

With my own experience, I took several seminars in the first couple of years after massage school looking to improve my skills. I tried to read everything I could, including most of the materials from Marty's list. But I was not ready for it yet. I needed to learn to walk before I could run. I had a lot of knowledge that I could not really understand, let alone apply correctly.

My greatest "breakthru" came when I let go of all of that and let the massage just happen. The knowledge is still there for me when I need it, but There is a balance between intuition, and what the clients body is telling me, combined with everything I have learned. I had to learn to let the massage flow.
Same as with CST, there is a progression that you will go thru as your experience grows. I'm re-reading Jobs Body after six years and have a completely different understanding of the material.
I quess what I'm tring to say is that it will be a journey that will take time. So dont worry to much about doing everything, it will come to you when you are ready.

Corey

[Arluk]

My greatest "breakthru" came when I let go of all of that and let the massage just happen. The knowledge is still there for me when I need it, but There is a balance between intuition, and what the clients body is telling me, combined with everything I have learned. I had to learn to let the massage flow.

Exactly!!!


Definitely go with The Body of Life first, its the cheapest and its very inspiring.

[Travis_McHugh]

I just wanted to say "thanks" again for the information and feedback.

I took my entrance exam this past weekend and scored well above what was needed. I can't wait for my daughter to ask me, "When am I ever going to use algebra?". I can honestly say, "About 20 years after you think you won't use it."

Now, I just have to meet with financial aid on Tuesday. If everything goes well, I should be starting in January.

[JasonE]

Great, Travis!

I've been accepted to a Massage Therapy program too, and would ideally start in January. :) Depending on my work schedule, I may or may not need to push back my start date. :?

Good luck!

BTW - Thanks for the responses to this thread! I've put some of the recommended books on my Christmas list. :wink:

[Arluk]

Congratulations guys,

I wish you both the best of luck on you journeys.

[Travis_McHugh]

It looks like I will have to wait until March to begin my studies. Getting all of the financial aid paperwork, physicals, transcripts, etc. completed in the next two weeks will be next to impossible with the Holidays and work.

[Arluk]

On the bright side even if you do have to wait, it will give you time to get even more ahead of the game. If you have to wait I suggest making use of the time by focusing on being as maleable as possible. The equations of integration are much simpler if they are on as clean a slate as possible.

[JasonE]

Update:

Today I attended Orientation as a new Massage Therapy student at Northwestern Health Sciences University (www.nwhealth.edu)! After much thought about waiting and attending part-time starting in January, I realized that life is too short to keep putting this off. I'm jumping in with both feet as a full time student! :D It's a greater financial risk for me, but I feel it's absolutely what I should be doing.


"Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out."
-- James Bryant Conant

Over the past year I've been priming the mental pump with study of anatomy, physiology and other topics that have also assisted my practice of CST. I'm going in a few running steps ahead of everyone else!

Marty - Thanks for the book recommendations! I'm working on "Body of Life" by Thomas Hanna now. "Anatomy Trains" is next at bat, and "Job's Body" is on deck warming up. Great stuff! "A Trail Guide to the Body" is on my shopping list...

Since I'll be surrounded by current and future health care professionals, I'm planning to start a new student club focusing on "Functional Fitness." It will be an opportunity for me to share RMAX with others while learning about other fitness modalities. One great person I spoke to has her NASM and is also a group fitness trainer and personal trainer. She is already thinking along similar lines, but had never heard of CST until today. Both of us want to combine safe and effective fitness training with Massage Therapy for our clients. I am also hoping that some of the students will get hip to the use of effective body mechanics and ways of training to prevent injury. If this helps others remain active as Massage Therapists, Chiropractors or Doctors of Oriental Medicine long after others drop out due to injury, GREAT!! :) It's going to be FUN!

Due to the classwork, I may not be posting quite as often, or respond quite as rapidly. But never fear - I'll still be around on a regular basis, and I look forward to seeing you folks at future RMAX events, such as CST Theta this November, and at the Tribe Gathering in Baja Sur next April!